Everyone needs their resume to be perfect. After all, it is your resume that has to be perfect, but there are a lot of questions that come to a person’s mind when they are creating a resume for themselves, one of the crucial ones of which is whether the GPA should get a place in the resume or not. Let’s find out the answer to that question- Should I Put My GPA on my Resume?
Wondering if your GPA should be on your resume? Well, the answer is not a simple yes or no, it depends on a lot of different factors which we will discuss now. If your GPA is good and you think it makes your resume look better like a GPA which is 3.5 or higher would be a great addition to your resume otherwise it’s a good idea to skip it because the employer might ask you to reason your GPA if it is less. Some employers ask you to put your GPA, in that case, there’s not much choice, but do keep in mind that don’t approximate your resume extensively, for instance, if your GPA is 4.122, you can make it 4.1 but if it’s something 3.85 don’t approximate it to 4.
Should I put GPA on my Resume or not?
Another way to decide whether your resume should have your GPA or not experiences, if you have a good amount of job experience you can skip out on putting your GPA but if there’s not much experience in your profile adding your GPA could be helpful. If you are a new graduate student looking for a job, adding your GPA is a good idea because you wouldn’t have much experience in the industry as a newcomer.
It is a good idea to keep your GPA on your resume at least for 3-4 years after your graduation. Another deciding factor would be what kind of job are you applying for, if you are applying for say an engineering job it would be better if you put up your resume especially if you are fairly new to the industry but if you are applying for the job of let’s say a social media executive you can skip out on your resume as this field doesn’t care about good grades.
It is important to understand if you should put your GPA in or not because that one decision can affect your chances of getting a job massively. But, it is not exactly black and white, you need to make a decision based on the points mentioned above but there are some clear Dos and DON’Ts which are mentioned below:
DOs
- Put your GPA on your resume if it’s really good
- Put your GPA if the employer has said that it would be preferred that way
- Put your GPA if you don’t have much experience
- Put your GPA if you have applied for a job that considers academics like an engineering job
DON’Ts
- Do not put your GPA if it’s not that great
- Do not put your GPA if the job you are applying for is not academically oriented
- Do not put your GPA if your experience is really good
Taking these points into consideration, make your decision of whether you should put your GPA on your resume or not. It can still be confusing as to what you should be doing, for help you can take a look at some sample resumes or ask a professional to create your resume for you. Just make sure that your resume reflects who you are, so even if you are taking professional help for your resume make sure you add some points yourself so that the resume is cohesive with your personality.
In conclusion, it doesn’t matter if you have a good GPA or not, you just need to understand whether you should incorporate it in your resume or not. This is about making your chances of getting the job go higher. If your GPA doesn’t help you with that, focus on your personality and experience but if it does, there’s no harm in bragging about your grades a little.
FAQs
- Does experience matter more or your GPA?
The experience overweighs your GPA, if you don’t have a great GPA focus on expanding your experience in various ways. - How to compensate for a not-so-good GPA?
First thing to do would be to increase your experience through internships, remote work, freelance work, etc. Make sure you put every little working experience of yours on your resume and other than that you can widen your skillset to land the job, learn a software that is in demand or a language, anything that you can put on your resume and which will make your resume look better. - How to include extra-curricular skills in your resume?
You can put them in a section for miscellaneous skills or if there is some way in which your extra-curricular skills can be connected to the job you are applying for, definitely mention that. - Does your GPA affect your chance of getting a job?
The answer to that is that it depends on what kind of job are you applying for. If you are a lawyer who wants to join a practice, they are likely to pay attention to your grade point. But if your job is more towards the creative side as a fashion stylist it would not matter that much. - Do I need to put my GPA on my resume when I have attained enough experience?
No, you do not have to put your grade point on your resume after you’ve been working for a while but if your grades were really good and you want to put them, there is no harm in doing that. - What should I do if the employer says they would prefer the GPA to be on the resume?
If the employer has set forth that requirement unless you have a high experience and a great set of skills you should put your GPA because the employer would want to take a look at it if the experience wasn’t enough according to them.
