Intent of Offer Vs Offer

1) No, I don’t think "Cancelling the Job Offers" at IIT Mumbai would affect the "The Best Employer Brand Image" of firms like Infosys & Tata Infotech and thereby reduce their competitive advantage. If this would has been true then firms like Infosys & Tata Infotech might wouldn’t have been the most preferred employer in the present scenario. The period in which this incident took place was most crucial for the IT companies, due to the slow pace of economic movement these companies were going through a very critical situation. They all were in the process of layoffs, cost reduction, retrenchment etc. and recruiting more employees would have more worsen the situation. As we all know that in the situation of economic recession, for the survival of the corporate sectors, cost reduction is a valuable technique. Employee’s Benefit and welfare expenses forms the major part of total expenditure of a company, recruiting more employees in these situations will badly affect the financial stability of the company. If these companies would have recruited students from IIT’s in such a situation, then at a later stage the company might would have retrenched these employees to sustain in the market, which would have a bad effect on the future prospect of these students. These companies have followed what the situation has demanded. In my view, cancelling job offers will no way affect the best employer brand image or reduce their competitive advantage.
2) No, I don’t agree with the statement that “Infosys had not really cancelled any job offers since what they had given to the students was only "Intent of Offer". These types of statement mean that the company is trying to withdraw itself from the situation that has been created by them. Very cleverly they are escaping from being the culprit. But legally these students can’t take any action against these companies because they have only given the “intent of offer”, this means there were no agreement between the students and the company regarding employment. These companies have placed themselves in a secured position by giving this type of statement. I think rather there should be clarity in their explanation regarding cancellation of job offers. Everyone knows that the entire industry is going through a tough phase, all these companies are not in position to recruit more employees, and they should accept the situation rather than giving such absurd statement. If the entire corporate world is passing through a similar situation, then there should not be any hesitation in disclosing the real facts, this will no way affect the competitive advantage of these companies. Delivering such statement only for the sake of showing the corporate world that we are not affected by the economic recession is no way ethical.
3) If I would have been the placement officer, I would have taken the following steps to resolve the present situation -:

a) Offer and acceptance of jobs between the companies and students should be legally supported by agreements.
b) Students are to be well informed about the present and future job prospects through market research’s.
c) Every Student should be provided with secondary alternative job opportunity.
d) Students should have free access to the HR policies of the recruiting companies.
e) Minimum periodicity should be maintained within the date of offer and date of joining.

4) No, none of my friends have ever gone though this type of situation, therefore I think it would be difficult on my part to comment on the issue.