Proving the adage that all of life is like high school, plenty of employers still care about a job candidate’s SAT score. Consulting firms such as Bain & Co. and McKinsey & Co. and banks like Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ask new college recruits for their scores, while other companies request them even for senior sales and management hires, eliciting scores from job candidates in their 40s and 50s. (See an interactive of how your SAT score compares.)
According to the Wall Street Journal, The SAT, originally known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test and taken during junior or senior year of high school, is a common element of college applications. The exam is scored on a scale of 2400, with up to 800 points each for critical reading, math and writing sections. The average SAT score last year was a combined 1498. (Before March 2005, the test had just two sections and was scored on a 1600-point scale — and will return to the 1600-point scale in its new iteration)
A low score doesn’t necessarily kill a person’s chances, hiring managers say; instead, they say they believe SATs and other college entrance exams like the ACT help when comparing candidates with differing backgrounds or figuring out whether someone has the raw brainpower required for the job.
But some companies do set targets, particularly on the math section. Mark Rich, managing director of consulting-industry recruiting firm Whitehouse Pimms, says clients often tell him to screen for candidates whose SAT scores placed them in or above the 95th percentile. Investment firm D.E. Shaw Group asks candidates to break out their math and verbal results.
Boston Consulting Group Inc. has long used SAT scores as a factor in its hiring process. The firm doesn’t set a minimum score for applicants, said Jennifer Comparoni, head of Americas recruiting. But candidates with weak math results would need to demonstrate other strengths, such as subject-matter expertise or leadership ability, she added.
BCG managers won’t say that SAT results predict job performance, but Ms. Comparoni said the company uses the test as a standard measure of “the basic building blocks of success,” such as critical thinking, problem-solving skills and quantitative abilities.
How They Read Your Résumé
Recruiters like to see candidates with the right mix of education, experience and skills, but certain companies put added weight on particular résumé lines for recent college grads:
GPA: Accounting firms and other professional services companies often set minimum grade-point averages for college hires; at service organization Teach for America, the average undergraduate GPA for the 2013 corps was 3.55.
INTERESTS: Law-school graduates generally have near-identical transcripts and little work experience. Quirky interests, such as 19th century French poetry or a stint as a sports team mascot, can differentiate candidates for law firms.
WORK EXPERIENCE: Time at an early-stage startup excites recruiters at small tech firms.
Cvent Inc., CVT +1.64% a McLean, Va., event management software company, asks all job applicants to provide SAT or ACT scores, results from graduate-school entrance tests and grade-point averages along with their work history. Scores count most heavily for candidates in their first years out of college, though the company has received scores from applicants well into middle age, said Eric Eden, Cvent’s vice president of marketing.
“When you’re hiring people and they don’t have a lot of work experience, you have to start with some set of data points,” he said, adding that he likes to hear about recent graduates’ extracurricular activities, too.
Cvent, which employs more than 1,400 people, hasn’t tested whether its best employees are also its top SAT scorers. “Knowing it’s a standardized test is really enough for us,” Mr. Eden said.
SATs and other academic artifacts remain relevant in part because they are easy—if imperfect—metrics for hiring managers to understand. This despite the fact that increased use of personality tests, data analytics and behavioral interviews have given employers more information about a candidate than ever before. Academic research has proved that cognitive ability can predict job performance, but there is scant evidence linking high SAT scores with employee success.