iAccept, a Pune-based startup, has a curious pitch. iAccept, which has a tag line of ‘An ethical bridge‘ is trying to reduce the no-shows in the post-job-offer made world. If Yodlee’s success story is to believed, Yodlee has reduced the drop-out rate from 25% to 1%. That’s an incredible achievement given how much time and money goes into hiring people and waiting for them.

I commend iAccept for coming up with a solution to a perennial problem which many IT companies face. Almost all the companies have accepted the fact that people who have accepted the job might not turn up. Companies have their own mitigation plans.

iAccept has a system to which employers and employees can subscribe to. If two employers – A and B – subscribe to iAccept and a job seeker is pursuing a career with both A and B, then iAccept’s system will make sure that the job seeker would accept an offer from either A or B, not both. (Via)

Here’s what happens in the IT job space.

In the Indian IT sector, changing a job without at least two job offers in hand is a fool’s errand. Some even have up to ten job offers in hand. This has been the case for the most part of the last decade barring the recession years. Here’s what candidates do:

Get as many offers as possible. Accept all offers. Pick the best offer (read well paid). Turn-off the cell-phone on the day of joining. Dual SIM phones will come in handy during this time.

Is that a fair practice? Let’s get to that in a bit. But is that a widely accepted practice? Yes.

The only thing not fair in the story isn’t the no-show as iAccept believes it to be, but it’s the no-response or being ignorant when it comes to rejecting an offer that is a cause of concern.

Rejecting an offer after you accept an offer is perfectly valid and ethical. It comes to how it’s done.

Not all candidates have the chutzpah to call back on the day of joining and let the HR know that they are not coming. That’s one ugly conversation and Indians don’t prefer ugly conversations even if they are required professionally.

How is it different from what company’s are doing?

Now tell me this: Is it any different behavior from what the companies are doing? For a single position, the companies usually screen, filter and interview multiple candidates. Then they select 2-3 candidates per position and roll out the offers. Two of the candidates will be backups. Also there is a term HR use for this: “I will keep him warm”. What it means is, HR will be resorting to all kinds of tricks to keep the candidate interested without actually rolling the offer. The candidate will be activated if an earlier candidate fails to show up.

It could so happen that another round of interview is scheduled or something else comes up.

Now don’t say that, the reason companies do this is because candidates don’t turn up on joining days. It’s not just the candidates who are at fault, that is, if you call not showing up a fault. Companies play their part. It’s a chicken and egg problem.

Was this problem created by the employees?

Here’s a common question asked during screening : Do you have any offers in hand? The interviewer will proceed even if the answer is yes to that question. How do you explain that behaviour?

There is another strange practice which is followed in the salary negotiations. Once the offer is rolled out by company A, and company B wants to roll out an offer, job seekers usually let HR know that he has an offer from company A and divulge the details of the offer. Company B now asks to forward the offer email from company A to sweeten company B’s offer. Is that an ethical practice? I can’t judge but I can say that it’s a widely used practice.

Companies offer jobs to seekers even if they have other offers in hand and job seekers accept more job offers only to pick the best one. Did I already say that this is a chicken and egg problem?

Right problem, Wrong solution

All I can say is that iAccept and companies who have enrolled for this service are solving the problem in a wrong way. They are trying to cut the very branch that they are stood on. They are also in no position to make policies, which is what iAccept seems to be doing. Also not many companies would be subscribing to iAccept’s solution because that would make poaching for talent really hard.

It all boils down to saying iDontAccept after you utter iAccept. Education is required. Not software.

Can we regulate ethical behavior?

Disclaimer : I haven’t been part of accepting multiple offers so far. Not yet. But I may plan to do so in a professional manner.

Image courtesy Flickr User o5Com