'Reeks of desperation': Ex-CTO rejects job applicant for ‘offer shopping’. How the Internet reacted

A tech recruiter recently revealed that he rejected a candidate who applied for a job because the person told him that they were due to join another company soon but were looking for a better offer.

Terming it as “offer shopping”, Siddharth Sharma, the former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Shaadi.com, urged job seekers to not resort to this practice as it, in his words, “reeks of desperation”.

The strong remarks left the internet divided, with many people arguing that there is nothing wrong with gathering multiple job offers and then choosing to go with the best one.

“Candidates, I understand the compulsions but offer shopping is not elite behaviour. It reeks of desperation and tells the world that your word is worth nothing to you,” Sharma, who is also the former CTO of Invideo, had written in a lengthy note on X (formerly Twitter).

“ And then the only people who would associate with you are those to whom this is not important.”

He went on to say that he has “never shopped an offer” in his life.

“It somehow never occurs. The whole vibe is just....off,” he said.

“If you're shopping offers I have a word of advice for you. Learn to program and to love programming. Go find others who love programming.”

“What's wrong with gathering multiple offers and choosing to go with the best one?” an X user said in comments.

Check out the viral post on X here:

Another user, Sreenidhi, said candidates too face immense pressure from companies to accept offers within a short deadline, “You just made everyone reading this tweet including the candidate to not be open and honest about their situation,” she said.

Another person pointed out that there are instances where companies have laid off newly-joined employees or even cancelled job offers a day before they were to join.

“The market is brutal and this behavior might just be a response to it,” Saumya Doshi said.