I recently read that Qualtrics is looking to add 100 engineers to their Seattle operation, and a contact at the company said that they've hired quite a few recent graduates, so I decided to apply.

I was put in touch with a recruiter the same day I sent in my resume/cover letter, and we scheduled a non-technical interview that week.

The recruiter and I got along well and had a pleasant conversation, and I was looking forward to scheduling a technical interview to write some code with the engineers. After the non-technical screen, the recruiter sends the resume/cover letter with initial interview notes to the engineering team, who decides whether to move forward or not.

I got a call a few days later from the recruiter who regrettably informed me that the engineers didn't want to continue with me.

I appreciated the phone call, and we chatted a bit longer when I asked if he could tell me what I was lacking for the second interview. Apparently, it's a big deal for the engineers that everyone had a 3.0 or above in college, so my 2.88 didn't cut it. Even with an internship (and several on-campus part-time jobs to pay for school), I didn't have enough demonstrated experience for them to be comfortable with taking the risk.

I would have liked an opportunity for a technical interview, but if a high GPA in college is THAT important to the Qualtrics team, I probably wouldn't have been a fit, anyway.

What was your GPA in college?