Jasveer Singh, Co-founder and CEO of Knot Dating – AI-powered conversational match-making platform, has started a debate on fair hiring practices on social media platforms. The debate began with Singh share an internal e-mail from a potential candidate they were looking to employ at the company. “Interviewed a backend developer. Guy was at 21 LPA. We offered 28 LPA, roughly a 33 percent hike. He agreed and confirmed joining. Yesterday he emailed saying he got a 32 LPA offer elsewhere and now wants 36 LPA from us,” he shared along with a screenshot of the mail.
The mail from the candidate reads: “Hi Jasveer & team Thanks for the offer and the time your team invested during the interview process. When we last spoke, I had agreed to 28 LPA. Since then, another process that was already underway has resulted in an offer of 32 LPA. The matrimony space remains my first preference, so I wanted to check if there is flexibility to revise the offer closer to 36 LPA. If that works, I would be happy to confirm my acceptance. Also sharing one personal boundary upfront. I do not work on weekends, maintaining work life balance is a conscious choice for me.”
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Singh said that this was “Nonsense”, and that the candidate should not have agreed to join in the first place. “If you are still shopping offers just say it upfront. We stopped interviewing other candidates and waited through the notice period for the joining date. Now two days before joining, he came back with a new price tag.” However, this conversation has stirred a debate on social media platforms with a large number of views suggesting that the candidate was well within his rights to demand for more money.
“Do you update candidates promptly on their application status? Respond to resumes on time? Give feedback to those passed over? Schedule next interviews and next steps without delay? No one owes answers until contracts are signed. Everyone prioritizes their own interests first. This candidate even followed up to see if things could work out, they didn’t ghost. That’s rarer than you’d think,” says Ankush Dhankar on X.
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“Am I the only one who thinks this is pretty normal? Offer letters aren’t joining letters. People optimise for compensation just like companies optimise for cost. If he was clearly the best engineer you saw, paying the extra Rs 8 LPA over the original offer may be cheaper than restarting the hiring process. If he was decent but replaceable, then you’ve avoided a headache. It’s as simple as that. Next time, don’t stop interviewing until the person actually joins. Experienced hiring teams, in my opinion, always keep a backup candidate until day one,” adds Simran Sachdeva on a similar note.
However, Singh has been defending his post saying: “He has already wasted 1.5 months. If my recruitment team starts the process again today, that’s another 1-2 months gone. The role is urgent.” He also said that if he truly wanted to exercise power, he could simply ask the team to match the Rs 36 LPA, have the candidate join immediately, keep the hiring process running quietly in the background, and replace him in two or three months once someone better was found.
In that scenario, the new development work would not stop. The team would continue moving forward, and the cost difference for a couple of months would be negligible. However, he pointed out that the likely consequence for the candidate could be quite different. If the person had to spend another month or two searching in the market again, they might eventually end up accepting an offer below Rs 25 LPA, as prolonged job searches often push candidates to accept whatever opportunity comes their way.
