@Allure 9 but PhD GPA doesn't strike me as a good metric for the PhD's ability to do research. I have read some forums that say higher PhD GPAs correlate with inferior research abilities. However, I don't know if that is true or not.

What you think doesn't matter, it's what the recruiter believes that matters. If you make it to the interview stage and they ask you about your GPA, then you can argue it's not representative of your research ability. As for a negative correlation between GPA and research ability, I find it hard to believe, and think it's pretty obvious that higher GPAs are always good and never bad.

I wouldn't read too much into it. The recruiter is the one out there contacting candidates, and they are not going to assign someone with more technical expertise to that role. The recruiter may not have gotten feedback that GPA is not a key metric in decision-making at this level. (I am assuming this is a recruiter working for the hiring company, not a more freelance recruiter. If the latter, I agree with sevensevens that you may want to avoid that recruiter.)

Some companies have GPA requirements. So it goes.

You should be clear on whether this person is an actual hiring manager, someone who works in the human resources department at a corporation, or a so-called "head hunter" who finds applicants for employers in exchange for a commission. You probably want nothing to do with the head hunters but might want to talk to a representative from HR and certainly should talk to an actual hiring manager.

If someone asked for my grad school GPA I'd say "I never bothered to calculate it. Classes and grades were only a distraction from research. Let me tell you about my research."

What field are you in? At least for biological sciences at universities I am familiar with, classes are usually only a part of the first year, perhaps one other beyond that (you need a B or higher to pass). After that, you may have up to 12 semesters of a "class" which is just research credit hours where you would get an A by default. Thus, by your 6th year, any low B's you made in your first year would be swamped out and the GPA would be completely meaningless. I can't imagine how it would be of use to anyone.

@Allure high GPA shows you can learn courses enough to score well on tests but it does not say much about creativity or insight or practical research skills or making stuff look nice on papers all which are skills which are good for PhD candidates.

It might be worth adding a country tag (US?) of some sort... what is GPA even supposed to mean? Golf Per Automobile? - As a sensible guess, I may guess "Grade Per Annum"... - And for a PhD, in the UK you have your final result and that is it (even without a grade, it is either pass or fail one awarded) - so that's it at the end. Some countries add (or used to add?) a final grade to a PhD as well (Germany).

@DetlevCM it stands for Grade Point Average I believe.

I didn't even know that there were PhDs with a GPA. I didn't receive grades. I didn't take courses, for that matter.

@astronat Thanks. So my guess was wrong... I didn't google it, because it is not used in Europe, while it seems to be referred to a lot in US-centric questions. - So it should definitely get a "location tag".

To take up DetlevCM's point: could it be a misconception due to the recruiter recently coming from a cultural background where PhDs are graded (yes for Germany ± the usual discussion about grade inflation - but some German faculties at least until recenty even Rigorosum = graded oral exam on one or multiple fields as part of the PhD exam)

Because he's clueless..?

I'm voting to close as off-topic. The question is about the reasoning of somebody outside academia and, frankly, we can't read their mind. If you want to know why somebody did something, ask them.

@cbeleites There must be something lost in translation. German PhDs carry a distinction/Latin honour but they don’t generally have a GPA or anything like it: I’ve never heard of a rigorosum conferring separate grades by topic. A German recruiter would therefore not ask for a PhD GPA.

@KonradRudolph: not a GPA, but grades/marks. Including possibly separate grades for written thesis, rigorosum (possibly separate for the different subjects/fields) and oral defense of the thesis. So my guess was that someone could be mislead extrapolating that PhD coursework GPA would be the US equivalent.

The simplest possible explanation: the recruiter has to fill in a number of database fields for each candidate, and one of these fields is "GPA of highest degree". The form is probably a one-size-fits-all for the company, used for high school graduates and Ph.D.s alike.

At my university, one obtains a grade for the PhD thesis and a grade for the defense (both a number between 1 and 5).