Employers don’t view GPA as carrying a lot of weighta as much as job seekers do. A survey by Future Workplace, a research firm dedicated to rethinking and re-imagining the workplace, and Beyond, The Career Network, showed only 6 percent of employers put a high weight on your GPA when recruiting. They view something else as far more important.

A larger portion of job seekers (12%) on the other hand believe that GPA carries a lot of weight. It is perhaps in this light that some students put a lot more in their academic work than any other sphere of their years on campus. Here’s what employers believe.

Companies put more emphasis on cultural fit (24%) than job seekers do (15%) when recruiting. While job seekers (23%) and employers (24%) agree that internship experience carries the most weight for students when seeking jobs, employers don’t view GPA as carrying a lot of weight (6%) as much as job seekers do (12%).

About twice as many job-seekers as HR professionals thought university GPA was important, and while hiring managers said cultural fit is a big consideration for them, a much smaller number of workers ranked this as a top priority.

These findings should inform students to actively take part in internships, while they are still students, on holidays. At least once a year and twice in your four years of university education, you should look for opportunities to experience what it is like to work. To do what you expect to do when you graduate.

In Ghana, it’s a bit easier to get internships when you properly introduce yourself with a letter from your faculty. Internships usually last for not more than three months. But this short period is long enough to equip you with the right attitude, behaviour and corporate manners and also properly orient you towards your future working life.

Employers are glad to pick someone with relevant ‘experience’ in the corporate world than one with just a high GPA. The cultural fit is preferred to a high GPA.