Users Guide to the Principles for Professional Conduct
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Principles for Career Services Professionals
10. Advising students of their obligations in the recruiting process
"Career services professionals will advise students about their obligations in the recruitment process and establish mechanisms to encourage their compliance. Students' obligations include providing accurate information; adhering to schedules; accepting an offer of employment in good faith; notifying employers on a timely basis of an acceptance or nonacceptance 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 eligibility requirements they meet; and requesting reimbursement of only reasonable and legitimate expenses incurred in the recruitment process."
(Intent / Rationale / Scenario / Resolution / Resources)Students should act according to the same principles of honesty and fair play to which employers and career services professionals are held. Career services professionals are expected to educate students about this responsibility and enforce it when necessary.
Career services professionals have an ethical responsibility to ensure that the recruiting process is fair and equitable to candidates and employing organizations. Student obligations and ethical behavior in the recruiting process are important to members of our profession. However, the Principles document cannot establish direct standards that can be monitored or enforced by NACE, as students are not members of the organization, nor are they a party in the Principles document. Rather, student behavior is best monitored by the institution. The career services professional must instruct students in their obligations and develop mechanisms within the institution for encouraging compliance. The career service professional can develop compliance mechanisms including instruction, reward, and/or punitive vehicles.
Scenario A: The career services office becomes aware that a student has been signing up for interviews and then not showing up for the interview. Career services feels restricted because the student is the son of the dean of students.
Resolution A: This activity clearly does not support a recruitment process that is fair and equitable to both students and employers. Most interview schedules are limited in number, and a time slot has been reserved by this student. By not showing up for the interview, the student prevents another student from interviewing, keeps the employer from seeing other interested candidates, and wastes a significant amount of the employer’s time. Moreover this activity could seriously jeopardize a school’s relationship with an employer. The career services office must consult with the student and, if need be, his father, the dean, regarding the impact that this behavior has on the process and the reputation of the school. If the conduct of the student is improperly affecting other students, and neither the student nor the dean are willing to change the behavior, then career services may have to raise this issue with another level of the school hierarchy.
All students should be advised that if an unforeseeable event prevents him/her from appearing for an interview, the student should notify the career center or the employer at the earliest possible moment. Appropriate counseling by the career center staff should impress upon the student the importance of keeping his/her interview appointments.
A career services office that has a student who habitually fails to keep interview appointments could restrict the student from further participation in the on-campus recruiting process. All career services centers should develop and post a strictly enforced policy regarding students' obligations in the recruiting process.
Scenario B: A student reneges on a job offer or continues signing up for interviews after accepting a job offer.
Resolution B: Once the student has accepted employment, the student must live with that commitment and withdraw from the recruiting process. The student should notify career services and all other employers with whom he/she is a potential candidate for employment that he/she has accepted an offer for employment. This enables the employer to then consider alternative candidates for positions with their organizations and eliminate the possibility of the employer being left with positions to fill and no remaining viable candidates for consideration.
While an offer of employment should be given with the full intention of being honored, it is very possible that an employer may give several offers of employment based on certain criteria and later find that he/she must withdraw the offers (e.g., due to downsizing, non-awarded contracts, etc.). A student may have several offers and continue interviewing until an employment offer is accepted.
"Acceptance" is the key word in this scenario. The responsibility of career services in this scenario is to revoke the student’s recruiting privileges once the student has accepted employment. Employers are responsible for letting students know when they are no longer being considered as viable candidates for employment. A student who wants to begin recruiting again must immediately notify the employer, and withdraw his/her acceptance. If the student has accepted a signing bonus, the bonus must be returned.
Kaplan, Rochelle. "A Legal Look at Offers and Acceptances." Spotlight, May 3, 1999.
Kaplan, Rochelle. "Playing the Hiring Game: The Ethics of Offers and Acceptances." Journal of Career Planning & Employment, Winter 1998.
NACE Principles for Professional Conduct Committee. "Exploding Offers." Spotlight, October 15, 1999.
NACE Principles for Professional Conduct Committee. "Playing Fair." Job Choices 2002.
Principle 11. Advising
international students
