UNL has instated a new policy meant to help both students and employers find fairness in the job/internship offer timeline. This policy applies to both City and Scott Campus College of Engineering students. See the current policy at the link below.
In the past several years, we have seen an increase in the number of employers providing students with unreasonable deadlines to decide on an internship or job offer. This practice does not allow students time to evaluate offers fully or participate in fall recruitment events, such as career fairs, if the deadlines are too early in the term (or even at the end of a summer internship).
In response, the College of Business Career Center, Actuarial Science Department & Club, the College of Engineering, and the University Career Services Coordinating Board collaborated to develop and implement new university-wide Job/Internship Offer Guidelines. These guidelines standardize the amount of time employers should grant students to decide on an internship or job offer and sets the expectation that students should only accept offers when they intend to follow through.
The goal is to protect students from aggressive job offer practices and to protect employers from job acceptance withdrawals (known as “reneging”). These guidelines also put us in line with our Big 10+ and national peers, as well as national professional association recommendations.
While we hope employers will follow these guidelines, they are simply guidelines that will not and cannot be strictly enforced. We do hope to encourage employers who have contradictory practices to adjust their terms in order to find mutual benefit for them and our students.
See the current policy at the link below.
If you are experiencing a job offer dilemma, contact your respective campus career coach (Bonnie Martin or Lark Bear). If you know of employers practicing some of these challenging job offer methods, please contact Jen Skidmore, director of student development, at jenskidmore@unl.edu.
More details at: http://careers.unl.edu/emppolicies