[hutchinson29]

I have a phone interview on Monday for an internship during the school year in private accounting for a very good company. (9 states and international) My resume has good experience for someone still in college (bank recs, month-end recs) but my GPA of 2.6 was omitted on my resume. There is no GPA requirement in the job description, so I don’t know if they will ask for it, but I at least want to be prepared.

During my first few years of school, I thought I would be getting into marketing or sales, or something like that and really did not consider it important to get that great of a GPA. I really did not see the value in much of the course material and its relevance to anything I would be doing. Marketing and sales tends not to recruit on GPA as much as a technical field.

Then when I switched to being an accounting major, I realized GPA was important, so I took a course load that was more than I could handle at once while working 25 hours a week in attempt to have more courses factoring into my GPA since I was now going to make an attempt at raising it. Besides the other courses during the semesters that weren’t accounting related, I took 3 accounting courses one semester and 4 the next. My GPA during that time remained about the same. That GPA remaining the same also includes a C in a core requirement, Geography. So my accounting GPA was a little higher. Take out C’s in both my tax courses and my primary course GPA is looking half-way decent. Tax knowledge isn’t necessarily a part of a general ledger position, which is why I specify taking out tax.

So what is the best way to market this if I am asked for my GPA? Should I say “well if you take my GPA in my primary courses, financial accounting, managerial accounting, intermediate accounting I, and intermediate accounting II, it’s a 3.1 (which it is).

My only concern with specifying my GPA that way is that I am not necessarily answering the question, and it could be looked down upon that I was asked a question and did not answer it. It could also be looked down upon that I have a 2.6 GPA.

Even if I answer the question that way at first, the interviewer can still keep asking questions about my GPA.

Does anyone have suggestions for the best way to go about this?

[Amay]

You can just say your accounting GPA is 3.1 and hope they don't ask what your overall is. If they do follow up with that question, be honest and say what it is and briefly explain you switched majors a few years in so you give emphasis to your accounting GPA. Good opportunity to say it was a challenging time in your life while you managed work and full class load, etc. and that you overcame it (i.e. by increasing your GPA, graduating on time, etc.) The main point when dealing with something negative is to immediately turn it into a positive! Good luck!

BEC: 73, 81
AUD: 85
FAR: 71, 77
REG: 74, 75...finally DONE! 😀

*This is my 2nd attempt at the CPA exam. For all of you who have failed this exam many times, given up on it, or taken a break like me, remember that it is still possible to finish what you started...failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently 🙂

[hutchinson29]

My only concern with saying my accounting GPA is a 3.1 is that the 3.1 GPA is my GPA in those specified primary courses, not my actual accounting GPA.

[fuzyfro89]

At that point, you're blurring lines.

Your “accounting GPA” is presumed, by most people, to be the GPA of all your accounting major coursework. You can't pick and choose what you want in your major average. Of course, they may never bother to recalculate.

Regardless, your GPA is what it is. It's not good. It's bad.

If they ask, don't lie, because when they find out you lied, they will rescind your offer, or will cut you out of the next round… or will fire you 6 months later if you start working and see you lied on your application.

Plenty of people screwed up early in college, but Amay got it right, turn the negative into a positive: “I had a really tough time early in college managing the coursework and figuring out what I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to get into marketing, but found out the hard way through the coursework that it wasn't for me. I'm on a better path now that fits where I see myself, but still have to deal with my mistakes…”

Your personality will have to make up for GPA. Not sure if you are at Princeton, where a 2.6 may not be god-awful, but that's a tough hurdle to overcome.

Maybe consider a graduate degree so you can put the undergrad GPA behind you?

[hutchinson29]

I still have 2 semesters before I graduate so I have time to get my GPA up for jobs, or at least have another semester to try to get dean's list for the most recent semester on my resume for the most recent semester when 2nd semester recruiting comes around. I just don't have time to change it before this interview. I don't think I could afford grad school until after I have some money saved up.

[hutchinson29]

I still have 2 semesters before I graduate so I have time to get my GPA up for jobs, or at least have another semester to try to get dean's list for the most recent semester on my resume for the most recent semester when 2nd semester recruiting comes around. I just don't have time to change it before this interview. I don't think I could afford grad school until after I have some money saved up.

[acamp]

Maybe just tell them the GPA of all courses you got A's in.

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[hutchinson29]

Also, I get that your accounting GPA is presumed to be your GPA in all your accounting coursework, so I wouldn't straight up say that my accounting GPA is a 3.1, but if I state “well if you take my coursework in financial, managerial, intermediate 1, and intermediate 2, its a 3.1, I wouldn't be lying.

[Amay]

I agree it might look bad if you pick and choose what your accounting GPA is. Tax classes should be included in there. What if you say something like, ” …but I have an average close to 3.0 in my main accounting classes”?. I'm not sure its worth it to “bend the truth” though and honesty always wins. I agree with fuzyfro. If you find yourself in a situation where you feel you need to explain yourself BRIEFLY state what happened to you when you switched majors and just end it on a positive note. They put a lot of emphasis on hard work, determination, and enthusiasm/positive attitude. Be confident in yourself and what you have accomplished. You got this! 🙂

Oh, and remember, just because you don't get the job, don't take it personally. It just meant you weren't a good fit for THEM so it's their problem and you will probably be better off where ever you end up. This helps with the nerves and with confidence. Any company would be lucky to have you, and if they choose not to, it's their loss, not yours!

