I think GPA is a better measure of "I can work inside a system and play by its rules"
Like you I think it's a poor measure of "brains" but you can't get a high GPA and be a total slacker. I know plenty of people who were too bored to care about grades...and also too bored to care about the work assigned to them by a manager at their work.
I think GPA is a better measure of "I can work inside a system and play by its rules"
Does having a high GPA indicate that this is what the person was trying to prove? Does it even suggest that following rules was the motivator that got them where they are? As I pointed out in my earlier comment, maybe the graduate's GPA was high due to motivations that had very little to do directly with wanting to achieve a high GPA or wanting to please other people.
The meaning is ambiguous; as are the meanings of everything someone might rely on to assess someone's ability. You need context to figure out what each individual indicator means, and this includes the GPA; it might mean absolutely nothing, or it might be the thing that pulls two or three other indicators out of ambiguity and makes the true ability of the person become more believable.
This is very true. Perhaps, though, startups in their early stages should hire people with low GPAs, but who have some other proof of intelligence? If I want to really innovate, I'm going to hire people who not only think outside the box, but abhor going anywhere near it. 'course, these are the people that don't stay on as the company transitions from R&D to sales and maintenance.
In my (limited) experience, running an early stage startup is less about innovation and more about drive to get things done. Then again, I work with people who are good at what they do and fully invested in the project. Nobody is getting a salary (and probably won't for at least a year), so that tends to weed out the mediocre players.
We're early phase, and I realized recently that if I could hire any developer that I've worked with in the past that all of my top 3 (one of whom we recently hired) were college drop outs, and in general, I'd actually bias my decisions slightly towards those who had completed degrees. This surprised me a little.
Comments
I think GPA is a better measure of "I can work inside a system and play by its rules"
Like you I think it's a poor measure of "brains" but you can't get a high GPA and be a total slacker. I know plenty of people who were too bored to care about grades...and also too bored to care about the work assigned to them by a manager at their work.
I think GPA is a better measure of "I can work inside a system and play by its rules"
Does having a high GPA indicate that this is what the person was trying to prove? Does it even suggest that following rules was the motivator that got them where they are? As I pointed out in my earlier comment, maybe the graduate's GPA was high due to motivations that had very little to do directly with wanting to achieve a high GPA or wanting to please other people.
The meaning is ambiguous; as are the meanings of everything someone might rely on to assess someone's ability. You need context to figure out what each individual indicator means, and this includes the GPA; it might mean absolutely nothing, or it might be the thing that pulls two or three other indicators out of ambiguity and makes the true ability of the person become more believable.
This is very true. Perhaps, though, startups in their early stages should hire people with low GPAs, but who have some other proof of intelligence? If I want to really innovate, I'm going to hire people who not only think outside the box, but abhor going anywhere near it. 'course, these are the people that don't stay on as the company transitions from R&D to sales and maintenance.
In my (limited) experience, running an early stage startup is less about innovation and more about drive to get things done. Then again, I work with people who are good at what they do and fully invested in the project. Nobody is getting a salary (and probably won't for at least a year), so that tends to weed out the mediocre players.
We're early phase, and I realized recently that if I could hire any developer that I've worked with in the past that all of my top 3 (one of whom we recently hired) were college drop outs, and in general, I'd actually bias my decisions slightly towards those who had completed degrees. This surprised me a little.
i guess being stoned all semester is outside the box