Last fall, college junior Caleb was offered a summer internship at a mid-sized tech company. It wasn’t his dream job, but in a volatile market for computer engineering majors, it was better than nothing, so he accepted. And then he continued applying to more internships in hopes of landing a better job.
This spring, he got what he wanted: an internship with more interesting work at a more established company than the offer he’d already accepted.But what about the first company that was due to host him in the coming months?
Caleb wrote the company’s recruiter a quick email thanking them for the chance and explaining that he was declining the offer. Before hitting send, he had a friend look over the email to make sure it looked professional. “I didn’t want to come across as rude,” he says.
The reply was brief and angry. The recruiter scolded him for wasting everyone’s time. He was told that the note about his betrayal would go on his “records.” Oh, and could they let him know where he’d be working instead? Caleb didn’t reply.
Broken promises have long been a well-kept secret at college career centers that help students find jobs. The long time between fall hiring and summer start has always led to promises being torn apart. But in recent years, students seem to be breaking promises more easily. This year, 6% of students have broken full-time job offers, nearly double the rate in 2021, according to analytics and research firm Veris Insights.
“We feel like this has become more common over the last couple of cycles,” said Laura Garcia, director of undergraduate career education at Georgia Tech. “We’re seeing more students moving around, accepting a job offer, then turning it down and getting another offer. It’s creating some real challenges in terms of retaining certain employers.”
It’s easy to get angry at students who break promises to employers, but in fact, students know that many companies do the exact same thing to students. In the past two years, they’ve heard about job rescissions from Amazon, Coinbase, and Meta that shocked college seniors. Logistics startup Flexport rescinded job offers three days before new hires were due to start. And a viral TikTok video gave students a front-row seat to the inhumane ways tech companies fire employees. In a world where employers don’t keep their promises to employees, students don’t see anything unethical in breaking their employers’ promises in return.
“Employment freedom is a win-win,” Caleb said. “If you want my loyalty, you should give me a pension.”
Most contract breakers are a case of bad timing. Companies often require students to sign contracts during the academic year, before they’ve finished interviewing all potential employees. But in some cases, students purposely accept multiple offers and squirrel away offers until just before the start date, in case an employer does a last-minute contract breaker. “Students are scared they’re going to lose their jobs,” says Chelsea Shine, senior director of college recruiting research at Veris Insights. “They’re scared they’re going to lose their jobs, so they’re collecting jobs.” Contract breakers aren’t a selfish act; they’re a survival strategy.
As a result, Gen Z has a new appreciation for breaking promises to employers, something that was previously taboo. Some 44% of students surveyed by college job site Handshake said it’s “reasonable” to accept two job offers, up from 35% in 2022. And just 6% say they would never break an offer now, down from 16% in 2019, according to Veris Insights. “It’s pretty common,” says Caleb, who has friends who have broken up internship and full-time job offers. “It’s pretty common.”
The problem is, when students renege on offers, universities pay the price. Big employers, who hate rejection, track each school’s reneging rate and use that rate to decide whether to continue hiring at that school. When seniors renege on offers, sophomores may have fewer employers to choose from. “Keep your word, so no one else gets penalized,” Garcia urges Georgia Tech students.
In her job-hunting presentation, Garcia asks students to imagine it’s April of their senior year, and they get a call from a company that’s hiring them. “Laura, you’re great,” the company says. “But I just met a 4.0 student who’s had two more internships than you, and I’m going to work with her, so I wish you the best of luck.” “Can you imagine how furious you’d be?” Garcia asks her students. If they want others to do the same, they have to play by the rules. “I encourage my students to stop thinking of companies as just institutions,” she says.
Universities are trying to fight the new norms, but there’s not much they can do. Many MBA programs are small enough to police individual students and are taking a hardline stance. Wharton, for example, lists recruiting violations on rejected students’ transcripts and imposes fines of up to $20,000. But the typical penalty for most undergraduates is to deny rejected students access to services like the university’s career fairs and job listings, a minor punishment. In essence, students are rejected because they can avoid punishment.
While employers hate turning down offers, some privately acknowledge they understand why many students turn down offers. “They’re just making a practical decision for themselves, just like employers are,” says a university recruiter for a major manufacturer. “That’s the reality. We both know the politics that go into it.” He acknowledges that if he were advising a young family who accepted a job and then got a better offer from another employer, he’d probably advise them to turn it down.
Still, employers are doing everything they can to stop students from turning down the offer. They stay in regular contact with new hires and look for ways to keep them engaged. They introduce them to mentors before they start, humanizing the company. They encourage students to announce their new job on LinkedIn as soon as they accept the job, as this creates a “social responsibility,” Schein says. And if a student receives a better offer, the company may soften the initial terms and negotiate things like job location or start date to keep the new hire from jumping ship to another company.
But contract abandonment is now so prevalent that employers are building it into their hiring process. For example, recruiters at major manufacturers say their companies offer 10 to 15 percent more than they plan to hire, similar to the way airlines overbook flights in anticipation of some passengers canceling. The practice is widespread among large employers: According to Veris Insights, 59% of companies with large college recruiting programs now overbook to ensure they get nothing when students abandon their contracts.
But not all rejections are equally bad for employers. It’s annoying when a student rejects early in the semester, leaving the company plenty of time to search for other candidates. It’s a real headache when a student rejects in the spring, leaving recruiters scrambling to find a replacement at the last minute. But it’s completely unacceptable when a student doesn’t bother to let the company know they’ve changed their mind, leaving HR overwhelmed with unanswered onboarding calls and emails. “Sometimes they get ghosted,” says a manufacturing recruiter. Schein has also heard stories of students who rejected after receiving signing bonuses and never returned the money. It’s not just whether to reject, but how to reject.
Schein, who also teaches undergraduate studies at Wharton, likens the career decisions her students face to dating. “When you make a commitment to a romantic partner, you want to be with that person,” she says. “But if it’s not the right fit, you owe it to yourself and your growth. I’ve coached my students to break the contract in a way that respects the process and respects the recruiter. They find the right professional home for them, and everyone feels happier.”
Caleb is currently enjoying a summer internship at a company he chose over the first offer he accepted. When it ends in a few weeks, he will begin applying for full-time jobs when he graduates in 2025. He plans to apply to 20-30 companies. He has already done extensive research, looking not only at salary data but also at their reputation as employers and whether they have recently had layoffs. He wants a job that offers job security, a competitive salary, good retirement benefits, and a good start to his career. He says that if he accepts an offer once and then gets a better offer later, he would definitely turn it down again.
“This is my first job,” he says, “and it will determine a lot of the trajectory of my career. It’s not something to play around with.”
Aki Ito is a senior reporter at Business Insider.
