A company's decision to hire an employee is important, and requires a thorough assessment of a candidate's skills and fit with your organization. Our offer policy was created in the spirit of respecting employers’ timelines and hiring needs, while providing Harris candidates with sufficient time to consider offers of employment. From a Harris candidate's perspective, the decision to accept an offer requires a great deal of thought as they assess fit with the organization, balance personal goals, and evaluate other employment opportunities.

Our goal through this policy is to minimize incidents of reneging (pursuing and accepting an employment offer after accepting another offer) and maximize the satisfaction for both employers and Harris candidates with each career opportunity.  

Harris Career Development Office Policies

To balance the needs of both parties, the Harris Career Development Office has established the following policies.

Full-Time Interviews and Offers:

  • Harris has no restrictions on when firms can host full-time interviews. Our candidates are ready and we encourage networking and interviews prior to the start of the second year.

  • All firms must offer students a choice of at least two second round interview dates.

  • You may extend full-time offers to Harris candidates at any time. Offers extended in the summer or fall must remain open until December 1.

  • For full-time offers extended after December 1, we ask that students be given at least 30 days to make a decision.

Internship Interviews and Offers:

  • We ask that no internship interviewing take place on or off campus before the start of the Autumn Quarter. For the 2023-24 academic year, first-year interviews start on October 1, 2023.

  • All firms must offer candidates a choice of at least two second round interview dates.

  • You may extend internship offers to Harris candidates anytime on or after October 16, 2023. 

  • No interviews shall take place during final exams (December 4-8, 2023).

  • For internship offers during a campus recruiting time frame, we ask that students be given at least three weeks to make a decision.  

  • For summer interns, as the summer approaches, response times can be legitimately shortened, but we ask employers to continue to give students adequate time to truly consider a decision. Issuing offers that explode without a reasonable consideration period violates the spirit and intent of this policy.

Any exceptions to this policy require consultation with our Employer Partnership team. Please contact your employer partnership manager or email us at HarrisCDO@uchicago.edu if you would like to discuss early interviews. 

Decision Timeline

For both the full-time and internship process, we ask that employers making offers to Harris candidates extend a reasonable amount of time to make a decision. If the amount of time is not considered sufficient for a candidate to make a decision, the candidate should communicate to the company how much time is required and why the time is needed.

We ask you to consider such requests seriously, so that candidates are able to make sound decisions to set both parties up for success. When asked by either the candidate or the company, we will attempt to facilitate this negotiation and find a mutually agreed upon time frame.