Career Development

The Allen School is dedicated to partnering with students to explore all opportunities and options after graduation. The collective resources of the Allen School, the College of Engineering, and the University of Washington all aim to help students get where they want to go after exiting the program. The following information is intended to provide an overview of the career-development resources, services, advice, and connections that are available to Allen School students.

Career & Internship Exploration

What can you do with a Computer Science or Engineering degree? The possibilities are endless! Check out these resources to explore potential career paths, and get ideas on what you may want to look for in an internship!

• Career Path Research 
• Explore your purpose and get help connecting that with your academic plan and internship opportunities through PathwayU
• Research specific companies and internship programs to gain more insight, and read reviews from past employees from Vault Guides
• Wondering what it’s like to be a Program Manager, Software Engineer, or eventually a Chief Technology Officer? Hear it from professionals who provide their experience from several industries in short video clips through CandidCareer!
• Explore career exploration communities through the UW Career & Internship Center related to interest, identity, and affiliation
• Consider signing up for alerts from the UW Tech/Data/Gaming Interest Community, and review relevant news stories, announcements, and updates
• Reflect on your strengths, skills, and interest areas to find a ‘best fit match’ career by reviewing this worksheet
• Allen School Senior Survey Data 
• Review the Allen School Senior Survey information to get ideas and to see what previous Allen School graduates have gone on to do
• Alumni insight: coming soon! 
• Find a job or internship
• Besides specific company websites (be sure to review the Allen School’s Affiliate Partner's websites) here are some general Job Boards to find and research job & internship opportunities: 
• Handshake is the UW’s online job and internship database; be sure to check back often for new opportunities as new jobs and internships are posted regularly!
• LinkedIn is a widely used global professional networking and job search tool, use LinkedIn to find a job or internship, search for Allen School alumni, review your interviewer’s professional experience, find tech-industry interest groups, and more!
• Dice is a tech-jobs board that includes career path research, tools and information for successful tech job searching, and also available tech jobs
• Use Monster to explore technical job opportunities, and utilize their free resume assessments, and job fit scoring for potential jobs based on your profile
• Indeed is an efficient way to search for technical job opportunities in your area 
• Use Glassdoor to explore potential job opportunities, and read candidate and employee feedback on companies, salaries, and interview processes
• Check out this Allen School student-authored article that details first & second-year student internship opportunities available for students who are earlier on in their computer science journey
• Additional Career & Internship Exploration Resources 
• For additional support, or to talk through any questions related to career-development, Allen School students are encouraged to meet with an Allen School Academic Adviser by scheduling an Advising appointment and/or making an appointment for the Allen School Resume Lab.
• For up-to-date information about additional career-development resources, events, and announcements, check out the Allen School Career Ed.stem board. For board access questions, please reach out to ugrad-adviser@cs.washington.edu 
• If you have specific questions about legal employment contracts and documents (such as an NDA, NCA etc.) consider making an appointment with UW Student Legal Services for a free consultation. 

Allen School Jobs/Career Resources

The following Allen School resources are available to you:

• Tech Talks where you can connect with prospective employers
• Affiliates Career Fair which happens in Fall and Winter quarters

• Employer Panels that include industry Affiliates to prepare students or the interview process
• Resume Review Workshops
• Technical Interview Coaching to assist students in preparing for mock and actual technical interviews
• Mock Technical Interviews where engineers, hiring managers, and other technical interviewers serve as volunteer mock-interviewers to give students feedback on practice-run technical interviews.

Unsure where to start the general job search process? The UW Career Center and the College of Engineering Career Center offer many other career-related services, such as career counseling, workshops, and individual career planning appointments.

Begin Your Search

1. Prepare your resume.
2. Start regularly checking Handshake and the Allen School Career Board (EdStem Platform). 
3. Plan to attend the Affiliates Career Fair for CSE majors in October and January. Check out other career fairs on campus as well.
4. Become familiar with Allen School Affiliate Partner policies and protocols outlined below for interviewing, accepting and declining offers.

Recruitment Policy and Protocol

School-sponsored career events and on-campus interviews are privileges that carry certain expectations for your conduct. To reinforce appropriate use of Allen School and Career Center on-campus recruiting opportunities, we have adopted protocols to better serve you and the employers visiting campus. Please familiarize yourself with these standards of appropriate behavior before participating in any on-campus recruiting events.

In your best interest, the Allen School has also defined a Recruiting Policy for Employers to ensure recruiting entities work within a framework of professionally accepted recruiting, interviewing and selection techniques as stipulated in the NACE Principles for Professional Conduct.

If you have questions or concerns regarding your interactions with employers, please contact the Allen School Academic Advising team and the Allen School External Relations Director, Kay Beck-Benton.

N.B. Membership in the Allen School's Industry Affiliates Program does not constitute endorsement (in either direction!). As a public institution of higher learning, we have a particular responsibility to remain neutral in administering our programs. We trust our students, and we encourage and educate our students, to be smart consumers of job offers, and to vote with their feet when deciding which booths to visit at our recruiting fairs. These are choices that students will need to make throughout their lives.

