Qfyilyi

My university has asked every student with an offer to post his/her offer letter in a google drive link.

Almost every company who hire here are US based. Specific US city wise: San Jose, Seattle, San Francisco. Mainly US west cost : Californian companies dominating followed by 3-4 Wall street banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley etc.

Coming to the college itself, it's like an Indian government institution, they will not listen to "rules". They will threaten students on withholding their bachelor's degrees if they don't agree to uploading their offer.

Almost every offer letter in the shared folder has NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement). Now I have read a few resources on whether an offer letter is confidential or not and I am still on the fence about it's confidentiality. But there are some offers which clearly mention that the letter itself is confidential too.

My questions are:
- Is this legal under the terms of offer letter?

• What are the consequences of uploading the letter here?




• What happens if the companies find out about this?

Is this legal under the terms of offer letter?

Typically not. Most US companies will require you to sign an NDA as part of the interview process and the offer letter is typically covered by this NDA. This is not a crime, but it's clearly a violation of contract. Read the paperwork that you have signed carefully and if you can't figure it out, have it reviewed by a lawyer.

What are the consequences of uploading the letter here?

Depending on what exact paperwork you have signed, it's a violation of a contract or NDA.

What happens if the companies find out about this?

Depends on circumstances and the company, but most US companies will NOT take this lightly. A violation of an NDA is a severe infraction and always a good reason for "termination with cause". Offer letters are considered confidential, and most companies are very protective of salary and offer data. Most likely outcome is, that they will rescind the offer, put you on a do not hire list and may share the infraction of other tech companies which would make it hard for you to get a job in the future. It is less likely that would go after you for damages, although they technically could.

The question you didn't ask

"What should I do?"

This is a bizarre request. The college is asking you do something that is likely in violation of a contract that you have signed and that may have serious negative consequences for their students. It may very well get the college blacklisted by US employers.

Step #1 would be to try to talk to someone and make them understand that this is potentially very harmful to the students and the college as well. If they stick to their request and threaten to withhold your degree, you need to get a lawyer involved. This is serious.

DO NOT post your offer letter, unless you have explicit permission in writing from your employer to do so (which you are unlikely to get). You can also ask your recruiter for help and advice. Maybe a letter from your employer stating that posting of the offer letter violates your agreement and would result in you losing the offer, would help communicating with the college

Whenever you ask a question about whether or not an action is legal, ask an attorney. No opinion here (unless it happens to come from an attorney) has any legal weight. As my retired-attorney father used to say, people can sue for anything, at any time, for any reason. Violating NDA (which in this case means you're revealing competitive information about hiring procedures) is a big deal and can seriously cost you — not the university.

One solution is provided by 520: ask your employer for a version of the letter to give to the university, or for their permission to upload the letter you received.

Another solution is to inform the university that you are under NDA and cannot upload the letter without violating it.

If the university is so childish that it would withhold your degree simply because you're unwilling to violate a legal agreement with your new employer, then perhaps you should consider suing. Granted, I don't know a thing about Indian law — but my knee-jerk reaction is the argument of loss-of-income-due-to-hiring-interference would cost them a boatload of cash. Here in the U.S., you'd have lawyers lining up to take the case.

You could ask your prospective employer for a letter that you can share with the university, or if you're really out of options, you can make one up. Given that these letters are under NDA anyway, it's highly unlikely they will be publicising them. All a fake letter would have to contain is your name, the name of the employer and the name of the person who sent you the message, and some general fluff about being accepted. None of that will be NDA material. Don't put in any information about start times, or office locations. If they won't listen to laws, feel free to bypass theirs when their rules contravene laws.

By and large, job offers are confidential so disclosing the offer letter and salary is forbidden. When two large organizations ask you to do contradicting things, first obey the law, then obey any legal contract (which is what applies here: your NDA with the company is the controlling factor), then follow your self-interest: your employer pays you, and university is in the past.

Most likely, the university wants proof of an offer letter to provide evidence of a marketing claim the university wants to make: that they place X percent of their students in good jobs. Some colleges have gotten in big trouble for that in the past, and at least in the USA many colleges are "student loan mills", and courts have canceled student loans from colleges who lied about placement.

So it is likely management, on advice of the Legal Dept., has told staff in no uncertain terms to capture that data from every single student no exceptions, and with the fervor and absolutism that comes with edicts from Legal. Staff uses Google Drive to ease their workload and prove that the student originated it (it's not faked).

Tempting though it may be to fake one, I do not advise that. Then, the university would have plausible grounds to accuse you of misconduct.

I would attempt to find out what data the university really needs and why they need it.

For instance, once you are employed, the mere fact that you are employed is publishable. The employer would cheerfully give a letter to that effect.

Salary, again, is not going to happen, as that would needlessly put them at disadvantage when negotiating salary with other candidates. It's a different deal if Government hires you, as salaries are typically public information.

Vincent. This may not be a direct answer to your questions, but I think it may be helpful. You could send an anonymous email to whatever is the closest to their internal ethics department, or perhaps to their legal department. Attach the instructions which were sent to everyone. Explain your concerns. Tell them that if the instructions are in accord with their university policies, then they need take no action at this time, but that you thought they should be aware of the requirement.

I think you would find that they would quickly cease the requirement.