What employers stop asking about after they see the portfolio
GPA, school, and the questions that get replaced by 'when can you start?'
The question we hear from parents most often is some version of: does the school still matter. The honest answer is yes, at the beginning of the conversation. And also: it stops mattering the moment there's a portfolio.
What gets asked when there's no portfolio
- What school do you go to?
- What's your GPA?
- What classes are you taking?
- What are your test scores?
- What's your major going to be?
These are proxy questions. The employer is trying to guess whether you can do the work. School and grades are the only signal on the table, so that's the signal they use.
What gets asked when there is one
- Walk me through this project.
- What did you get wrong the first time?
- How did you decide the scope?
- What would you change if you rebuilt it?
- When can you start?
None of those questions are about school. All of them are about the work.
This is not an anti-college argument
College still matters for a lot of reasons. It matters less for early-career hiring than it did twenty years ago, and it matters less than the portfolio in the specific moment when someone is deciding whether to interview you.
Both things can be true. Get the portfolio anyway.