BEC: 73, 81
AUD: 85
FAR: 71, 77
REG: 74, 75...finally DONE! 😀

*This is my 2nd attempt at the CPA exam. For all of you who have failed this exam many times, given up on it, or taken a break like me, remember that it is still possible to finish what you started...failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently 🙂

[Anonymous]

My attempt to combat my GPA is passing all of the CPA exams. My college GPA is a whopping 2.3 overall and prolly slightly higher for my accounting GPA. After all if you pass all the exams your knowledge is supposedly adequate enough to protect the public interest.

Also the school i went to the application made you state the basics (name, address and stuff like that) then asked you if your a convicted felon. I answered no to that question and said congratulations you have been accepted. so not the most prestigious hahaha.

[impska]

If I were conducting an interview and you responded with “Well, if you look at class X, Y and Z, it's 3.1,” my response would be “I didn't ask about class X, Y and Z.” If you said “accounting GPA” – then I'd be cool, because it's all I care about. I don't really care if you failed basket-weaving and English Lit. But I would care that you decided to respond to my question by picking a choosing classes to obfuscate the truth.

Confidence is a job winner. So just own your GPA. Don't respond as though your interviewer is too dumb to realize that you didn't answer the question.

REG - 94
BEC - 92
FAR - 92
AUD - 99

[Java230]

Just focus on accounting Gpa. In my experience HR is soo far from the management who hires you. So most likely you will submit transcripts to HR and they compare it to resume. They would have no clue w hat yoiu said during your interview.

Licensed WA CPA 2/2015
Government Auditor Since 2007

[nicole2035]

Tax knowledge is part of a general ledger position, if you are working at whatever company you need to know their tax implications. That is part of their expense month to month. Lets say you are looking over payroll, which though you may not be the person who does the data entry you may be the person who does part off an accrual. Lets say a CFO over a subsidiary that you do general ledger accounting for tells you ‘hey, we lost 10 employees last week so my accrual for this month is way too high for salaries'…they're not going to carry that extra expense. You will have to adjust their accrual, and well, that means adjusting their taxes. No, the tax department won't be the person to adjust the accrual bc it's about ownership, you look over that sub.

Just know you are lying, and you just need to take the loss. They'll hire you anyway, and i doubt GPA will come into play if it wasn't a requirement to apply.This is not their first time around the block, you are not smarter than the HR person, and you are making excuses. HR may not know jacksquat about accounting but they know someone immature to not own up. I have a 2.96 GPA overall and a 3.3 Accounting GPA, most people care about overall and i'm still employed, and still got a tax position paid internship in undergrad

[hutchinson29]

i'm thinking of just telling them my true GPA, and then telling that that if its an issue that i'm willing to come in and show them what i know.

[hutchinson29]

also, i do think its dumb that they care about overall GPA. why would i study information that is useless for a class when I have a harvard business review book next to my bed that actually contains useful information. in one of my classes i got my grade changed because i told the teacher that the stuff i didn't do well on was completely useless and had no relation to the real world whatsoever and that i don't agree a grade should be based on that useless information, and he said he agreed with me completely, but that he doesn't have full say over the course materials. he said if i do as much work for the course materials that are actually useful as the other information, he would weight the grade differently. I got the grade changed from a D to a B. Gary Vaynerchuk is a a multi-millionaire and he was a D and F student in school. He was smart enough to realize that what he was learning was BS. In some classes, the higher the grade, the more narrow minded the person because you have to buy into BS information that is not useful and has no relation to the real world. I wake up at 5:45 everyday, I'm not lazy, I worked 78 hours last week. I just am sick of the whole GPA BS because to me the dumb person is the one that buys into the school's bs information that is not useful. I can read articles from Stanford and current events and that is more beneficial than studying latin or yoga or music or any of the other bs classes in college. Even classes with useful information and still partially useless. It's what I truly believe. And don't get me wrong, next year my plan is to not let that affect my studies and just do what the recruiters are looking for which is getting good grades, but it has definitely had an effect on my GPA. I see people with no real sense of practicality getting stressed out studying information that will never be part of a job, and it really makes me question the education system.

[hutchinson29]

i have my flaws, i'll take complete ownership for those, but I am fed up with the classes containing bs material

i decided to stop being involved in athletics to take ownership for my life and to work more, my time management at the time was not good enough to get the grades i wanted in some of my accounting courses while taking the courseload that i was and working as much as i was. i take it as feedback on where i need to get better, with managing my time. i was maybe a little too ambitious and tried to do too much. next year i am taking only 12 credits, and i'll be working just as much or more than i was last year. which is why i am trying to get an internship for the rest of the credits to get to the 150. memorization is a weakness of mine, i'll admit. understanding is a strength of mine. i would go into some of the intermediate accounting tests having reviewed the information 0 times, and would still get the class average because of my understanding. in financial accounting i had the highest test average in the class but didn't get an A from missing half the homework points. I have my flaws, and i'll own up to those, but I don't agree with the idea that overall GPA should be considered an important factor.

[Author]

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