I graduated in India this year and I have my master's planned in a Canadian University next year. So I started applying for temporary jobs, however most of the technical jobs in my city are under paying because of the market saturation.
However, I found an MNC who offered me slightly above market standards Salary (30000 INR/month) I cleared their multiple interview rounds and the CEO and HR seemed to be extremely approachable and friendly. I was extremely excited as their office was close by and I got an opportunity to work for something I was good at 'Documentation Specialist'. However at the time of signing the appointment letter, they asked me to sign a document “Agreement of Employment” They asked me to give it a read, and bring all the documents required the next day.
I started reading it, first of all they wanted me to work at the same position for 2 years and give them a 200,000 INR Check as a safety collateral. Which is extremely unreasonable as it's nearly half of my annual CTC. The market standard in my city is of only 2 month salary and the duration is usually 1-1.5 years. I thought “Okay it's completely unreasonable, but I guess they are offering above market salary (barely) so I guess they can ask for a more stricter 'Bond' policy.”
I was having second thoughts about this company, but I kept on reading. The document said, they can keep my 200,000 INR in case I quit for ANY reason or even if they fired me for ANY reason before the end of 2 years duration. After the whole money part of the thing I thought it can't get any worse. Oh boy I was so wrong.
They wanted me to give up my Marksheets and certificates as a collateral as well. To be precise, they wanted my Bachelor's degree certificate, my degree Marksheets (all 8 semesters), my 12th/Highschool Senior year exam Marsheet, and my 10th/Highschool Sophomore year Marksheet.
They wanted to hold my entire life's work as hostage to give me a job. What if the HR conveniently loses all the documents before leaving his job in the future? What if there's a fire and it burns everything? It's extremely difficult and painful to replace all those documents. They'd have my neck and balls on a noose with that kind of leverage.
In hindsight I think they agreed to offer me above market salary cause I might have been probably overqualified for the position. The position of Documentation Specialist is usually taken by people with Arts and Humanities majors, and they have to hire a separate guy with the knowledge in technical field to assist him. They expressed their intent to only hire one person for the documentation needs of the entire MNC (4 branches in 4 countries with 70+ employees)
In their eyes I was a guy with Bachelor's in Engineering, a relevant degree for their company. I already had plenty of knowledge about their products and how they work. And I had great writing skills (i think). I had a many articles published in a couple of issues of a magazine. And I had a published thesis from my final year of college.
Sadly, there was no way I'd sign that piece of Bondage agreement and I had to give up the job.
TLDR: The position that I really wanted had (barely) above market salary, but they wanted me to give them half my yearly salary as a check plus every meaningful certificate and marksheet I own for them to hold hostage, in case I quit earlier than 2 years.