“Grades and institution will not matter once I complete my degree and get a job”, this is the most common phrase we usually come across while communicating with students regarding their career start-ups.

Besides, it is also a myth that having very good grades and association of well-reputed institute with one’s name will get you a perfect job. No, they will not be of any help if you are unable to prove your skills and working knowledge in a job interview.

There are two basic reasons for this myth among students:

First, they are misguided by their inspirators or people with dominance (anyone whose opinion has significance in their lives), for example elder siblings, cousins, friends etc.  who does not carry any practical knowledge of how HR professionals follow a given criteria to shortlist candidates for different positions.

Second, students, to some extent, pacify themselves on having low CGPAs by saying so and carry a hope that, it will work.

“I think, teachers play an important role in guiding such stuff at institutions. They are always focusing upon theoretical work and does not guide students about practical life – such misguidance leads to these myths”, said Palwasha, HR Executive at BrightSpyre.

Reality of Practical Life:

Grades do matter! And so are institutions. The sooner students understand this fact, the better start-up job they will get and their promotion chances gets better too.

I have observed and experienced the different level of knowledge, personality grooming and skills development among students belonging to different institutes. Well-reputed institutes or low esteemed institutions, they simply provide the guidelines and do not give the students any soluble solvent to drink. I saw students of very reputed institutes being rejected and students from very low repute being selected for the same position. It’s always the student as to how (s) he follow the guidelines and achieve competence. Almost every employer wants to hire employees from high ranked universities and colleges with good CGPAs  to have better output, energies and resources. This is another great way for employers to maintain their standards in professional market.

On the other hand, grades and GPAs are a virtual proof of your knowledge, intelligence and intellectualism, from your institutions. Result cards from reputed universities are basically a proof that one can handle number of responsibilities and is able to complete all the task in a given timeline – because this is what professional studies of universities teaches us. Besides, good grades always portray the image of seriousness towards life.

Better CGPAs will at least help you in getting shortlisted and receiving an interview call. But, I will repeat again that good grades and high-ranked institute will be helpless if you lack professional work’s knowledge and certain skill set that organizations look for. Primarily, one should be able to convey that he/she can convert theoretical learning into practical work.

It’s a competitive world – and unemployment rate has given employers a leverage of selecting best of the best candidates for their organizations, and it leaves very less margin for mistakes and carelessness.

In the end, I would like to say that at some level you might get appointed by some organization but they will be hiring you due to retention. You will be getting below average salary. So, three things should be kept in accordance to have an ideal job: grades, work knowledge, skill sets.