EDIT: I have submitted my grades to the CEO. My rationale is that if the failures on my transcript give the CEO pause, then perhaps he is placing value in the wrong places. So either he sees the progress I've made as a positive, or he sees the failures as a negative in which case I don't think our values align and I would not be interested in the position.
I'm a PhD student in statistics. I recently got a meeting with the CEO of a startup in my city for a business/data analyst position. The CEO has asked for my transcripts to review my classes and grades.
Personally, I'd prefer not to. I have not taken classes in two years, and even though my marks are good I've done so much more outside of school that I would rather let that speak to my experience and abilities which includes:
Work experience in data science and internships at major banks.
Major contributions to open source software for which I have won awards.
Interesting side projects which I have published.
My grades unfortunately include a couple of failed classes taken many years ago in subjects that are related to the position but have been superseded by my PhD studies (e.g. I failed basic statistics years ago but have since been using much higher level statistics as part of the PhD studies.)
I just don't think my grades are relevant at this point. How should I respond?
