Is applying a fixed 10th, 12th & College Marks cut off across all campuses the right way?

Is applying a fixed cut off percentage across all campuses the right way to go?

Most companies these days have a cut off percentage which makes a student eligible to apply for a position in their company. Today we’re going to address this strategy and find out if this is the right approach all companies preparing for campus recruitment should adapt or not.

When recruiting fresh talent into your company, choosing candidates based on their percentage becomes difficult because of the difference in the backgrounds of students, quality of students, and the marking scheme in that particular institute can make it difficult to apply the same cut off marks to all candidates. To illustrate this point further here are a few reasons why applying a fixed cut off percentage may not be a good idea.

With these points, it is easy to understand that making percentage cut off a factor of your recruitment process is definitely not the right way to go. Further, All these patterns change from year to year, and keeping up with the constant change in syllabus and ranking system may be a tedious job for the HR in your company. Applying a fixed cut off percentage may not be the right approach in getting you the right candidate and may even cause you to lose good candidates.

1. The presence of different boards: India primarily has 4 boards of school education, namely CBSE, ICSE, State boards, and IB, and each of these boards not only has their own complexity and level of difficulty but also have their own marking system. This system of education not only makes it difficult to define the right percentage cut off but also makes it difficult to judge the intelligence of a student. For example, a student scoring 90 in his/her ICSE exam can be as intelligent and hardworking as a student scoring 98 in his/her CBSE exam, given the difference in the level of complexity.
2. Syllabus differs in every state: Another issue with having a definite percentage cut off is that not every student studies the same syllabus. During the course of education, the syllabus in every state differs from the other which will also affect the percentage a student acquires. For instance, you may see a lot of students from states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka scoring a higher percentage than students in states like Bihar and UP.
3. CGPA and percentage: The Indian education system also has different grading patterns. One is CGPA, which is the average of grade points obtained in all the subjects, excluding the sixth additional subject. CGPA is calculated by dividing the average of grade points a student achieves by the total credit hours attended by them. Whereas percentage will take into consideration only the marks scored through an examination. What one needs to know is that having a high CGPA is not equivalent to having a high percentage. One because the grading systems take different factors into consideration before arriving at the final score, and second because when you convert a high CGPA score into percentage the result is a lower percentage value. In addition to this, even if we were to look at colleges that have only CGPA it still becomes complicated as different colleges may have different CGPA rankings too. For instance, some colleges may have a  CGPA out of 4 and some out of 10, making it a bad idea to place a cut off CGPA or percentage as a job criterion.
4. Leniency in the marking system: The level of leniency in correcting examination papers or presentation also makes it difficult to depend on the percentage to judge the intelligence of students. Some colleges may be very lenient in their scoring system and some may be quite strict. The difference in the leniency level from one course to another also makes the dependency to hire a candidate based on their percentage non-credible criteria.
5. The difference in backgrounds and regions: Applying a cut off percentage, even when interviewing candidates from one campus becomes complicated because candidates come from different backgrounds and regions that may have had a different syllabus, board of education and even grading system. The problem becomes more complicated when looking at students from across different campuses.
   

The obsession with using CGPA scores and percentage as the chief “accountability” metric for students can hamper your chances of obtaining a good candidate for your position. Especially when this type of metric is unreliable and not a definitive assessment of a student’s intelligence, dedication, and hard work.  There are other factors that should be considered in addition to a candidate’s education score before deciding if he/she is the right fit for the job. The solution is to use software that normalizes the scores for each marking system and focus more on judging candidates on their ability to perform well in an interview or assessment. Pod.ai can help you source eligible applicants without you worrying about the above discrepancies. Visit www.pod.ai to learn more about how we can help you. Through this article, it is clear that applying a cut off marks for students applying for a particular role is not a good approach given the current Indian education system. To know more, visit https://pod.ai/employers