Letter of Intent Vs offer

I think I will start to answer this with Q-2 where the Infosys Spokesperson statement says that they have not cancelled any job offer since the student had only Intent of offer. With this limited information, it will be unfair to comment on this as there is no clarity on what was the content of “Intent of offer”. From the debriefing of the situation, it is clear that the both the placement coordinator, as well as the students, were also under the impression that Intent of offer was job offer, Infact I am still confused with offer letter and appointment letter- Can companies reject offer letter as well, till some one gets an appointment letter or letter of appointment.
In my opinion, Infosys is hiding behind, paraphrasing of the words rather than ethical issues. In usual circumstances Infosys would have taken these students into their sytem. However as the students are inexperienced as well as the Placement coordinator, there was no clarity offered by Infosys, for their meaning of Intent of offer nor students and the placement coordinator proactively. There is a clear break down of communication and understanding and students are getting played in the hands of Infosys selection of words.
So morally speaking Infosys has not done an ethical job by cancelling the Intent of offer with an assumption that Infosys has not clearly stated the meaning of Intent of offer.

Considering Q1 – with this “one off” incident it will not affect Infosys “Best Employer Brand Image” But for few successive years there will still be a “but” in students Mind in IIT Mumbai only. Infact these issues are neither reported by Institutes nor there are any legal implication and hence these ratings are not effected much by these incidents. Students should be more cautious to accept offers and must read between the lines of any offer made to them before they shut all other option and seek clarification and assurance from prospective employees.

In case if I am the placement coordinator at IIT Mumbai- I will take up the matter of with senior officials of Infosys and ask for time lines of action or possibilities and options available with them as IIT Mumbai is as premier as Infosys. There needs to be evaluation of alternate recruiter if possible and see how fast maximum no of students can be engaged and empathize with the students.

Yes I had gone through this phase myself with Telco, who are Tatamotors now. They had selected 10 students from OUR Institute as Management trainee, of which I was one of the candidate, which was considered as coveted job offer that time, but finally taken only one person and cited the reason that Lucknow Plant has been deferred for commissioning and hence cancelling all “offers”. Well as an Individual it’s a long battle to fight and we accepted this and moved on with the alternatives we had in our hand or created alternatives to tide over this crisis.