A message circulated by the Career Development Center (CDC) of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) has reportedly sparked heated discussions on social media, advising students to remove JEE and GATE ranks, marks, marks and percentiles from their resumes ahead of the upcoming internship and internship season.The recommendation is said to be based on guidelines issued by the All Individual Income Tax Placement Committee (AIPC), which said the move is an “important compliance requirement” to maintain uniformity in personal income tax. While some welcomed the reported decision as a step towards fairer, skills-based recruitment, others argued that students should be free to showcase their achievements over years of hard work.What is the advisory content of the report?According to the news widely circulated on the Internet, students are asked not to include JEE Rank, GATE Rank, marks, scores, percentiles or similar exam rank details in their resumes.The reported communications are as follows:“Dear classmates,Greetings from the Centers for Disease Control and PreventionAs per the guidelines issued by the IIT Placement Council (AIPC), students are advised not to include JEE rank, GATE rank, marks, marks, percentiles or similar exam rank details in their resume/CVS.All IITs are expected to adhere to these guidelines to maintain consistency in the upcoming placement and internship cycles. Students are therefore requested to check their resumes and ensure that such details are removed before submitting them for participation in any internship or internship-related activities.Please consider this an important compliance requirement and update your resume accordingly.If you need any clarification, please contact the CDC team through your respective student coordinator. “The authenticity of this message has not been independently verified Tuoyi Educationas of this writing, the AIPC has yet to make a formal public statement on the matter.Viral X posts questioning the moveThe discussion gained traction after X user Garvit Sethi (@garvit_sethii) shared the reported recommendations and questioned the rationale behind them.He wrote in the post: “IITs tell students to delete JEE rank, GATE rank, percentile and marks from resume in the name of ‘unity’.Why hide hard-earned achievements? If a student has worked hard for years to achieve top rankings, then this achievement is part of their merit and profile.Placement should reward ability, not suppress evidence of ability. Consistency should not come at the expense of transparency.General category students should oppose this move and demand freedom to showcase their academic achievements. Merit deserves recognition, not scrutiny! “The post quickly attracted thousands of views and prompted users to express widely differing opinions.Social media divided on ‘unity’ and ‘merit’Many users have questioned why admission test scores should be omitted from resumes in institutions where admissions are inherently based on competitive exams.One user, Soumyadeep P. (@investwithpaul), wrote: “Why should one of the most competitive universities in the country be ‘unified’ after passing one of the most competitive exams? ‘Unification’ is nonsense.And they won’t succeed in what they’re trying to achieve. Good companies and recruiters are not stupid. The skill differences between people they are trying to hide will be clearly visible in GPAs, recruiting online assessments, interviews, etc. “Another user, someone somewhere (@thakursameers) argued: “It makes absolutely no sense. You earned your points through sheer hard work and no one can take away your right to display it with pride.”Similarly, Rajarshi Guha (@onlyrajarshi) said: “Ranks and percentiles are one of the achievements of students and it is not right to remove them.”However, some users believe that the reported guidelines are not unusual and do not adversely affect placements.IIT alumnus Samar Singh (@samarknowsit) said: “I graduated from IIT in 2003 and we didn’t include all this nonsense then, companies had this information anyway.”Another user, logic Thoughts (@theabhinavkumar), echoed similar sentiments: “Usually companies test on their own merit, same in my MBA college, so nothing new. It helps in college placement. If you perform well, you will stand out no matter what. Life is not just about grabbing books and getting grades. You now need words to prove it. “Some users also believe that resumes should highlight current skills rather than past test scores. One post read: “Judge me by what I accomplished in college, not my grades in school. The real merit is who you are today, not who you were at seventeen.”Others saw the reported move as a way to make resumes more relevant.As user Sitabhra Ghosh (@SitabhraG) said: b “Wouldn’t this improve the resume? Like just mentioning the skills required for the job? Or am I spotting something wrong?”Meanwhile, the debate has also turned to a wider discussion around performance, booking policies and recruitment practices, with some users expressing contrasting and strongly worded views.Now, the report has reignited an old question that comes up every career season: Should recruiters evaluate students primarily based on entrance exam performance, or should resumes focus on skills, projects, internships and accomplishments gained during college? Pending official clarification, discussions on social media continued to heat up.
