Just three months ago, a software engineer from India bragged on Reddit about how he had snagged a “dream job” working for Grab in Singapore and that Grab even offered him a high salary comparable to the pay he would get working for Amazon or Uber – on top of more than one month’s salary for him to relocate to Singapore.
The software engineer, Vedant Agarwala, appears to have been employed by Grab as an advanced software engineer in December 2018 according to a resume he uploaded to Reddit.
Today, that same foreigner informed Redditors that he is hunting for jobs in Singapore and asked Singaporeans for advice on what will happen if he lets multiple companies apply for his Employment Pass (EP).
Indicating that he is expecting offers from two or three companies in Singapore, Vedant said: “In the end, obviously I’ll join only 1 company. But I don’t want to risk losing an offer I have for another offer I might get in the future, and vice-versa.”
One netizen responded to Vedant and informed him that he will be bound to whichever EP gets approved first for In-principle approval (IPA) unless he can convince the company to withdraw the EP approval so another company can apply for his EP.
Vedant was also notified that a potential employer would be able to see his pending EP applications and may be hesitant to hire him or request him to withdraw other EP applications before considering him for employment.
Vedant responded and asked: “So if I get a better offer, I withdraw the earlier application and then proceed with the next? Considering that the IPA isn’t issued, ofcourse.”
The netizen he was conversing with responded and said that the company would have to withdraw the application and that letting multiple companies apply for his EP could affect his EP eligibility in the future:
According to Vedant’s post history, he appears to be in his late 20s. In one post, he revealed that he “dropped out from a good university, and have 8 months of startup experience” and that he used to earn between 20,000 to 40,000 annual salary.
Vedant has uploaded several posts expressing an interest to find jobs in the US, the European Union, Singapore, Tokyo and Germany. He has also asked several questions about Singapore – about whether he could bring a hookah flavour through the Changi Airport, how to convert money to SGD and whether he can cycle on vehicle roads. -/TISG