How to land an E-learning job without getting a raw deal?

As a returning E-learning professional to the world of a full-time job market in India, I’ve had a very interesting experience that will probably shape the rest of my eLearning career path.

I received an offer letter from an Indian MNC company after about five rounds of meeting with different individuals and a rigorous testing process that included developing a whole course for them from scratch. This included content chunking, creating a table of contents, an audio script, a complete storyboard and a design document, which I then had to explain to them in detail in another round – all this around Christmas Eve over a weekend!

I believed I was being industrious. Colleagues in the industry tell me that it was a case of ‘free work’. I don’t know.

I received the offer letter for an ‘almost’ average industry standard pay scale, glad to have received one so early on but only to find that it was in the name of another company!

I was taken aback to say the least as I was now to be an employee of a small sister concern, not the global MNC that I thought I had been recruited for.

At no point during the interview process had I been made aware of this. Needless to say, I rejected the offer but I also felt a sense of being let down. The hard work and the less than average pay scale that I had compromised on was for the global MNC, not for the unknown sister concern.

From the employer’s perspective, it was a standard process that many companies adopted and there was no obligation to let the candidate know well ahead as it was no big deal after all.

However, it had got me thinking about hiring practices and the question of trust, transparency and a sense of being valued as a prospective employee. Surely a prospective candidate has the right to know which company they are applying to. Is this level of transparency too much to ask for?

I think it is important for employees to know that they can trust a prospective employer and that they will be valued in the organisation - a seemingly far cry from reality, though.