How to Address a Bad GPA At Your Job Interview

In the last post, we looked at how (and when) to place your GPA in your resume. In some cases you will want to avoid placing your GPA because it is not up to the standards you expect the company will appreciate. Anything below a 3.0 is troublesome for some of the better jobs, and even a 3.3 (a perfectly respectable GPA) can cause problems at some of the more competitive positions.

Recent graduates will likely have to address a “bad” GPA at the job interview. If you are asked your GPA, you cannot give them a fake answer, since they will find out. What you can give them are one of the answers below, based on what is most applicable to you.

Great GPA in Within-Major Classes

Most businesses are willing to overlook your bad GPA if your GPA was much better within your major. When that is the case, you can both put it on the resume and address it easily in your interview, with an answer like the following:

“While I struggled at the start of college during some of my core classes, once I was accepted into my major I maintained a 3.7 GPA in all of my Business Administration classes.”

Bad GPA – Good Excuse

If you have any excuse for why your GPA is bad, use it. It’s understandable. Don’t milk the excuse, but mentioning it is fine. If possible, it is also a good idea to qualify your answer with what you have to prove that it is not that big a deal.

“My GPA was affected by my sister getting ill. I spent a long time in the hospital taking care of her, dropping my GPA from 3.5 down to 2.7. As you can see from my portfolio, though, I have learned how to do X, Y, Z…”

Bad GPA – Good Finish

If you have a bad GPA but you ended your college life well because you decided to finally focus on school, you can use that too. Again, you don’t want to sound like the victim of your own misdeeds, but a brief mention is a good way to improve the answer.

“Overall my GPA ended lower than I would have liked at 2.9. Within the last year I realized how important my education was to me and since then I put all my effort into studying. My senior year I received a 3.7 in all of my classes.”

Bad GPA – Bad Finish, Bad Major Grades, No Excuse

Bad GPAs are bad GPAs. You can’t mask it and pretend it is a good grade when it isn’t. So instead, mention it quickly and discuss something that takes the focus away from the bad grade, like work experience, experience with specific programs relevant to the job, etc.

“Overall my GPA was a disappointing 2.6. Rest assured that number does not imply any inability to do the job. I am skilled at working with program X, and have two years of experience with program Y…”

Some Things Are Hard to Salvage

There are occasionally questions that come up during the interview where the real answer is going to harm your employment. For example, if your interviewer asks you if you have had experience with a task that you have had no experience with, and it is vital to the job, you still have to say “no,” and that may harm your chances.

GPA is similar. If you spent your 4 years of college struggling to maintain a high GPA (either because you slacked off or had trouble with your classes), that may affect your chances of getting a job. There isn’t much you can do about it. The best you can do is try to minimize its impact and hope that the rest of your answers make up for any doubt in the interviewer’s mind.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Do your best to minimize the GPA’s importance.
• Qualify your answer where applicable.
• Use a within-major GPA or senior year GPA if it is more impressive.
• Do your best during the rest of the interview.

How to Discuss Your GPA on a Resume

College. It’s a great place to get drunk, fall in love, smoke pot, and occasionally go to class. Your GPA may be great, or it may be awful, or it may be somewhere in between. GPAs don’t really matter in the grand scheme of life. Unless you are going to graduate school, your GPA doesn’t necessarily mean that you are more or less capable of doing a job. All it means is that you studied really well… or didn’t.

Yet for employers, the GPA is one of the only tools they have to use to figure out if you are worth hiring. You probably don’t have a great work history, and your resume is likely pretty slim. So the GPA is the only thing that can tell the employer:

• How hard a worker you are.
• How intelligent you are (probably).
• How much you paid attention in class.

It’s not the most accurate measure, but it is the only measure they have, so employers use it to assess your candidacy. There are arguably reasons to keep it off your resume, but many experts advise that you should list your GPA, so assuming you go that route, here is the best way to put it on the resume, based on GPA.

