Letter of Intent

To answer question no. 1 , I wouldn't feel that by cancelling the job offer a company's competitive edge would reduce . But yes , In a situation like this company's should be very clear on there policies that they adopt and should take great preacaution in taking each step towards employement to keep there reputations high as every individual will be keeping a close watch on big and reputed company's like Infosys . The point that I wanted to make as regards to my answer -As there was a economoic melt down across the world , India too was not left out . As a result the first industry which always get badly affected is the IT industry as the IT companies has a large bench strength and during these situations when projects starts declining the utilisation of the employees reduces drastically and therefore the companies have no option but to issue pink letters to her employees .

To answer question no.2 , Infosys is correct on the legal front as it was only a letter of Intent .But as I mentioned in Ans 1 ( above ) that during these situations when the chips are down , one need to be very carefull. A company like Infosys should have been very carefull a the first place to issue so many Letter of Intents when they know that the markets are down . Once they have issued the Letter of Intents , they should have been prompt in responding to the students about the present market scenario and there unability to take them . I think in this situation , Tata Infotech and SLM software did a good job of issuing regret letters quickly . Tata Infotech went one step ahead and promised them that as and when things improve , they would be the first people to get the position. This statement from the MD of the company will definitely give a competitive edge to Tata's over others . Infosys didn't handle this situation very well .

To answer 3 , If I was the placement coordinator in IIT Powai , I would have changed the process of placement from July to October as the first step and secondly I would have held a seminar for the final year batch as regards to the situation arising out of the economic melt down and informed every one of the present scenario , so that students like Ashwini Tank don't suffer .

I won't be able to answer , no.4 as , luckily I or people that I know, have gone through this experience .