Working with us

Careers and Placements offers employers a range of opportunities to engage and connect with students through the provision of on-campus and virtual events. 

1  Events organised in collaboration with Careers and Placements, and which are actively promoted by us as part of our events programme:

All event bookings are made subject to the following terms and conditions being agreed to in full.

• To ensure that we can adequately promote and resource your event we may request that sign-up for sessions is managed by the Careers and Placements team. If you do not want Careers and Placements to manage event sign-up please be aware that we may be unable to monitor sign-up numbers. 
• Following the event, Careers and Placements will provide you with a summary of student attendance data (subject to no student being identifiable through this); if sign-up and attendance has not been managed by the employer we will ask you for a similar summary to be shared with us. 
• We will, where possible, facilitate variations to bookings; please ensure you contact us as soon as possible to make any changes but please note for some events a cancellation policy may apply.

For in-person events:

• You will be liable for any damage caused to University property or injury to persons which occurs during, or arises from the event, which results from your negligence.
• You are required to hold Public Liability Insurance with a minimum limit of indemnity of £5 million.
• You will ensure that all aspects of the event are risk assessed, and that a copy of this risk assessment is made available with suitable notice to Careers and Placements, if requested.
• As with any activity conducted on University premises, you shall ensure that all aspects of an on campus event comply with the University’s Health & Safety policy. 

For virtual events 

• Any participants from your organisation who will participate in the event will be issued with joining instructions prior to the event. 
• We will ask participants to join the event link up to 30 minutes in advance of the start time for an AV/tech briefing, to ensure that connections are working adequately. 
• The University of York will create the event link in order to manage the security of the event and guard against the unlikely occurrence of ‘Zoom bombing’.  

Cancellation policy

The University of York reserves the right to cancel careers fairs and associated events without refund where conditions arise beyond our reasonable control.  

By registering for our fairs, you're committing to attend the fair, pending our approval. This means you will be subject to paying for any late cancellation charges.

If you cancel your booking:

• two weeks or more before the fair, you'll be refunded in full if a payment has already been made. If you haven't paid, you will not be liable for paying.
• within two weeks of the fair, you will not receive a refund for payments made, and will be invoiced for the full cost of your booking if payment has not been received.

2  Events run and organised by employers/third parties, approved by Careers and Placements on Handshake, but which are NOT necessarily actively promoted by us as part of our events programme:

The University of York will advertise careers-related events to students on your behalf, such as networking events, virtual employer presentations and skills seminars. Please register with our central careers portal, Handshake, to add and promote these. This service is provided free of charge and you can find out more about this through Handshake’s How to Request an Event help article.

All events require approval from Careers and Placements. We seek to advertise only the most appropriate and valuable events and reserve the right to decline advertising any event which we deem to not meet the best interests of our students. These include, but are not limited to:

• Events which charge students to attend, require a deposit for attendance, or are advertising paid services (including loans)
• Events which do not give a clear and detailed description of what they entail
• Any event which we suspect might be unethical/discriminatory according to the University of York’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 
• Events which require students to pass over disproportionate amounts of personal data
• Events which primarily offer the same services as University of York’s Careers and Placements Team or are scheduled at a time which is inconvenient to students.

Careers and Placements at the University of York will support employers to promote your organisation and opportunities by helping you to advertise UK and overseas based:

• Graduate positions, with an immediate or future start date
• Part-time work suitable for vacations or alongside study (up to a maximum of 20 hours per week during term-time)
• Volunteering opportunities
• Internships and placements
• Voluntourism (subject to assessment of the value and cost of the opportunity)
• Work experience opportunities
• Opportunities offered by University of York students which help other students get involved in start-ups or enterprise
  

In our duty of care to students and graduates, we will seek clarification regarding any aspect of a vacancy, and reserve the right not to advertise opportunities which we reasonably believe not to be in the best interests of our students and graduates. In particular, we reserve the right not to advertise vacancies, or continue working with employers if vacancies:

• Appear not to meet the requirements of equality or other employment legislation.
• Promote or endorse illegal activity.
• May bring the University into disrepute or detrimentally affect other relationships within the University
• Conflict with advice provided by the Foreign Office regarding safe travel
• Have company information which is incomplete, for example, the nature of the company, missing address
• Have misleading, incomplete or inaccurate job descriptions
• Are placed by private individuals, particularly where the role provides care for others
• Do not pay the legal minimum wage, except in legal exclusions such as volunteers, voluntary workers or those undertaking work shadowing
• Pay on a commission-only basis
• Advertise courses with commercial training providers
• Pay 'in kind' rather than being salaried, for example, gig tickets, vouchers, CDs, meals
• Require a fee where services provided are not clearly stated or the benefit clearly defined
• Are partnership or equity only opportunities with set-up companies
• Are proprietary trading companies requiring graduates to pay desk fees
• Are connected with a 'pyramid' (or similar style) selling scheme
• Could in our opinion be exploitative or may not be a genuine opportunity, for example, a scam or fake advert
• Are arranged by an organisation which we cannot independently trace or verify
• Represent an undue health and/or safety risk
• Involve students writing or sharing academic related material for use by other students
• Are advertised for companies which do not hold Employers' and Public Liability insurance

The University accepts no liability for the actions of students or graduates recruited from the University of York.

Please note:

• The University of York is not liable for damages or expenses incurred in connection with the use of Careers and Placements
• Any risks associated with using Careers and Placements (such as reliance on advertisement) lie with the advertising company
• The employer is solely responsible for the advertisements that are posted
• The University is not responsible for the content of external services that link to Careers and Placements
• By advertising vacancies with the University of York the employer is agreeing to our terms of use

We ask that you:

• Review the advice we give to students and graduates as they search and apply for opportunities
• Provide complete and accurate information concerning the vacancy in English
• If the vacancy requires a Convention de Stage, this must be explicitly stated. Please note, the University cannot issue a Convention de Stage if the opportunity does not carry academic credit
• Ensure all vacancies meet employment and equality legislation, including compliance with National Minimum and Living Wage and Health and Safety regulations
• Provide the successful candidate with full contractual information prior to the start date
• Do not advertise term-time work which requires more than 20 hours work in a seven day period
• Do not advertise unpaid opportunities that last more than 4 weeks; the value and quality of all vacancies that are unpaid for more than 1 week will be reviewed in detail by our team
• If you are a recruitment agency, we ask that you provide details of the employer you are recruiting for: we will not make this information available to students, if you ask us not to
• Identify a website or contact where candidates can learn more about the vacancy
• Let us know if the vacancy is filled so we can remove it from our system

We encourage employers to treat all candidates equally, to assess their applications on merit and suitability for the job alone, and to address right to work issues at the last stage of the selection processes. While stating that “at the time of starting their employment, the successful candidate must have permission to work in the UK” is acceptable, sentences such as “applicants must have a work permit” or “applicants must have the right to work in the UK” are not.

For an overview of the Equality Act 2010, see ACAS guidance here and the Government Code of Practice for Employers “Avoiding Discrimination while Preventing Illegal Working"(April 2022).

Recruiting International Students

Find out more in our Recruiting international students FAQs (PDF , 241kb)

University of York Careers and Placements are eager to ensure that we provide students with information about career opportunities that are accessible and welcoming to all. We are therefore committed to working with employers and alumni who reflect our student body and who our students can identify with. This means that we may ask you to volunteer a member of your team that has a particular protected characteristic to represent your organisation during your event in order to increase the diversity of our events programme.