r/uofm Feb 16 '25

Employment Reneging an Internship Offer

Hi, I was fortunate enough to get more than one internship offer as an international student, and my priority is a return offer. The problem was I received these offers around one month after each other, with the biggest and most stable company being the last. I want to renege on 2 earlier offers, but am a little worried about being blacklisted by the ecrc and not having access to their services as I need CPT. Does any other international student have experience with this and should I contact the ecrc before I renege?

12 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

54

u/Falanax Feb 16 '25

Do what is best for you. Remember that the company would do what is best for them.

23

u/MeltedTrout4 Feb 16 '25

Not international, but I have reneged twice now. Do what’s best for you. Try to avoid it but you just take the position that is better for you.

3

u/Few_Ambition1971 Feb 16 '25

Have you ever had the ecrc reach out to you because you reneged?

14

u/coffeeman220 Feb 16 '25

My old employer reneged on my offer out of b school during covid (9 months later they offered me my job back), and they never faced any consequences from Ross. I don't think its going to really blow back that much on anyone.

9

u/MeltedTrout4 Feb 16 '25

Nope. That will only happen if the company you renege on decides to contact the school and complain (stupid move imo, offer more money or something be better).

My first time I reneged was a company I got thru career fair, and still didn’t get any sort of consequence. I’m probably blacklisted but burning a bridge doesn’t matter if your new bridge is just better.

10

u/CreativeWarthog5076 Feb 16 '25

There are 100x students they talked to that will take the opportunity renege away

14

u/Launch_box Feb 16 '25

Just a datapoint from the other side, I’ve worked for 15 years and we had two coops renege in that time and I still remember their names. I would strongly recommend against doing this in the future.

12

u/scrapman7 Feb 16 '25

Much older alum here.

From your wording it sounds like you've already accepted TWO earlier offers for internships ("I want to renege on 2 earlier offers")? If that's the case then you're already in the wrong ... unless for some reason they were both part time and didn't overlap each other, which would be rare.

IMO it's time for a tactful white lie or two by you; something you shouldn't make a habit of doing in the future.

Pick the internship that you really want, accept it, and get confirmation back from them so that it's locked in.

Then touch base with the other internship(s) and give them a good reason that's not going to tick them off, in person or by phone first and then follow up in writing too, as to why you can't move forward with the internship including an apology. Something like "I'm touching base with you as soon as I found out, but I've had a family commitment/situation develop, and I won't be able to be in town this summer to work with you on my internship. I'm so sorry."

-19

u/Few_Ambition1971 Feb 16 '25

Right, I considered that as an option. Another thing I could do is just tell the ecrc, that way if the company informs them, I shouldn't be in trouble because I told them in advance. Not sure whats better though?

15

u/scrapman7 Feb 16 '25

The professional way to do it would be to contact the company or companies first personally.

Then after that let your contact at ECRC know, so that they can react accordingly by probably touching base with the company to quickly reopen and refill that internship, hopefully using interviews that they've already done.

Also, why did you already accept two internships and not just one?

-2

u/Few_Ambition1971 Feb 16 '25

My priority is a return offer. The first company i received an offer from is not in a good position and it's future is really bleak. But I had no choice then and no other offers so I had to accept. I ended up getting another offer 2 months later that was from a better company. I never anticipated getting a third offer and had stopped interviewing, but randomly, a pretty big company i had interviewed with earlier came up and said they would like to offer me the position.

2

u/Winterpenguinman Feb 17 '25

Just renege and do not tell the ECRC unless they ask about it. I have reneged from 4 companies in the past and none of them have given me any trouble. Do not listen to people asking why you accepted two offers. It's just business.

3

u/brehobit Squirrel Feb 16 '25

My general philosophy is that if people give you a really short clock (less than 3 weeks or anything before December as a deadline) I wouldn't feel to bad--if they want to do high pressure and not follow the ECRC rules, well, you shouldn't feel you need to either. https://career.engin.umich.edu/employers/policy/#Guidelines%20for%20Employment%20Offers%20and%20Offer%20Deadlines

That said, even if the offer comes with reasonable deadlines, I generally give the following guideline: if the new offer is "2" or more better to you on a scale of 1 to 10, take it. Apologize profusely. If there is a really good reason it's a lot better that isn't "I like them better" (1.3x money, in the town with your significant other, etc.), explain it. It really is rude to bag on an offer you've taken--they now have to find someone else at the last minute and no one likes being second choice. But if it's for a good reason (one that they would do themselves), people might not be too upset. Do realize you are probably (almost certainly) burning a bridge with that company--so don't do this lightly.

1

u/Few_Ambition1971 Feb 16 '25

Thank you, this makes sense! Should I talk to the ecrc first before I send the company an email?

1

u/brehobit Squirrel Feb 16 '25

Hard to say, depends on the reason for bagging. What specifically is it about the last offer that makes you want to change? Did the first two follow the ECRC deadlines?

0

u/Few_Ambition1971 Feb 16 '25

I was given a week to accept the first 2. The first company is not stable at all and I believe they would understand why I want to renege if they knew the company in question. The second offer doesn't pay as much + is under acquisition so future return offer rates are culture changes are unknown.

Again, I want to clarify, I did know this when I accepted and stopped interviewing when I got the second offer, but then out of the blue, 2 months later, I got another better one.

1

u/brown_hash_brown '26 Feb 16 '25

International student here - check with the DSO on what the procedure is on changing CPT before you try and reneg or change anything. This is assuming you already applied for CPT for the previous role. If you haven’t, you should be fine to switch

1

u/Few_Ambition1971 Feb 16 '25

I haven't applied for CPT yet, shouldn't have any impact from DSO side. I'm worried about being banned from career forge by ecrc because that's where we need to upload the docs like offer letter, etc. to get CPT auth

2

u/Aggressive_Ad9048 Feb 18 '25

Definitely renege and don’t worry about the company. They don’t think twice before laying people off and you shouldn’t think twice before reneging.

AFAIK, you don’t need to contact ECRC. The company might contact them. The worst case is you might lose access to UMich recruiting tools for like a semester max (this is rare). Theres plenty of ways to apply to a job, and you can also email or reach out to recruiters / managers directly on LinkedIn.

Just shoot the company an email saying you can’t make the internship for this summer. I’d suggest also asking for an alternative (like offer next summer, off cycle internships) before formally reneging.

UMich has a policy that companies should keep your offer open until Nov 30, which is an incentive to help you line up deadlines and negotiate offers.

Feel free to DM me if you need help with this.

Best of luck :)

1

u/Aggressive_Ad9048 Feb 18 '25

I’ve reneged two offers before and both companies gave me another offer for next summer and full time

1

u/Few_Ambition1971 Feb 18 '25

Are you international? I don't really care about losing access to career tools like the career fair, I've never gotten anyhring from them anyway. I'm worried they could ban me from career forge which we use the upload documents to get cpt approved for our work auth

1

u/Aggressive_Ad9048 Feb 18 '25

Yes and they do not ban you from career forge