A thread on another degree discussion site linked to a Business Week article which covers a few “elite” recruiting firms using GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) scores to determine an applicant’s suitability for interviewing as one of the many criteria they use. These firms basically are looking for top 10 or top 20 MBA graduates and to weed through all the potentials they are inappropriately using GMAT scores to single out those they’d like to speak with further.
Here’s the article http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/oct2009/bs20091019_412671.htm
Some of you may have noticed I wrote “inappropriately” using these scores above because the Graduate Management Admission Council who write and administer the GMAT exams state the intended purpose of the GMAT exams explicitly here http://www.gmac.com/gmac/TheGMAT/GMATScores/HowtoUseGMATScores.
However to save you time I’ve taken the liberty of posting what they state it is for and what it is not for below:
“Appropriate Uses of GMAT Scores
GMAT scores should be used for the following purposes:
1.) Selection of applicants for graduate study in management
2.) Selection of applicants for financial aid on the basis of academic potential
3.) Counseling and guidance
Inappropriate Uses of GMAT Scores
GMAT® scores should not be used for the following purposes:
1.) As a requisite for awarding a degree
2.) As a requirement for employment, for licensing or certification to perform a job, or for job-related rewards (approved score-receiving institutions are not permitted to make score reports available for any of these purposes)
3.) As an achievement test”
(Emphasis is mine)
The Business Week article states:
“For a select group of companies, mostly top consulting, finance, and banking firms, employers routinely look to MBA graduates' GMAT scores as a reliable standard measurement of academic prowess—a fact that may be well-known to MBA students in the thick of the job search, but is relatively unknown among applicants when they're taking the test. Particularly when jobs are tight, and every element of each résumé takes on added weight, test scores can be the difference between an interview and the dustbin. “
Well, you may be asking yourself the question I asked when reading this article, how are these recruiting firms getting these GMAT scores when the GMAC specifically states that these are not to be used for this purpose nor are “…score-receiving institutions permitted to make score reports available for any of these purposes…”
Well a little further into the article and it looks as if for example some of the schools themselves are releasing these records to the recruiters, for example when the article quotes a director of the Mendoza College of Business
“Mendoza sent a letter to its 2011 class informing it of the test's importance in prestigious firms' recruiting processes and offered a four-day course for students wishing to retake the test. Five did, at their own expense, and increased their scores by an average of 19 points. "We see a large number of consulting companies, some investment banks, and a couple of corporations all looking at both GMAT and undergrad and MBA GPAs." says Patrick Perrella, Mendoza's director of MBA career development. "These companies are looking for a sustained record of academic excellence."
Now I’m not an attorney, I’m just some poor lost soul who went to an unranked school for an MBA from somewhere in the Mid-West that didn’t even require a GMAT to get into the program, but were I a graduate at Mendoza or a soon to be grad, I would have some serious legal and ethical questions for the people in charge.
Maybe one of the reasons we are in such dire economic straits these days is because our top B-Schools do not teach ethics and in fact do not themselves behave ethically as what I see in that Director’s statement, instead focusing on cut-throat, take no prisoners hard skills to meet a quantitatively measureable business objective, whether it be the best thing to do, the right thing to do or even to just to take a second to ask themselves “does this really even work?”
Obviously not everyone, including the GMAC would agree that the GMAT would even be a reliable or usable measurement of a potential applicant’s suitability for a job or success in business.
“Not every company cares about GMAT scores, of course, and not every school considers them as being useful for anything but admission. At the University of Connecticut's School of Business (UConn Full-Time MBA Profile) it was such a non-issue that the executive director said neither he nor his staff had even encountered requests for scores. In many cases, companies seem to simply rely on the schools' admissions departments to do that kind of screening for them.”
Bingo, UConn seems to have it right and themselves are behaving ethically by not releasing these scores to potential recruiters and employers. In fact hopefully they are not even going to solicit students themselves to provide proof of their scores to recruiters much less encourage them to retest in order to inflate a score which serves no practical purpose whatsoever other than to provide recruiters yet another flaming hoop to jump through in this circus that has become the modern American business culture. I for one would not provide this information to any recruiter and instead offer an alternative as an indicator to my future success, something more reliable, like oh, I don’t know, volunteer experience, internships, references, GPA, you know the things we used to hold in high esteem.
To further my point:
"But for companies that do request students' scores, often those that require lots of heavy quantitative lifting, the GMAT can be an equalizer in a world where traditional metrics are fairly nebulous. Many MBA programs have grading systems that vary widely or are solely pass-fail, making it difficult for recruiters to compare applicants from different schools, and others don't provide grades at all. Even at schools where grades are released, grade inflation may render As and Bs poor markers for actual skill. The tests can be a boon by virtue of their standardization, says Mareza Larizadeh, the founder of Doostang..."
I have to respectfully disagree with Ms. Larizadeh, perhaps recruiters should develop their own tests, specific to their needs and quit misusing scores from a test created for academic purposes only whose scores should remain confidential outside of academic circles. Hey, here’s a thought, how about better trained and educated recruiters who can screen applicants more reliably. After all, even these people admit that once an interview is granted GMAT scores are irrelevant. Even still because the economy is sorry right now, these recruiters know that they now hold the initiative and can make applicants jump hurdles they otherwise couldn’t and we as hard working Americans are expected to just forgive and forget when the tables are turned. The irony is these same big financial firms are the ones who started this whole mess in the first place.