Written by A recent hiring case reported by a leading HR consultancy run by my friend Rucchi Awasthi has sparked conversations across the industry—and for the right reasons.
A candidate accepted an offer at 8:00 AM. By 11:00 AM, he rejected it.
Not because the role changed. Not because the organisation didn’t align with his goals. But because he simply forwarded the acceptance screenshot to another employer—and received a ₹2-lakh-higher offer within minutes.
This isn’t an isolated incident anymore. This is becoming standard behaviour in India’s evolving talent landscape.
The War for Talent Is No Longer a War—It’s a Marketplace Auction
For years, HR leaders debated whether we were in a candidate-driven market or an employer-driven market. Truth is, we are now in a skill-set market, where skills are traded with the same immediacy and volatility as commodities.
Talent is no longer viewed as a strategic resource. It has become a commodity up for sale to the highest bidder.
Research over the last 3–4 years highlights this shift:
- LinkedIn Workforce Reports show offer reneges increasing by 80–120% in certain tech and digital roles.
- Several staffing firms report no-show rates crossing 25–40%, especially among so-called immediate joiners.
- Salary inflation for niche skills in India has touched 30–60% YoY, far surpassing global trends.
- “Fishing”—candidates sourcing counteroffers through screenshots or fabricated offers—has become disturbingly common.
What was once a structured talent acquisition function has now become a real-time bidding platform. And India’s credibility as a talent hub is taking a hit.
Why This Is Happening: Broken Systems, Short-Term Thinking
The problem is not just candidates gaming the system. Organizations have also fueled this environment—often unintentionally—by:
- aggressive hiring targets
- poor workforce planning
- unrealistic expectations on notice periods
- lack of hiring calibration
- inconsistent compensation bands
- closing roles under pressure instead of strategy
Put together, this system incentivizes salary leapfrogging, inflated offers, and unstable career decisions.
When the hiring environment rewards opportunism, opportunism becomes the norm.
We Need Out-of-the-Box Thinking: What If Hiring Became Transparent?
If the market behaves like a commodity exchange, it requires the infrastructure of one. Not more rules—more transparency.
Here’s a radical but necessary idea:
A Common, Unified Hiring Portal for India
A national, industry-supported platform where:
1. All formal job offers are issued through a single verified portal
Every organization generates its offers here—similar to how UPI brought all banks onto one platform.
2. The system flags if a candidate already has an offer
Hiring managers know exactly what the candidate is holding, preventing blind bidding wars.
3. Candidate career behaviour becomes visible
(Not personal data, but behavioural hiring data.)
- No. of switches
- No. of offers received
- Offers accepted
- Offers reneged/no-shows
- Average tenure
- Past salary trajectory
This is not about penalizing talent—it’s about creating accountability and credibility.
4. Employers also get rated
Just like candidates, companies too will have transparency on
- offer withdrawals
- hiring process delays
- poor interview experiences
- toxic attrition trends
A transparent system works only when both sides are accountable.
5. A marketplace where fishing is impossible
When offers are digitized, verified, tracked, and timestamped, salary auctions will naturally decline. Fishing disappears. Sanity returns.
This is the “Amazonification” of hiring—not to commercialize people, but to standardize and stabilize the hiring process.
**Will This Solve Everything? No.
Will It Change the Game? Absolutely.**
Look at what unified public digital infrastructure has done for India:
- UPI transformed payments
- DigiLocker simplified identity
- ONDC is restructuring e-commerce
- Account Aggregators are reinventing financial data
Why shouldn’t hiring—one of the largest economic engines—benefit from similar innovation?
India has the talent. What we don’t have is a transparent hiring ecosystem that protects both candidates and employers.
The Call to Action: Build the Future of Hiring Together
If we want to stop talent from becoming an auction, if we want to restore trust, credibility, and long-term thinking, we must stop reacting and start rebuilding.
It’s time for:
- CHROs
- industry bodies
- HR tech innovators
- government skill councils
- large employers
- recruiters
- platform players
to co-create a unified hiring ecosystem that is transparent, fair, and future-ready.
Because the alternative is worse:
A job market where credibility erodes, costs spiral, talent becomes transactional, and hiring becomes a race to the highest bidder—not the best fit.
India cannot afford that future.
Let’s rethink hiring. Not faster. Not costlier. Smarter, fairer, and together.
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