GPA of 3.8 to 4.0

Go ahead and list your GPA, up to 2 decimals for anything under 4.0 (eg. 3.92). 3.8+ is almost always a good enough resume for even the toughest of jobs. There may be a few elite careers that are unimpressed by anything under a 4.0, but most of those employers recruit directly out of college.

GPA of 3.5 to 3.8

This is still considered a good GPA, but try your best to back it up with the other work you did in college. 3.5 in an easy major isn’t as impressive as a 3.5 in organic chemistry, so make sure you prove that you are still worth hiring.

GPA of 3.0 to 3.5

Here we get into something more complicated. This GPA is not bad per se, but it’s not impressive either. It is simply a GPA like any other GPA. Check to see if your within-major GPA is better than your overall GPA. If so, only list your major GPA, and ignore the overall GPA. If it’s worse, consider doing the opposite (for example, “3.6 GPA in all core classes”) but only if the difference is considerable, since the GPA in your major is more impressive than the GPA you got in your basic classes. If they are about the same, list it regularly or don’t list it at all, preferably don’t list it at all unless necessary.

GPA less than 3.0

If your GPA is anything under 3.0, you need to look for a GPA within your grades that is more impressive. For example, if you had a 3.4 in your major but a 2.3 in your other classes, only list your within-major GPA. If you had a 3.5 overall during your junior and senior years, but you did extremely poorly during your freshman year, maybe you want to put that as well. Otherwise, consider leaving your GPA off the resume. Anything 2.9 or below is not selling yourself to the employer.

GPA Can Be Tough

Struggling only a little bit can cause your GPA to plummet. You may have worked hard for your 2.9 GPA or your 3.1 GPA and your hard work should be rewarded. But when it comes to resumes, the goal is not to share “good enough” achievements. The goal is to share your best achievements. 2.9 GPA may have taken a lot of work in a lot of hard classes, but it is not going to wow the hiring manager, so you should leave it off your resume. In the next post, we’ll look at how to address the GPA at the interview.

Take Away Tips

• Use your major GPA if it is higher than your regular GPA.
• Use your core class GPA as a last resort (overall and major GPA far better).
• Don’t list your GPA if it is under 3.0.
• Consider leaving off your GPA altogether if it is under 3.8 and you have other achievements.

College Graduate Interview Question: Do You Believe Your GPA Accurately Reflects Your Abilities

“Dude, absolutely. My 2.0 GPA accurately reflects how much I like to slack off and barely focus on the tasks at hand. I think 2.0 is a cool number too, because it represented the number of body shots I can take per hour without passing out.”

With little work experience, recruiters have to assume that your education makes you qualified for the role. Your GPA is the best barometer of how you did in college, but it is not always the best indicator of your abilities.

How to Answer

If you had a great GPA, you can answer with “yes” and focus on all of the great things you accomplished, or the hard work you put into your education, etc. However, you need to remember where you are applying. A “Great” GPA is not a 3.3 or 3.1. It may not even be a 3.5. If you are applying to a competitive job, 3.5 is considered average. Only assume you have a great GPA if you were above 3.8, unless you are applying to a more entry level, noncompetitive position. If you have a not-great GPA, briefly give an excuse that doesn’t reflect poorly on you, and discuss the activities you did that make you still qualified.

Bad Answer

“No. I think I could have done better than my 3.2. I struggled in a few classes but I am sure I could have done a lot better, and I am a much better employee than me GPA indicates.

This may be truthful, but it does not really say how you are still a good candidate. What reason do they have to believe you?

Good Answer

“No, not at all. I was working through college and did not have as much time to study as I would have liked. But I did have an opportunity to intern for DataCorp, as well as research with Drs. Name and NameTwo,so I feel I have had more work experience than others in my position, and I held a 3.8 GPA within the core classes of my friend, which I think are a much better indicator of my abilities.”

There you give a brief excuse for your poor performance and actual reasons that you are still a great candidate despite your grades.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Keep the excuse brief.
• Use non-clichés to explain why you are still a great candidate.