Counselling a developing economy kid with a sub-premium GPA, who wants to know if it matters or not, having had difficult interviews

Part 1

1. CGPA is useful if you want brand-name jobs.

2. CGPA is ONLY useful if you want brand-name jobs.

3. If your strategy has never been to get a brand-name job, you never had to worry about CGPA.

4. Now that you don't have a brandname-quality CGPA, align your expectations and don't spend too much time shooting for brand-sensitive employers.

5. A lot of lucractive businesses are not about the flashy branding.

\\ Subject could not figure out via Google, what "brand-name" should refer to \\

Part 2

Let's first establish the lay of the land.

1. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/upper-class.asp

Next, 

2. Google "top brand investment bank" and "top brand management consulting"

...  these are the most competitive, and it's not that they want to dulan poor people, it's just that a lot of poor people are trying to get in the door, and they really need to filter, otherwise they can't maintain a percentile population distinction and charge their customers 99 percentile fees.

3.

https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/faq/how-important-is-gpa-to-getting-finance-jobs

https://www.quora.com/How-important-is-GPA-if-I-want-to-work-as-a-management-consultant-at-McKinsey-Bain-Co-Strategy-or-BCG?

Mitigation is addressed in 3., more here :

4.

https://mergersandinquisitions.com/low-gpa-investment-banking/

https://www.wallstreetprep.com/knowledge/how-to-address-low-gpa-in-an-investment-banking-interview/

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-apply-for-wall-street-internship-2015-10

https://www.myconsultingoffer.org/cover-letter/bcg-gpa-cutoff/

5.
At the end, you want to ask how competitive you seek to be. Fresh graduate earning RM1.5k or RM15k? Late 20s, making RM5k, or RM50k? Mid-career making RM10k, or RM400k (a month!!)?

It's a big field. Know your game.