Job Offer and Acceptance Guidelines

BACKGROUND

As one of the top public HBCU’s, Delaware State University continues to attract top employers to recruit its students. With the increasing number of employers recruiting our students, the competition for our students is growing and thus employers and students are doing whatever they can to gain a competitive edge. As a result, Delaware State University seeks to minimize activity detrimental to students, employers, and ultimately the university as a whole. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Principles for Professional Practice, both students and employers must adhere to a fair and ethical recruiting process, and abide by the guidelines set forth by the university’s Career Center. As a member of NACE, the Delaware State University Office of Career Services adopts these principles and supports the following guidelines.

NACE Principles for Professional Practice

Principles for Career Services Professionals, which are hereby adopted:

Principle 10. Career services professionals will advise students about their obligations in the recruitment process and establish mechanisms to encourage their compliance. Students’ obligations include providing truthful and accurate information; adhering to schedules; accepting an offer of employment in good faith; notifying employers on a timely basis of an acceptance or non‐acceptance and withdrawing from the recruiting process after accepting an offer of employment; interviewing only with employers for whom students are interested in working and whose qualifications requirements they meet; and requesting reimbursement of only reasonable and legitimate expenses incurred in the recruitment process.

Principle 13. Career services professionals will also promote and encourage acceptance of these principles throughout their educational institution, particularly with faculty and staff who work directly with employers, and will respond to reports of noncompliance.

Principles for Employment Professionals, which are hereby adopted:

Principle 1. Employment professionals will refrain from any practice that improperly influences and affects acceptances. Such practices may include undue time pressure for acceptance of offers and encouragement of revocation of another offer. Employment professionals will strive to communicate decisions to candidates within the agreed‐upon timeframe.

Principle 2. Employment professionals will have knowledge of the recruitment and career development field as well as the industry and the employing organization that they represent, and work within a framework of professionally accepted recruiting, interviewing, and selection techniques.

Principle 10. When employment professionals conduct recruitment activities through student associations or academic departments, such activities will be conducted in accordance with the policies of the Office of Career Services.

Principle 11. Employment professionals will cooperate with the policies and procedures of the career services office, including certification of EEO compliance as well as compliance with all federal and state employment regulations.

Principle 13. Employment professionals will honor scheduling arrangements and recruitment commitments. Recruitment Guidelines & Policies for Delaware State University’s Career Center Job Offer Policy and Guidelines for Employers Delaware State University subscribes to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Principles for Professional Practice for all recruiting practices. The following deadlines are requested of employers recruiting Delaware State University students and alumni in order to promote a fair and ethical recruiting process:

Offers made during academic year: Employers must give students a minimum of two weeks to accept an offer. Offers made to current summer interns: Employers must give students until the first day of November to make a decision. Additional time may be requested by the student and granted at the discretion of the employer.

If an employer foresees a challenge with the deadlines, we ask that the employer contact a representative of the Career Team or a member of the DSU academic college prior to the recruitment process. Employers that ignore these guidelines will be subject to our offense policy.

Exploding Offers

The Delaware State University Career Center defines exploding offer as any offer that does not conform with the offer guidelines listed above. Students should not be pressured to accept offers and/or any special diminishing incentives (i.e. tiered or expiring bonuses, reduced options for internship placement or location preference, etc.) sooner than the aforementioned timeframes, and doing so is a violation of the NACE Principles for Professional Practice. Additionally, undue pressure to accept offers increases the risk that students will renege. While we discourage this activity from students, and have consequences for poor practice, undue pressure and violations of the above timeframes significantly increases the likelihood of student reneges despite efforts made by the Career Services and academic colleges.