Two-thirds of all employers use GPA as a means of screening applicants. It’s easy, it’s been around a long time, and applicants usually expect it to be considered. But is GPA really a good indicator of job performance?

While not everyone agrees, many sources have begun to say that no, GPA is not a reliable means of predicting job performance. Here’s why.

Academic environments are artificial

Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of people operations at Google, said the following in an interview with The New York Times:

“I think academic environments are artificial environments. People who succeed there are sort of finely trained, they’re conditioned to succeed in that environment…One of the things we’ve seen from all our data crunching is that GPAs are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless.”

Bock explained that classes are highly structured and teachers stress a select few skills that are often irrelevant to jobs. Therefore, hiring based on GPA is like hiring based on 1-2 competencies only, which will not lead to a well-rounded company.

Students are trained to give specific answers, but in the real world, “it’s much more interesting to solve problems where there isn’t an obvious answer. You want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer.”

Bock claims that not only are GPAs useless, but that test scores, interviews, and even resumes are poor indicators of who is the right candidate for the job. Google no longer asks for GPAs or test scores, unless a candidate is a very recent college graduate.

Taken out of context

GPAs need to be compared to the individual’s school average in order to assess true performance. A 4.0 GPA from a school with a 3.8 average will not mean the same as a 4.0 from a school with a 3.4 average. It’s probable that the second student worked much harder to earn his 4.0 than the first. Employers tend to make this mistake called the fundamental attribution error, the tendency to evaluate without taking situational factors into account. Samuel Swift of University of California, Berkeley and his team of researchers explained,

“It is easier to achieve high grades at schools where higher grades are the norm. It would be a mistake to neglect situational effects on performance, but that is what our data suggest that even experts and professionals tend to do.”

Swift and his colleagues demonstrated through several studies in 2013 that many business managers and admission officers do not take context into account when considering applicants’ GPAs. What’s the consequence of this? Missing out on more qualified candidates.

Grade Inflation

A report by the Teachers College Record says that an A average has become much more common than it used to be. Over the past 70 years the percentage of grades that are A’s has increased by 28 percent. This grade inflation implies that A’s are now easier to get and are not always indicative of the most elite students in a school. So if you want the best of the best employees at your company, just looking for A’s might not be enough to find them.

Subject Difficulty

Depending on the subject and the school, some majors are simply harder than others. It’s possible that a 4.0 student studying Communications might not have to work as hard as a 4.0 student in Mechanical Engineering. Or it could be the other way around at some schools, who knows? All of this is subjective, and is therefore problematic when used as a means to determine competencies.

GPA isn’t meaningless

Now, saying that GPA isn’t a great indicator of job performance does not mean it is meaningless. A high GPA is no small accomplishment; it’s a sign of a few great qualities, such as:

• Hard work
• Dedication
• Commitment to academic success

However, a high GPA says nothing as to one’s creativity, adaptability, good judgement, critical thinking skills, interpersonal skills, high initiative, being a good team player, and more, that will be even more relevant in the workforce.

What to focus on instead

Instead of GPA, focus on getting to know potential employees through the following ways:

• Bock says that the only thing that works are behavioral interviews. Use a consistent set of questions that present specific situations to interviewees and ask what they would do in those scenarios. Be sure to use one rubric to assess everyone, rather than having interviewers each evaluate their own way.
• Study applicants’ online presence. Do internet searches, look at their LinkedIn profiles, and see what you can learn.
• Look for successful and relevant internship, volunteer, and work experiences that demonstrated candidates’ abilities in action. Hands-on experience like this is one of the best ways to predict one’s potential and performance at your company.
• A portfolio showcasing samples of a candidate’s best work can give great insight into one’s abilities.

While GPAs maybe shouldn’t be dismissed altogether, don’t treat them as the most important factor when deciding who to hire. Terese Corey Blanck, founder of College to Career Inc., said that by placing too much emphasis on GPA, employers are missing out on “a lot of diamonds in the rough.”

“Hiring managers who use GPAs as a major success predictor do not understand the full capacity of human potential,” Ms. Corey Blanck said. “You can have all these wonderful skills, but your GPA isn’t high enough so the door might not be open for you.”

Don’t miss out on talent by relying too much on GPA.