Employer Policies

These policies have been carefully designed with the students' best interests in mind and are based on years of recruiting experience and students' feedback about their concerns.

Learn more about Policies for Students

Employer Policies on Making Employment Offers

The recruiting process includes several important decisions for both the employer and students. Both parties require time for making decisions as the process moves forward. Employers need time to meet and interview candidates, assess candidates’ skills and organizational fit and students need time to assess how the offer fits with their personal goals and compares to other employment offers.

At Fisher Career Management, we recognize we have two sets of customers. We do our best to give employers access to qualified students, time to make selections and we facilitate scheduling interviews. We also do our best to inform students about their internship or career search and try to insure students have the time they need to evaluate their employment options. Therefore we ask our employers to communicate hiring timelines and employment offer decisions within a time frame that gives students the time they need to evaluate those offers.

Consequences to Students for Reneging on Job Offers

The Office of Career Management, if notified by a company that a Fisher student has reneged, requires the student to meet with a staff member to discuss the situation. Possible consequences to the student can range from loss of access to Handshake, to being reported to the University Committee on Student Misconduct as a violator of the OSU Code of Student Conduct. However, if a student reneges on an offer whose deadline did not adhere to the stated timelines, and/or were not given an offer decision extension that adheres to the stated timelines, the Office of Career Management will not proactively pursue action against the student.

Policies for Making Offers to Undergraduate Students

Early Offers: 

For students who receive offers for internships or full-time positions before the start of the next academic year, the offer should remain open until October 1 preceding the summer internship or full-time start date.

Examples:

1. A student participates in a summer leadership or internship program after their freshman/sophomore year and receives an internship offer for the following summer – that offer should remain open until October 1
2. An employer extends a full-time offer to a student (to start after graduation) during their junior year, that offer should remain open until October 1 of the student’s senior year

Internship to Full-Time Offers:

For students receiving a full-time offer after an internship, the offer should remain open for a minimum of 4 weeks from the date of the written offer or until November 1, whichever comes later.

Fall recruiting: 

For students receiving offers for internships or full-time positions during the fall recruiting season (that are not “early offers”), the offer should remain open for a minimum of 4 weeks from the date of the written offer, or until November 1, whichever comes later.

Spring recruiting: 

For students who receive offers during the spring recruiting season (that are not “early offers”) up until April 15, the offers should remain open for a minimum of 3 weeks from the date of the written offer.

All offers must be made in writing: 

Written offers can be in electronic or hard copy form. The start of the offer decision timeline is determined by the date of the written offer letter.

We recommend that employers do not place unnecessary pressure on students to accept a job or internship offer. 

Fisher prohibits exploding offers, defined as offers that require students to decide within a very short amount of time or face having the offers rescinded. These offers put a great deal of pressure on students to make a decision before they have completed the interviewing process. These recommendations are supported by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Second round interviews: 

We recommend that employers provide multiple options for second-round, off-site interviews, so that students are not put at a disadvantage when prioritizing and managing class requirements and campus activities.

Policies for Making Offers to Graduate Students

Graduate Student Summer Internship Offers:

We recommend that you allow graduate students until February 15th as the earliest date for accepting any summer internship offer. The decision of where to complete an internship is very important and we are hopeful you concur that giving students ample time to make these decisions beyond their first semester is of mutual benefit. In situations where students are sure of their decisions, we will certainly encourage them to accept summer internship offers as soon as possible.

Fall recruiting:

For students receiving offers for full-time positions during the fall recruiting season, the offer should remain open for a minimum of 4 weeks from the date of the written offer, or until November 1, whichever comes later.

Spring recruiting: 

For students who receive offers for full-time positions during the spring recruiting season, the offers should remain open for 4 weeks from the date of the written offer, or until April 15, whichever comes later.

All offers must be made in writing: 

Written offers can be in electronic or hard copy form. The start of the offer decision timeline is determined by the date of the written offer letter.

We recommend that employers do not place unnecessary pressure on students to accept a job or internship offer. 

