If you have read the news lately from Business Week or Inside Higher Ed, you may have noticed that the GMAT is now popping up on corporate recruiters’ checklists for job applicants as well as for many top consulting, finance, and banking firms as a measure of job potential.

So how should you wrap your mind around this information?

First, this may be a relatively unknown fact for you as a business school applicant taking the GMAT.  You may not even be thinking about a job as you just want to make sure you get those tricky data sufficiency questions correct (business school first).  Current MBA students in the thick of the job search may know that this may be the case for them.

Of course, your GMAT score is a big factor for admissions to MBA programs, but now you have to consider your score as having more influence than you once thought.

With the current economic climate, a few big questions may now come up as the consequences of a low score may stay with you longer:

1. How should I prepare for the GMAT?
2. Should I retake the test if my score is lower than I expected?

I am not a big believer that GMAT scores are the most reliable measure of academic or job success, but if that is what job recruiters are considering now, you may have to play that game.  So what would your resume look like with the added weight of your test scores?  If it may drop you a notch then the answer is simple: You take it again. If it elevates you, shout it off the mountain tops as this is a potential way to build your resume.  For example, I took the GRE as well as the GMAT.  If test scores could help me get my dream job, I would list my 98% percentile GRE score.

Now take this with a grain of salt as many companies still believe the GMAT score shows little correlation with their employee performance within the company.  In addition, the GMAC (Graduate Management Admission Council) has never claimed that it is a valid tool for employers.  So what should you do about this?  I say just keep it in the back of your mind as you go through this process and err on the side of committing more to the GMAT if you can  – especially while you are in it because who wants to retake the GMAT after business school?