Hi all,
I’m a new grad and I accepted an offer from a credit card company last October during the campus recruitment season. I’m scheduled to start working this June. Is it possible or likely that the company will lay me off before I actually start working for them?
Maybe I’m just paranoid…
Thanks
Is there some reason why you are worried about this? This almost never happens, as it will damage the company’s reputation in recruiting. There was one year (I think 2008) where DB and one or two other banks offered their incoming analyst class bonuses to rescind their offers. That was pretty shocking and abnormal.
It is possible? definitely
Likely? probably not
Thanks for the info. Confirms that I’m just thinking too much.
I don’t have any particular reason for my concern. I just had a conversation with a friend of my who will be joining Research In Motion in a few months, and he brought this issue up. I guess it’s a legitimate concern if your employer’s share price has been taking a nose dive…
I have a friend who joined a bank and was laid off two month later. She recieved six months severance pay. Eight months pay for two months of work.
^ That sounds like goldman sachs
I know someone who had a job lined up but got cut before he started. I can’t remember exact details but soon before his start date his boss called and pretty much said in these words “someone had to get f’ed and today it was you.”
Ouch. Two horror stories so far.
Is there any way that I can hedge this risk? I guess I just have to sit tight and wait for my start date. Would be very frustrating if that ever happened, as I’ve been doing nada on the job search front for almost half a year now.
I had a verbal offer from Lehman Brothers which was rescinded a few days later because LEH had instituted a firmwide hiring freeze. Six months later, they declared bankruptcy.
Since nothing had been signed between them and me yet, and it was just a verbal “yes, you won the interview process,” there was no severance for zero work done. I didn’t feel I was owed it, but hearing about other people getting things like that does make me feel a bit envious.
Sadly (for me), the team I would have been on got picked up by Barclays, so if they had managed to squeak me under the door before it closed, it would have been good for me.
I liked the comment “Someone had to get f-d, and today it was you.” That sums up a lot of things.
generally, companies tend to kill off the newest people if everyone else is somewhat entrenched and performs ok
sasdf - congrats on the offer. I think the odds are in your favour that you’ll make it to your start date (and well beyond that, of course).
The outliers always make interesting stories, though. For instance, at my old company (a very large retailer), we sent an offer letter to a candidate who signed it back requesting higher compensation. During the time between extending the offer and the candidate signing it back, a hiring-freeze was implemented, and we weren’t allowed to extend a new offer or modify the existing one.
Poor guy - never got the job and will probably never gain attempt to negotiate salary. Bad timing…
It happened to me back in 2001/2002 in the downturn after 9/11. I’d just completed my master’s and had a decent grad job lined up with a consultancy firm. I was packing my bags to get on a flight to London to start this job two days later and I get this email from my soon to be boss telling me to call him urgently. Anyway, I got made redundant, and offered 1,000 pounds compensation! So I’m sitting in my room with my bags packed and a flight leaving for London in 6 hours and no job on the other end. Felt like the unluckiest person on earth.
On a positive note, it was the best thing to ever happen to me, so if you do get laid off, just think of it as a new door opening in life rather than focusing on the door that’s just been slammed in your face.