WSJ: More Employers Are Asking Job Seekers for SAT Scores

More Employers Are Asking Job Seekers for SAT Scores

By KEMBA J. DUNHAM
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


Donna Chan is 23 years old and has been out of college since May 2002, when
she graduated from Wagner College on New York's Staten Island. So should
anyone care how she did way back in high school on her SATs?

Apparently some people do. Since Ms. Chan started looking for an entry-level
job in financial services more than a year ago, she has repeatedly stumbled
over a common requirement for many of these positions: a combined SAT score
of at least 1300 out of a maximum 1600. Ms. Chan's combined score on the
math and verbal tests fell "somewhere in the 1200s," even though she earned
a 3.9 grade-point average in college while getting a degree in computer
science with a minor in math.

"I think it's asking a bit much," gripes Ms. Chan, who is currently working
as a part-time paralegal on Staten Island. "That's something high school
kids have to worry about. After four years of working hard, I think you've
paid your dues, and unless you're applying to Princeton Review or some
math-related, analytical job, I don't see the relevance."

The SATs, usually taken by high-school juniors and seniors and once used
solely as a criterion for college admission, are now following many people
through college and into the workplace as a defining performance measure. A
certain cadre of companies that hire large numbers of fresh college
graduates have long asked about SAT scores, but many other large employers
took up the habit in recent years because of the dismal job market. With
thousands of resumes flooding in for even a single open position these days,
employers see the scores as one more way to differentiate among applicants.

And most employers who ask about the SAT say they want someone whose scores
are well above the national average. According to the New York-based College
Board, the association that administers the SAT, the 1.4 million SAT takers
in the class of 2003 earned average scores of 519 on the math portion of the
test and 507 on the verbal section, for a total of 1026. The math average is
the highest in more than 35 years, meaning that those who are applying for
jobs right now on average scored lower.

A number of ads placed by recruiters and staffing firms set clear SAT goals.
Consider this recent ad on HotJobs.com for an entry-level,
investment-banking position: "Minimum expectations include an overall score
of 1350 on the SATs....You will be required to provide official scores and
transcripts, so please do not respond if you do not meet the aforementioned
requirements."

Alan Sage, a vice president at Configuresoft Inc., a Woodland Park, Colo.,
systems-management software company, says he routinely asks applicants to
submit their SAT scores when they apply for sales jobs. He says he picked up
the practice from a former employer of his who wanted applicants to have no
less than a combined SAT score of 1400.

Mr. Sage sets his bar somewhat lower, at 1200, but says he nonetheless sees
the test as a good indicator of future success. "In my experience, people
with high SAT scores tend to do better," he says, adding that his mother
recently reminded him that he scored somewhere in the 1200s. "We wouldn't
exclude someone from an interview if he or she didn't score high," he adds.

While Mr. Sage says he has always asked to see SAT scores, he admits that he
was far more flexible when Configuresoft was first launched in the boom days
of 1999. With his sales team experiencing lots of turnover, he says, he had
to "beg marginal people" to come work for the company.

Mr. Sage says he also places the SAT requirement in ads to see whether
applicants are paying attention to details. When he placed an ad for an
account-manager position on an online job board earlier this month, he
received hundreds of resumes. But fewer than 10% of respondents bothered to
include their scores. Those who did, he adds, scored at least a 1200.

Some are critical of the trend. Seppy Basili, vice president of Kaplan Inc.,
a test-preparation company, says that over the past six months he has been
hearing anecdotally that more companies are asking applicants to submit SAT
scores. He feels that in general, SAT scores in these cases are being used
for the wrong reasons.

"It's such a maligned instrument," says Mr. Basili. "It's not designed to
measure job performance, and the kind of person who performs well on the
SATs is not necessarily the kind of person who will perform well sitting at
their desks."

Morgan Denny, a partner in a New York search firm specializing in financial
services, says he has several clients who only want to see candidates who
reached a certain SAT threshold, even if they have been out of high school
for 10 years. Because he realizes that some people are bad test takers, he
continues to show clients candidates who don't meet the criteria but have
other qualifications, he says.

"The SAT is an annoyance for us and an annoyance for our candidates; we
believe there should be a balance," Mr. Denny says. He adds that he'll often
collect comments and information from candidates who don't meet the SAT
criteria so that his clients will consider the candidate and reconsider
their SAT threshold.

Some employers say they have no interest in seeing the SAT scores of
applicants. The Jewish Employment and Vocational Service, a nonprofit
social-services agency in Philadelphia, is looking for an educational
testing consultant to provide test preparation for the SATs, among other
tests, mainly to low-income youth. But Kristen Rantanen, the director of
communications and public relations for the organization, says that an SAT
score "is nothing we would ever ask or require of a candidate."

Kristin Carnahan, a College Board spokeswoman, says the organization has no
way to confirm whether more companies are using the SAT because it typically
sends scores directly to colleges, not to employers. But she says that it
makes more sense for employers to base their decisions on grades, a more
recent measure of a person's abilities. "There seem to be so many other
measures that would be relevant for employers to use," she adds.

Copyright 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

I've never had an employer ask me for my SAT score. However, I did
extremely well on the same. I scored the highest on the SAT score
along with a girl at my high school, Highland Park, in Dallas, which
is one of the best high schools in the USA.I scroed amongst the
highest 2% of those who took the test. The extremely high SAT score
allowed me both to gain entrance to the University of Texas at Austin
and into MENSA, the organization for people with high I.Q.'s.