After being in sales for the past 5 years and in software sales for over a year, I put in a job application for a software sales rep position for a company that sells math textbook software. I received a response back asking for more information and then was told that they wanted me to come in next week for an on-site interview. Unfortunately, they ended up filling the position before I got a chance to interview.
I was completely fine with this, but saw that they had another position open that was actually a more entry level sales position for them. While it wasn't my top choice, it is a good company and I figured I could get my foot in the door and then work my way up to the position that I originally wanted. After a few weeks, I sent an email to their HR person and received the below response:
"At this time, we are no longer considering your candidacy for the Entry Level Sales position. Our sales manager is not willing to compromise on the GPA requirements set forth for the sales team. She hires candidates at the 3.3 cumulative GPA and higher range and your GPA is a bit low for consideration. Thank you for your persistence and passion for the opening, but at this time the sales manager has determined you are not eligible."
In my opinion this seems absurd and makes no sense on several levels which I have listed below.
1. How is it that I was qualified to get an interview for the initial, higher level position but am somehow not qualified for an entry level position?
2. I can somewhat understand why GPA matters that much if they are hiring someone fresh out of college, but I have been out for almost 9 years. How does experience not trump GPA in this case?
3. GPA is such an arbitrary number and should not be used as the primary metric for success especially when it is not your first job out of college. There is a reason we have school rankings and that some schools are much tougher to get into than others. Because of this, it is not always an apples to apples comparison when looking at GPA's from different universities. I'm sure that someone that has a 2.5 from Harvard is probably a better candidate than someone with a 4.0 from Radford, but using their system someone at Radford is better qualified based on their GPA.
Am I totally off base here or do people agree with my rationale? Rant over.
I was completely fine with this, but saw that they had another position open that was actually a more entry level sales position for them. While it wasn't my top choice, it is a good company and I figured I could get my foot in the door and then work my way up to the position that I originally wanted. After a few weeks, I sent an email to their HR person and received the below response:
"At this time, we are no longer considering your candidacy for the Entry Level Sales position. Our sales manager is not willing to compromise on the GPA requirements set forth for the sales team. She hires candidates at the 3.3 cumulative GPA and higher range and your GPA is a bit low for consideration. Thank you for your persistence and passion for the opening, but at this time the sales manager has determined you are not eligible."
In my opinion this seems absurd and makes no sense on several levels which I have listed below.
1. How is it that I was qualified to get an interview for the initial, higher level position but am somehow not qualified for an entry level position?
2. I can somewhat understand why GPA matters that much if they are hiring someone fresh out of college, but I have been out for almost 9 years. How does experience not trump GPA in this case?
3. GPA is such an arbitrary number and should not be used as the primary metric for success especially when it is not your first job out of college. There is a reason we have school rankings and that some schools are much tougher to get into than others. Because of this, it is not always an apples to apples comparison when looking at GPA's from different universities. I'm sure that someone that has a 2.5 from Harvard is probably a better candidate than someone with a 4.0 from Radford, but using their system someone at Radford is better qualified based on their GPA.
Am I totally off base here or do people agree with my rationale? Rant over.