Fisher prohibits exploding offers, defined as offers that require students to decide within a very short amount of time or face having the offers rescinded. These offers put a great deal of pressure on students to make a decision before they have completed the interviewing process. These recommendations are supported by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Second round interviews: 

We recommend that employers provide multiple options for second-round, off-site interviews, so that students are not put at a disadvantage when prioritizing and managing class requirements and campus activities.

Requirements to Register with Handshake

The following are basic requirements all employers must meet for activation of a Handshake account:

Handshake requires you to have an email address associated with your employer/organization website domain (no Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc). Individual contact names and email addresses should match whenever appropriate. Handshake uses your company email domain to connect your account with your company's Handshake account.

A functioning website that clearly relates to your employer/organization and contains helpful information about your company for the potential applicant; website should not be in a pre-launch/beta phase nor contain "coming soon" language. Social media websites (Facebook pages, blogs, Twitter feeds, etc.) cannot take the place of a company website.

An employer/organization address that is easily identifiable as a place of business. Addresses should not be a contact's personal residence.

Job Postings which will Not Be Approved for Handshake

The following types of positions are not accepted for posting by Handshake:

• In-home childcare, nanny or tutoring positions
• Positions or programs that charge a fee to participate
• Employment outside the United States posted by a third-party recruiter

Policy for Multi-Level Marketing Companies

Multilevel marketing plans, also known as “network”, “matrix”, or “pyramid” marketing, are a way of selling goods or services through distributors. These plans typically promise that if you sign-up as a distributor, you will receive commissions — for both your sales of the plan’s goods or services and those of other people you recruit to join the distributors. Multilevel marketing plans usually promise to pay commissions through two or more levels of recruits, known as the distributor’s “downline.”

It is not deemed appropriate use of Fisher College of Business resources to support multilevel marketing companies. Cooperation with such entities, therefore, will be minimized and carefully controlled. Services will not be extended for the use of Fisher College of Business facilities to meet with candidates, access to resumes, or participation in Fisher College of Business sponsored job/career fairs.

*Select portions taken from “The Bottom Line About Multilevel Marketing Plans” published by the Federal Trade Commission.

Policy on Working with Third Party Recruiters

For-profit employment services, also referred to as third-party recruiters, are defined as those agencies, organizations, or individuals seeking candidates for employment opportunities other than for their own needs. [See specific definitions below]

Third Party Recruiters will not be given access to resume search tools.

Third Party Recruiters are given access to register with the Office of Career Management to post employment opportunities and collect resumes from interested Fisher students/ alumni, to participate in on-campus recruiting and to register for the Office of Career Management’s job/career fairs.

When recruiting through the Office of Career Management, certain information is required to serve agencies and candidates in an appropriate fashion. This includes self-identification of the company as a third party recruiter and identification of the company for which they are recruiting, whenever possible.

Definitions of Third Party Recruiters

Employment Agencies

Entities which list positions for a number of employers and receive payment when a candidate they have referred is hired. Payment is made either by the employer with the opening or by the candidate hired.

Temporary Agencies

Entities which contract with a client employer to provide individuals qualified to perform a specific task or complete a project for the employer. Assignments typically last from two weeks to a year.

Search Firm

Entities which contract with a client to find and screen highly-qualified persons to fill a specific position. The fee for this service is paid by the client employer.

Employer Interview Policy

Reserving Interview Space

Recruiters are welcome to reserve interview rooms at Fisher for "Room Only" reservations. Employers and their recruiters must have an active Handshake account and either post their job/internship with a schedule through Handshake, or provide our office with a copy of the interview schedule before the interview date.

Last Minute Interview Cancellations

We consider a cancellation of an interview schedule “last minute” when an employer cancels after the time period for candidates to schedule interviews has expired. This is typically within 48 hours of the scheduled interview date.

Process for Cancellations

The Office of Career Management is responsible for changing the status of the schedule to inactive, adding SCHEDULE CANCELLED to the job title, and informing selected and scheduled students via email that the interviews have been cancelled.

It is highly recommended for employers to send an email message to selected and scheduled students explaining why the schedule was cancelled and apologizing when appropriate. Sending this message is simply a good, professional business practice.