Recruiter’s Guide

Welcome to UC Irvine’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) and thank you for your interest in recruiting graduate students from ICS Professional Programs: Master of Computer Science (MCS), Master of Software Engineering (MSWE), Master of Data Science (MDS) and Master of Human-Computer Interaction and Design (MHCID). We are excited to have this opportunity to become your strategic partner in your search for talented professionals in your organizations.

A primary objective of the ICS Career Development team is to support your organization’s efforts to connect with, recruit and hire MCS, MSWE, MDS and MHCID graduate students. Whether your organization is large and multidimensional, or a start-up with limited or unique talent needs, we look forward to working closely with you to develop a recruiting strategy tailored to meet your organization’s specific needs.

To further these efforts, we invite you to join CODE (Career Opportunities, Development & Events), a web-based portal designed to help you manage your entire recruiting process. You can use CODE to:

Post, track, and store job postings
Search and download resumes
Request recruiting and info session dates

Once you are registered in CODE, please allow 3-5 business days for the ICS Career Development Team to review your information and requests. If you have an urgent hiring need, please contact us at code@ics.uci.edu, and one of our career counselors will be in touch within 24-48 hours.

EMPLOYER GUIDELINES

To make recruiting more efficient and for the ICS Career Development team to better support you, we ask that organizations abide by the following guidelines pertaining to all recruitment activities, including but not limited to: CODE job and internship postings, networking events, and company presentations and information sessions.

The ICS Career Development team adheres to the following guidelines, laws, and regulations for recruitment activities involving MCS, MSWE, MDS and MHCID students, and expects employers to do the same. Employers are expected to abide by all applicable federal, state, and local employment laws, including Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) laws, University of California rules and regulations, and the Principles for Employment Professionals developed by the National Association of College and Employers (NACE). Employers must also maintain the confidentiality of student data as outlined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Please refer to additional details and resources below.

Start-Ups

The ICS Career Development Team uses the criteria below to identify appropriate entrepreneurial employment opportunities for promotion through its services. Start-ups must have progressed significantly in their business development process so that they can:

Provide a company name, business address, website and email address, and identify a principal as the key contact.
Verify that they are not seeking potential partners or investors.
Confirm that they have obtained the necessary business licenses and EIDs as well as sufficient funding, including identifying their funding model and investors, if requested.
Offer positions for pay, not just for equity.
Provide clearly defined organization and position descriptions in CODE.

Those ventures who cannot meet these guidelines may contact the ICS Career Development team at a later stage to discuss access to services.

Employment Agencies & Third-Party Recruiters

The ICS Career Development team works with third parties only under limited circumstances, which are outlined in detail in the ICS Career Development Third-Party Policies statement.

Unpaid / Volunteer Work

The ICS Career Development team does not post (or provide resume referrals) for unpaid internships or employment, except bona fide charitable organizations seeking clearly labeled volunteers, or projects that have been approved by MCS, MSWE, MDS or MHCID that provide experiential learning experiences for students during the programs.

Confidentiality Guidelines

By registering on CODE and submitting resumes and other application materials for opportunities posted on CODE, students provide the ICS Career Development team authorization to release employment materials to those selected prospective employers. Employment professionals must maintain the confidentiality of all student information released to them, regardless of the source, including personal documents, written records/reports, and computer databases. This means there should be no disclosure of student information to another organization without prior written consent of the student, unless necessitated by health and/or safety considerations, in accordance with FERPA.

CODE

To get started, see our CODE Employer Guide to get an overview of CODE and its functions.

Job Postings in CODE

CODE is a web-based portal for publicizing bona fide full-time, part-time, seasonal, and short-term positions, and other recruiting activities and events for small and large businesses, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and on-campus employers. These include post-graduation jobs, internships, and/or project opportunities. Employers are expected to be fully transparent when describing their organizations and posting information on CODE. Job listings should have a start date, starting salary, and an accurate position description of the responsibilities, expectations, and requirements.

