[jmatt]

I agree. I never put my grades on my resume. It was what I did outside of school and how I interviewed that mattered.

Don't be ashamed of your illness. Be direct, honest and proud that you got a degree at all. You presumably came out of the illness stronger and with a different perspective on life. As someone who also went through illness in the past - there is something to be said about how such illness affects one's character. Use that to your advantage if they ask about your bachelor's degree.

[learner4life]

Did you not put grades when you were graduating out of college? My boss considers it a big no when a recent grad refuses to put grades. I have seen that grades or even degrees do not matter when you claim experience and knowledge. But that seems not to be the case where your masters is a big talking point.

[jmatt]

Did you not put grades when you were graduating out of college?

I think the top recommendations that were made to me about resumes were be specific with your accomplishments, don't lie, play to your strengths and don't have a $%!$ing typo. If you've done anything extraordinary put it on your resume. For instance I was a student senator and had done a lot of mountaineering - that was on my resume. Your job is to sell yourself and standout. So if that means leaving off average or poor grades - that's fine.

Here is my experience coming out of college. My first two jobs were while I was still in school.

My first "real" programming job was doing research on C# and .NET when it was still in beta. I attended OOPSLA that year and met the right people at the right time. Some people from the compilers team offered to keep in contact and I followed up on that to my benefit. I remember one of the guys from the C# compiler team was unemployed when he graduated (previous tech bubble). He wrote a java program to showcase his programming skills and it got him hired at Microsoft on the C# compilers team. Still the "place to be" when he was hired.

My second "real" programming job ended up being my own small business that was momentarily profitable. That was when some friends of mine said I should apply at a startup that they worked at in town. I applied and was hired. I worked there part time and eventually I was making more money doing that than running my business. After I was working full-time they didn't want me to finish my degree because it was getting in the way of work. The lesson there was as soon as your bosses know that they have someone that is competent everything changes.

On paper at the time I don't think there was a chance I would have had anyone choose my resume from a pile and call me up. Luckily I knew a lot of smart programmers that actively recruited me. Most hiring managers will contact you if they have a recommendation and legible resume.

When I interviewed at the startup I was woo'ing them with stories of my small business success more than they were grilling me. I had recently done research for the university and Microsoft in C# and since it was such a new platform I had about as much experience as anyone. When I asked for a salary they offered me $7k over what I asked for. (Ya that was an epic-fail on my part)

My next job was post startup acquisition (no worries I didn't have equity). My degree was a minor point because of all I had accomplished at the startup.

I have a number of friends that have really great traditional resumes. They are now all over the place. If I were looking for a full-time gig I'd start with them. Probably looking to get in on some contract work. Then from there investigate getting hired full-time. I think that is current path to most full-time programming jobs.

[tptacek]

Respectfully, but your boss sucks at hiring. I've never been asked my grades. I've never asked after anyone else's grades. And, when I see grades on people's resumes, the very first thing I think is "this person is very junior". Most pro's don't list their grades.

Just leave the grades off. You will be fine, I promise.

[AmberShah]

"refuses to put grades"

Well, sure when you put it that way it sounds bad. It's extremely common to see resumes without grades (and is often advised by career services for people with low grades). It sounds like your boss cares more about grades than someone who'll do a good job, and then that isn't a good fit for this person anyways.