Dimensional Fund Advisors

Holdside, you don’t think holding a poor GPA against a 25- to 27-year-old who earned half of those grades as an 18- and 19-year-old is a bit unsound? And you don’t think holding a college selection against someone who likely selected that college nearly a decade before as a high schooler is a bit–uhh, stupid? The way to test someone’s intellect is, well, to test someone’s intellect. I’ve been given a number of tests for hiring: math, logic, reading, writing, and–my favorite–general knowledge exams (e.g. who is Alan Greenspan? Who is the Secretary of Defense? YoYo Ma is famous for what?).
Testing someone’s work ethic is not that tough–look at their work experience and actually CALL the references and ask for more if need be. Some of these companies are so lazy. I tend to agree with Dante on this one–let’s see your GMAT and GPA and see what we can glean out of this. Seems rather backward (unless we’re talking about really new college grads).
 
work experience sometimes doesn’t say as much as you want to…in addition to that, work experience isn’t as transparent as a GPA. most importantly, work experience is difficult to represent with a number.
 
Frank, most importantly, much of a GPA is the reflection of the maturity level of a 17 to 22-year-old. I’m a strong believer that with actions there are consequences, but a firm allowing that to play a significant role in the hiring decision of a person 25 years+ is just being silly and petty. If there’s one thing I learned in college it was in my first management class: who you hire is absolutely fundamental to the success of your company. Too many companies foolishly place such little value on HR, such little value on taking the time and effort it takes to hire the best. It’s easy–and foolish–to edit people out for their GPAs (again, not talking about new grads, we’re talking about experienced hires), but it takes effort–TIME–to truly find top minds.
As God as my witness, if/when I start my own company, I will pay the ABSOLUTE TOP DOLLAR to all my employees and I’ll have a department devoted solely to replying to top resume submissions within 48 hours (unlike the 3 weeks and even 7 months I’ve been used to), but during the hiring process they will be drilled with interviews, tests (math, writing, logic, reading, general knowledge), case studies; their references will be checked and cross checked; their education verified twice; work experience verified 3 times. And those who are hired will be the best and will be paid like it. None of this garbage about salary negotiations and trying to pinch the employee on every penny even while the company makes more money than it knows what to do with. Finding and retaining the best and the brightest costs time and money.
GPA/GMAT is just a shortcut. Although I MIGHT place some weight on GMAT…not sure.
 
26-27, experience will dominate everything else. And I disagree with Frank, experience is much more transparent than GPA. If the experience looks good/applicable, I’ll bring them in regardless of school/GPA and see if they can walk the walk. I’ll actually think it’s a little odd if they’re still putting GPA on at 4-5 years exp. At that point you should have something else to brag about. Then we send everyone we’re still interested in to an I/O psychologist to run a full battery of personality/IQ tests. That’s what they did with me, and when the tests came back off the charts, they were more than willing to ignore my extremely lackluster GPA.
 
I thought it was former students of FF that set up DFA, and that for a tap into their research FF get some pie. FF research is on going BTW, in fact weren’t they in the latest CFA digest?
 
If you want high GPA, you can just carefully pick up lenient professors as many as possible. That way, you learn very little and get high GPA, especially in undergrads. Besides, if someone paid for tuition for him/herself by working his/her ass off and also active in atheletic team with 3.6 GPA, then someone else has GPA of 3.7 but parents paid all tuition, which one would you pick?
That said, if GPA score is just one of many factors in hiring, I guess there’s no harm.
I checked this company’s website and most (if not all) of portfolio managers/traders/analysts are either U Chicago or UCLA MBA. It sheds some lights on how they hire people.
 
“work experience sometimes doesn’t say as much as you want to…in addition to that, work experience isn’t as transparent as a GPA. most importantly, work experience is difficult to represent with a number.”
frank if a prospective employer asked me for my undergrad GPA now, I would just reply, “Thanks for the opportunity, but I’m not interested.”
I can not see how, what I did in school 5 years ago is relevant compared to what I’ve done in the workplace since graduation.
Especially since most of my undergrad time was spent playing blackjack or drinking…
 
Danteshek Wrote:
——————————————————-
> HoldSideAnalyst Wrote:
> ————————————————–
> —–
> Yes. In my opinion, it makes them jackasses.
> Why? Because they are too lazy to take the time
> to evaluate talent and use shortcuts that are
> effectively discriminatory.
there are tons of qualified candidates out there both with and without the test scores… those with the test scores are probably incrementally more likely to be of a certain level of intelligence and more suitable for the job. so it makes their job more easy. yeah it sucks that people without the scores get shafted, but the job of a company is to fill the spot with as little time wasted as possible…
why do you think a company should go out of its way to recruit candidates without the GPA, credentials and test scores if it’s going to be more work (more people to interview, more resumes)? i didn’t have the 1st two criteria either and looking for a job was rough. but i acknowledge that its just how the game is played. i never felt like companies owed it to me to give me the same chances a grad from a top-tier school with good grades had.
 
In the end, the cream rises to the top, whether or not you had your shot early in your career, or a bit later.
I think the jackass/cool ratio is positively correlated with GPA.
I’d rather have kkent on my team than some phi betta kappa yahoo.
 
If you could only bring in a handful of candidates to interview, what’s the easiest way to judge them and order them in a list? GPA and GMAT. While not totally accurate, it is what it is. And everyone knows this, so there’s no excuse why any candidate who has a lousy GPA/GMAT should complain.
It’s not new news that employers hire based on GPA/GMAT. Since every student knows this, there should be no complaints.
I used to work there. This position used to be called the Portfolio Manager position and I believe an MBA is required.
As far as value/growth and other compaines copying DFA’s style… that is pretty hard because DFA offers 1 thing that will keep it above the rest… liquidity on illiquid stocks.
They’re in the market to offer liquidity to brokers that have stock to sell. And they’re not like a market maker who will hold on to that risk and turn around to try to make a profit. They hold onto that stock and diversify.
 
homie Wrote:
——————————————————-
> If you could only bring in a handful of candidates
> to interview, what’s the easiest way to judge them
> and order them in a list? GPA and GMAT. While not
> totally accurate, it is what it is. And everyone
> knows this, so there’s no excuse why any candidate
> who has a lousy GPA/GMAT should complain.
>
> It’s not new news that employers hire based on
> GPA/GMAT. Since every student knows this, there
> should be no complaints.
>
> I used to work there. This position used to be
> called the Portfolio Manager position and I
> believe an MBA is required.
>
> As far as value/growth and other compaines copying
> DFA’s style… that is pretty hard because DFA
> offers 1 thing that will keep it above the rest…
> liquidity on illiquid stocks.
> They’re in the market to offer liquidity to
> brokers that have stock to sell. And they’re not
> like a market maker who will hold on to that risk
> and turn around to try to make a profit. They hold
> onto that stock and diversify.
Proved my point exactly.
 
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