The ICS Career Development team will review the employer’s website and each job description for appropriateness. Please allow 3-5 business days for employer registration and/or job listing approvals. Opportunities suitable for ICS undergraduate students and/or other majors will be shared with the relevant career services office on campus and the employer will be referred to the appropriate contact.

The ICS Career Development team reserves the right to refuse service to organizations and/or modify, remove or reject job postings due to any of the following:

Requiring personal information at the time of application, e.g. bank and social security numbers
Misrepresentation, whether defined by dishonest information or absence of information
Fraud
Harassment of UC Irvine students, alumni, staff, or faculty
Breach of confidentiality as required by FERPA
Any violation of University of California rules and regulations
Any violation of local, state, or federal laws
Postings that offer items/services for sale
Postings requiring donations, application fees, investments, purchase of training materials
Postings containing anything that is sexually explicit, obscene, libelous, defamatory, threatening, harassing, abusive, or hateful; or anything that is embarrassing or offensive to another person or entity

Candidate Search & Resume Access in CODE

Once registered in CODE, employers can leverage the “Candidate Search” function to find ideal candidates. MCS, MSWE, MDS and MHCID students and alumni who have opted-in to this function are viewable. Employers can also download resumes through CODE.

When partnering with the ICS Career Development team in your candidate search, please note the following:

We are unable to and will not recommend or select candidates for employers and will not screen candidates based upon employment eligibility.
We will not give account access or forward resumes to home-based businesses or to personal email accounts.
We do not send resumes to a company’s student ambassadors, student liaisons, or student campus recruiters. It is a violation of professional standards to provide a student’s resume to a fellow student for review and decision-making.

JOB OFFER GUIDELINES

We believe it is important to allow candidates adequate time to make thoughtful and informed decisions when comparing and responding to offers.

For all offers extended for summer internships or full-time employment, we ask that employers provide students at least two (2) weeks from the date of the written offer to respond, without pressure to respond by an earlier date.

In some cases, students may ask for extensions beyond these deadlines. We trust that the student and the company can negotiate a mutually agreeable time frame for considering and making a career decision.

TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL RECRUITING

Provide Students Time

Employers are cautioned from asking students to decide upon internship or job offers in advance of the UCI Career Fairs or from providing students with short decision timelines throughout the year as they can result in students reneging on offers, which is strongly discouraged. The ICS Career Development team offers programs and services to assist students in their job search, evaluating offers, and decision making so that they can provide a response to an employer as soon as possible. We discourage students from making rushed decisions about offers and request that employers be flexible with offer deadlines, finding a compromise that will work for both the student and employer.

Avoid High Pressure Tactics

No special incentive should be held out to induce early acceptance of an offer, nor should a student be subjected to the terms of an exploding offer. The term “exploding offer” is used to indicate a very quick response time, reduction in offer package, or any other practice that puts unreasonable pressure on a student (same-day or next-day second round interviews, abbreviated deadlines for accepting offers, and/or exploding salary bonuses and offers.

Consult with ICS Career Development team

If an employer foresees a challenge with any of these recruiting guidelines, we ask that you contact us at code@ics.uci.edu. It is our hope that discussions in advance of recruiting will improve the employer and student experience during the recruitment process.

Full Disclosure of Start Date and Basis of Compensation

Start Dates

All offer letters must include a start date. Candidates who interview with employers on campus expect to start work after their graduation. Employers who anticipate start dates that are later than three months after graduation should disclose this information in their job descriptions on CODE as well as to the ICS Career Development team. This ensures that students have the opportunity to obtain the proper work authorization, as needed.

Basis of Compensation

For employers to participate in on-campus recruiting, they must offer bona fide positions that do not require new hires to pay a fee for training or other job-related expenses. Employers who compensate employees based solely on commission (i.e. without a base salary as well) must clearly disclose this information in the job description on CODE. Employers who compensate employees based on partial commissions must disclose accurate estimates of expected earnings in their job descriptions. They must also present an accurate base salary/expected first-year salary at that time.

Timely Communication

Employers are expected to keep student(s) informed of their status in the hiring process and to communicate hiring decisions within a reasonable time frame.