TLDR/Short Summary; UCF does not offer an effective policy for countering “explosive offers” (when employers for internship or full time positions give an incredibly short period of time for candidates to accept the offer). We are proposing steps UCF can take to extend the deadlines for all internship and full time job offers so all UCF students can make the best decision possible for their career.

Dear Career Services and Experiential Learning at UCF:

We, the undersigned students of the University of Central Florida, are reaching out to ask for greater exploding offer protection for internship and full-time offers. This is an incredibly important issue, and one that UCF needs to take a firmer, more student-focused stance on. In this letter, we will outline what exploding offers and exploding offer protection are, why current UCF rules are not addressing this well, and what we propose to resolve this pressing issue.

According to the Orlando-based premier recruiting and staffing agency Crawford Thomas, an “exploding offer” is “when a HR department or manager offers a would-be employee a job, but gives them an incredibly short period of time (24 or 48 hours, usually) to accept it.” An exploding offer serves two purposes: it makes the job feel scarce (driving candidates to accept an offer because someone else may quickly jump on it), and it pushes otherwise disinterested candidates through more rapidly, helping the employer save time, money, and resources. While this may seem like a “good idea” for employers, it backfires easily, for a multitude of reasons. Employee/manager relations begin on a bad foot, employees begin to distrust the company, and exploding offers also damage a company’s name. This is an unacceptable behavior from employers and results in a situation that puts undue, unneeded tension upon an already incredibly stressful process for job-seekers, a process which will quite literally define their future.

To combat such exploding offers, universities across the country have issued strict rules to protect the interests and well-being of students and their futures. Many such universities explicitly forbid employers from making explosive offers. What’s more, is that they give concrete dates and times for companies to ensure students have the due time they need to make the appropriate decision. From the universities we researched, the norm is to give students, for fall internships or full time offers, either two weeks OR anywhere from October 1st to December 1st as the deadline for a decision, whichever comes last. Note: Please see list of over 25 such universities that provide explosive offer protection for their students. This will ensure students have the time they need and are not put under undue pressure.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pIoqhDuHZDDdU0ceSC2F153xYatuPUwrjkBZafyBzJE/edit?usp=sharing

Currently, UCF does have something in place to protect against explosive offers, but it is far from effective. The guideline is below, from UCF’s July 2020 Employer Recruiting Guide:

Exploding job/internship offers are those that are withdrawn if not accepted in a very short time frame. UCF Career Services and Experiential Learning discourages this practice and students should not be pressured to accept offers under such circumstances.

As the guideline states, UCF merely “discourages” explosive offers, yet does not provide any concrete dates or firm rules to employers, so there’s no incentive nor drawback to giving an explosive offer to a UCF student. This has already caused a great amount of stress for UCF students, and can be easily avoided for the good of all by issuing a simple, firm rule for all employers looking to hire from UCF.

With the Fall 2020 recruitment season underway, it is crucial that CSEL at UCF implements university wide offer deadline policies. We request that UCF considers and implements the following policies:

• Full-time and internship written offers extended on or before October 18th should remain open until November 1st or at least two weeks (whichever comes later).
• Full-time and internship written offers extended after October 18th should remain open for at least two weeks.
• Full time and Internship return offers extended as a result of completing a summer internship should remain open until November 1st.

How can these proposed policies help students and UCF as a whole? This is extremely beneficial for students, as it protects us against exploding offers. We won’t feel pressured to accept an offer because of the limited time given to respond, which can end with us reneging on the offers after being accepted. Additionally, prohibiting exploding offers will allow UCF students to compare their offers and negotiate higher salaries, thereby increasing the average salary of students graduating UCF, which would reflect positively on the university. This is beneficial for employers as it ultimately reduces the number of students that end up reneging on their offers. Employers can give offers with confidence knowing there’s a low chance the student will renege.

We sincerely hope the fact-based research and sincere, firm proposals make an impact here at UCF to combat this unnecessary stress. With fall recruiting coming up very soon, now is as good a time as ever to consider and implement these policies.