Let’s say you are fortunate enough to have a job offer lined up before your college graduation. How common is it to ask for some time off for vacation or just to spend time with family before embarking on a new career and a new life?
How do you go about asking the employer and do they frown upon this or is it expected/common?
What would be a reasonable amount of time to take off?
I am interested in perspectives from students and parents as well as perspectives from hiring managers or someone in HR.
I am a parent and I am just thinking ahead for my children. I am no longer working in the corporate world so I have no idea what the corporate culture is these days. I couldn’t find this topic discussed anywhere. If there is an existing thread please direct me.
Kids were both engineering majors. Both started their jobs on June 1. That was the day all the new hires started at their job location. S graduated at the end of April so had a month between graduation and job starting. D graduated the week before so no time off really.
Neither asked to start at a different date as they wanted/needed to start making a salary. I’m not sure how it would work to have a later starting date and how to go about that.
Almost every company I’ve ever worked for has specific start dates for new grades. There is no stigma to taking a later start date if offered (kids love our August start date-gives them time to move, find a roommate or two, etc) but if the date offered is in June, then the expectation is that the kid starts in June.
If a big company lets everyone pick their own date it would be bedlam- we schedule training around the official start dates and can’t just slot people in willy nilly.
There will likely be time after graduation and before the start date-- to go to Tahiti? maybe not. But to take a weekend at the beach with family and then move? Probably. Also recognize that there are lots of young kids who cannot afford a summer off after graduating- they are self-supporting and need a paycheck ASAP.
Both of my college graduates had start dates in August or later and were able to do other things before they started their jobs. One had saved money and was able to travel through Europe for a month with a friend. The other spent the summer in Nicaragua working on a university sponsored research project. It was fine with his future company. He participated in the next available training session after he returned.
D was an accounting major who had a job offer before she graduated. New hires were given a choice of two start states – one on June 1 and another on September 1 – and new employees could choose which start date they wanted. That being said, there were no other options offered (you couldn’t start on September 15th…) Most new hires in D’s start class chose the later date, but rather than take vacation many studied and sat for the CPA exam over the summer.
My daughter started two weeks after graduation (late May). They gave her the option of I believe any Monday and were pleasantly surprised that her graduation was so early (first week of May) - they were thinking she wouldn’t be able to start until June. She was only moving from a dorm to an apartment in the same city so she used that time to move and make herself a real resident (get drivers license, register to vote, etc.)
It depends upon the company and the job - many of these management training program type jobs (where you rotate around after a training period) have very specific start dates (which most likely accommodate later college graduation dates).
It may be field specific also. My D taking a job with a small tech firm is looking at starting sometime in September. She was told that is fairly common; she is thinking of doing community work over the summer (such as Girls Who Code).
When I started my job 30+ years ago I started in July.
I’ve actually been in this situation three times. The first, right out of college, I went on a cross-country vacation with family. Then, several years later, I was recruited by a firm but I was about to get married. They gave me an advance on my vacation so I could have some time off with pay. Several years after that, I had again planned a vacation with friends when I was recruited by another firm. They let me have the time off, but without pay. However, all three had one thing in common: I had already planned the vacations before accepting the positions and I was fortunate enough that I could go ahead and tell my prospective employers when the jobs were offered so that we could make plans. I think it would be an entirely different scenario if I had accepted a position, and then said I wouldn’t be in the office on such-and-such dates for a vacation.
All that being said, June is still a popular month for weddings, and I imagine more than one employer has had recent college graduates planning honeymoons before they start work.
“What would be a reasonable amount of time off?” I wouldn’t ask for more than a week. Where I work, even long-term employees rarely take more than a week off unless they’re traveling outside the country.
My two daughters were both able to request their preferred starting date at big tech companies. Both chose a starting date at the end of August in order to have the summer off.
My oldest got to pick her start date (one in July, one in August), but it hardly gave her time for vacation. She was studying for her boards. Even if she weren’t, both she and we were too broke from college to be able to afford to do so!
The job applicant would have to negotiate his/her start date. You don’t have to give your reasons for wanting a later start date. But ASK for a later start date anyway and EXPECT that the employer might not necessarily be open to having you start a month or however longer after the college graduation date.
At most companies, the PTO (paid time off) policy is decided at a corporate level, so usually the hiring manager doesn’t have any wiggle room to give the applicant more PTO than any other new hire. And usually new hires are low on the corporate ladder in terms of how MUCH PTO you accrue every pay check. So if the college grad wants to tour the world for 3 weeks, he/she really needs to get that out of the way BEFORE STARTING THE JOB. The chances of you being able to take 3 weeks off within your first year of hire are very slim.
What you should NOT do:
Ask for time off right after getting hired.
Announce that you’ve already booked a 2 week awesome European vacation that you’ll be taking just a couple of weeks or a couple of months after you’ve started.
What would be a reasonable amount of time to take off?
It depends. Depends on the person and where he/she wants to go on their epic post-college graduation trip. It also depends on how “in demand” the college grad’s profession is. If the college grad is in a line of work where getting ANY job in that major post-graduation is hard to do, then the job applicant will likely NOT be able to have any negotiating power with the hiring manager. Why? Because if there’s a ton of other eager applicants out there who are willing to start the job on whatever date the hiring manager needs them, then the job offer will go to those people instead.
I graduated in May and had told my work I wanted to start July 15. I got bored and asked if I could move my date up to June 30 and they agreed. It was a good thing I did because I got an extra week of vacation since I started before July 1.
My son has taken a job on the other side of the country. He finishes college late around May 1. It would be unrealistic for them to expect him to start right after as he will want to get his affairs in order and set up the permanent move.
He asked for a start day in June. They were fine with that and told him they will give him two start days in June to pick from. (Probably will be June 5 and June 12).
I wouldn’t conciser this a “Vacation”, as he will not be on the payroll so no skin off the company’s nose… It is just a short gap between finishing college and starting work.
Most students will have 40 years in the work force so a few weeks between graduation and work is probably not a bad idea.
I agree with @tucsonmom . One should negotiate the start date with any transition needs–relocation, vacation in mind. My employer has a six-month probationary period for all new employees during which they are not allowed to use any vacation time. On rare occasions, I allow exceptions to this policy for things like weddings, etc. but would expect that people are not planning to vacation right after starting a new job.