Andrey Gein, a Russian resident who worked at Yandex, a Russian search engine and web portal, spent several months interviewing for a position at Google's London office. After passing five technical interviews and speaking with numerous individuals at Google, he received a job offer that included his salary. "In March, I resigned from my previous company, Yandex, to spend the final month preparing for my relocation to London. This process involved vacating my apartment in Yekaterinburg, packing my belongings, and selling some items," he explains on his website. However, just four days before his scheduled flight to London and ten days prior to his planned start date, he received a terse notification from Google's HR Director, which stated:
Dear Andrey,
As you are likely aware, on January 20, our Global CEO, Sundar Pichai announced the intention to reduce our global workforce by approximately 12,000 roles. The impact of this announcement means that we are in a process of consulting employees about workforce reductions.
This process includes hiring freezes and strategic reviews of our operations in ways to reduce the impact for current employees who are at risk of losing their jobs. Unfortunately, these reviews mean that we have had to make the difficult decision to terminate the contract of employment which you signed with Google UK Ltd, and this letter is formal notice of termination.
Sincerely.
Gillian Kulkarni
Director, HR Google
"Thus, the contract with me has been terminated 10 days before it was supposed to take effect," writes Gein.
