Stuck between an offer and a layoff

NEW DELHI: On June 29, at 2:50 in the afternoon, Rishi Arora, head of HR at online grocery firm Grofers, sent a mail to “undisclosed recipients ”. The subject line was “taking a tough call”.

While most of the mail was about layoffs, the fourth para said, “One other group of people to be affected by this is the last batch of campus joiners who are also not going to be on-boarded.”

This was the latest in a trend sparked by Flipkart a few weeks ago. And campus placements are the casualty.

“This move has left many dead dreams and aspirations in its wake, mine included, hope the money you (Grofers) saved buys you a decent sleep…,” said Rohan Coelho, a student whose offer was revoked by Grofers.

For years, offer letters at the end of an engineering or management course meant assured jobs. Not any more. Grofers, Flipkart, CarDekho, Hopscotch, Roadrunnr and Click Labs are some of the internet-borne companies that have revoked or deferred appointments.

The appointment letters areas much at risk as are the operations of many of these companies, which run in losses and depend on venture capital to operate and even to pay salaries.

“In most cases a campus appointment letter means certainty of job. Recent incidents have made students more aware of potential uncertainty… Sudden delay or withdrawal causes anxiety,” said Sapna Agarwal, head–career development services at IIM (Bangalore).

One of the students whose appointment was revoked by Grofers, who doesn’t want to be named, said, “It’s a big thing to get the first job, it’s the beginning of a new life but if appointment is taken back we become jobless overnight… The placement cycle is over so we can’t even sit for interviews... We will have to look for a job in the market.” That is a different ball-game from campus placements, and students are even not mentally prepared for it after the placements season ends.

In the Grofers incident, some said they had got hotel booking confirmations, but were informed within hours that their offer letters had been revoked .

Apart from emotional trauma, there are financial implications as well. Many students take education loans that they count on repaying through their salaries. “When they revoked the letters they did not pay a single penny in compensation,” Coelho said.

One student whose offer letter was deferred by Flip kart reached out to multiple companies for placement and got places with one of the top four e-commerce companies, but every one isn’t so lucky. “It is quite difficult for them to cope with such situations,” said Babu Viswanathan placement advisor at IIT (Madras).

Institutes can do little except advise students not to invite these companies or black list the companies through all IITs’ placement committee, Viswanathan said.

Interestingly, there are instances where the boot is on the other foot: some students don’t join after accepting offer letters. “There appears to be no sanctity to either the offer letter or the acceptance,” said Viswanathan.