Why we should have grade inflation data?*

Think of this. You are a HR manager of a reputed company. You want to hire 5 candidates. But you have received 200 applications with their vitas. How would you select? Well, you might conduct a written test and PI or GDPI. But you don’t have time either to check 200 answer sheets (even if it is MCQs) or you do not have patience to conduct interview to all applicants.

In that case it would be prudent to first shortlist a handful of applicants and then conduct written test and PI or GDPI. Again, the question comes: how would you shortlist. On the basis of marks obtained throughout the career? Not a good idea. Why? Of course there are other ways that those HR managers know better than me. Here i will say why career marks are not a good indicator of talent.

Consider this. It may happen that in some places marking/grading is very tight and in some places it is liberal. Students in the liberal region will consistently secure good marks compared to students in the tight region. It does not imply that students in the tight region are bad. Then in that case, it may difficult to shortlist for a vacancy. That is why it is important to create a database of grade inflation. It is available for the US. Through this WE CAN PREPARE A REAL GRADE DATA.

There are other ways to select a candidate.

v  Job-specific qualification and experience

v  Look at her extra-curricular activities, leadership qualities and team learning

v  Flexibility, that is how has been her assignments changing

v  Work Ex

v  How frequently that she has been changing companies, or durability in the job

v  Previous salary

v  Awards and achievements in her academic career and working career

v  Past character reports

So judging on these parameters rather than depending on mindlessly on marks selects the best candidates. What do you think?

*Actually, this is a discussion between a MBA student and me. He asked me how i should select candidates from their vitas. He also mentioned lot of parameters mentioned above. Then, i realized we should prepare a grade inflation data base.

Update
One reason why might have grade inflation is this.
Suppose the examiner has to evaluate 100 papers. She would evaluate properly; implying a student gets marks correctly. No gain no loss for the student. Marks worth effort. Now suppose the examiner has to evaluate 500 papers. She might not give the sufficient time that a proper evaluation of an answer script requires. So, not to get any complains from students she would try to please all students by giving more than what they deserve. As a result the we may see grade inflation. This is also same for TAs.