Cancellation and No Shows

Failure to appear for scheduled interviews prevents other students from using your time slot and wastes the recruiter's time. Such behavior reflects poorly on your professionalism, could jeopardize the Allen School's relationship with the employer regarding research and related activities, and could ultimately cause employers to suspend recruiting at our school. Therefore, it is important to follow through on all interview appointments. If you cannot make your scheduled interview, be sure to take the appropriate steps in advance.

Canceling Interviews

Recruiters, hiring managers, and technical interviewers take time to prepare for and conduct your interview. Canceling within 48 hours for reasons other than illness or an emergency is not acceptable and will jeopardize your recruiting success. If you must change or cancel an interview, call the recruiter to inform them and e-mail both the recruiter and the interviewer (if you have the interviewer's e-mail address). You should apologize for the inconvenience the cancellation causes them and reiterate your interest in their company and the position for which you are being considered.  Ask if it would be possible to reschedule, but understand that such a favor is at their discretion.

No Shows

If you miss an interview for any unexplained reason, contact your recruiter to apologize and explain your reason for missing the interview. It is important to understand that a "no show" for either a phone screen or an in-person interview is looked at very negatively.  It could remove you from consideration for the position.

Ethics of Negotiating

It is assumed that you will negotiate in good faith with employers. This means you should negotiate with an employer only if you plan to accept the employer’s offer if the negotiation goes well. It is unethical to negotiate with an employer whose offer you have no intention to accept. If you reach an acceptable compromise in your negotiations, it is assumed you will accept the position. Negotiate only if you plan to accept the compromise.

It is appropriate to politely refuse to provide an employer with specific information about any job offers you may have received from other employers. If asked, you can affirm if you have other offers pending. You do not have to name the organizations that have made offers to you, nor are you obliged to provide specific information about the salaries, perks or other compensations involved. Instead, broad responses to these questions that include salary ranges (rather than specific dollar amounts) are perfectly acceptable.

Evaluating Offers

When you receive a job offer, you are likely to feel elated and probably a little anxious. Consequently, you may be tempted to rush into accepting the offer immediately. Try to evaluate all aspects of the job offer and think objectively about your choices before responding to an offer.

There is no standard amount of time that an organization is legally required to give you to make a decision. The Allen School details the expectations and timelines that employers must follow in our Recruiting Policy for Employers, and we ask that all Affiliate companies abide by it when recruiting our students through on-campus and school channels (which includes participation in career fairs, tech talks, on-campus interviews, etc.).  An employer's failure to do so could result in sanctions against employers in their access to school recruiting activities; therefore, it is in their best interest to adhere to the policy.

Delaying a Response

You may find that you need more time than an employer initially extends to make a decision on a job offer, especially if you have other employment opportunities pending. There are appropriate ways to approach this matter that minimize any negative impact on the employer, your reputation, UW CSE or other students who might be interested in pursuing an opportunity with this employer. Please consult with an adviser in the UW Career Center or the Allen School on ways to address this situation.

Accepting an Offer

Once you have accepted a job offer, it is important to terminate all other job search activity. Failure to do so could deprive another student of those opportunities. Notify all other employers that you are no longer available for employment and cancel any interviews (on-campus or off) you have pending.

Declining an Offer

If you are declining an offer, do so with sensitivity to the employer's needs. Inform the recruiter verbally as soon as your decision has been made, following your conversation with a thank you letter. DO NOT delay contacting the employer: while making that phone call may be difficult, it is unlikely bad news will get better with time. Employers need to know you are declining their offer as quickly as possible so they can adjust their plans accordingly. Waiting until the last moment to contact them could force them into a situation they cannot remedy.

Reneging on Offers

Accepting an offer is a commitment to the employer who made you the offer. Reneging on an offer could be seen as an unethical and possibly legal violation of your commitment. Besides negatively affecting your reputation and that of the Allen School, reneging could also taint the reputation of our future graduates.

Professional communities are never as large as they seem. Recruiters share information and change companies throughout their careers. They might share information about someone who reneged with other recruiters, or they may move to another recruiting position at a different company, which could cost you future interviews and job offers. If you are not ready to make that commitment, do not accept the job offer.

Our affiliate members abide by our Employer Recruiting Policy, often to the detriment of their own recruiting interests. We've recently updated our recruiting policy to remove ambiguity and ensure our students have an adequate amount of time for recruiting activities.

If a student reneges, they will be asked to report to advising for a 1:1 meeting to discuss the circumstances. If it is determined that the student initiated a reneg for inappropriate reasons, they will be barred from Allen School recruitment events for 1 (one) calendar year. This includes the affiliates career fairs and all affiliates recruiting events (i.e., tech talks, office hours, workshops, etc.).

Please note there are very specific circumstances when reneging is acceptable (ie. An employer not abiding by our employer recruiting policy or rare, extenuating situations). If you have any questions, please contact the Allen School Academic Advising team and the Allen School External Relations Director, Kay Beck-Benton.

The Allen School Student Recruiting Policy was adapted with permission from the policy in place at the MIT Career Office.