[cmccuist]

It depends on the company. For instance, in engineering, if you're applying to say Bechtel, or Flour, or KBR and they're looking to staff a huge, multi-billion dollar project, as long as you have a degree and a pulse, they'll stick you in a cubicle and pay you to crank out calcs or drawings or whatever. They need bodies and you're just a cog in the gear, a spoke in the wheel.

If it's a small engineering firm that doesn't hire too many engineers and is looking for a particular skill set, that stuff matters!! The small firm can't afford to make a mistake.