Facing Termination: Can I Still Join Cognizant Without a Relieving Letter?

Greetings Team,

I was working with IBM for an ITIS helpdesk in Bangalore. I was supposed to join on May 21, 2008, but due to family reasons, I had to take leave from IBM on September 27, 2010. After that, I couldn't report to duty. Three warning letters have been sent, but due to a critical family situation, I couldn't return to the office. I had to keep informing my manager via phone regularly. Unfortunately, he played the wrong role in my life as a mentor by stating that the management had initiated the absconding process. Now, I have received my termination letter. A total of 2 years and 3 months of experience have been lost. I have been offered a position at Cognizant, and the offer letter has been issued. I informed them that I would be receiving my relieving letter. However, the management mentioned that it is not possible to convert the termination letter to a relieving letter. So, what are the possibilities for me to be onboarded at Cognizant? They were supposed to offer me the position due to my experience.

Please let me know what HR can do to facilitate my onboarding at Cognizant, or if it is not possible at all.

You joined IBM on 21st May 2008. You have, without authorization or sanction, been absent from work since 27th September 2010. The below letters have been sent from IBM requesting you to report to duty immediately.

Date of the letters...

However, no response has been forthcoming from your side. There is, therefore, no dispute as to the factual position. The management reserves the right to establish the undisputed fact of your absence without authorization or sanction if and when called upon to do so in an appropriate forum.

We have considered your case carefully and find that there exist no extenuating circumstances and hence are constrained to terminate your service. Therefore, we hereby terminate your service with effect from today. Clause No (6) states that if you are absent for a continuous period of 8 days without leave or obtaining your manager's approval, you will be deemed to have voluntarily terminated your service without notice.

Kindly immediately return all assets of the company and contact the accounts department of the company to settle your account with the company.

Okay, what about those letters? Did you receive them, or did you respond to them via regular post with AD or email to the accounts department? Now, whatever happened, happened. Go to accounts and settle your PF, etc., and take a full and final letter. It's just a termination letter based on the reason for absenteeism. If the next company you're going to join has a human HR, then you won't have any problems, but most HR are now not human; they have become inhuman. :(

That termination letter itself proves that you have experience from 21/05/08 to 27/09/10 and assumes your conduct was good during this period. So, that termination letter is your relieving cum experience letter. For relieving, you can go to the accounts section and get a no dues form and get it photocopied for future reference.

So many people commit fraud, theft, worth crores, murder, etc., and no one cares, but that management screws employees for some minor errors or mistakes.

I had to get the warning letters from the company and had to explain about my family situation and the mistake I made was I had to communicate to my manager via phone. He actually agreed, and he only asked me to take care of the family situation. I have got permission from him. Now, I have lost everything here because if I had a written communication, everything would have been fine.

I had to get an offer letter after a great struggle at Cognizant, but the HR says that it is really difficult to recruit a person who has a termination letter. He says that the 3rd-party verification team will go through my case, and there is more possibility of getting a negative case result where you will lose the job. They had to process my offer letter and have given it to me as I said that I will be getting the relieving letter soon. After getting my scanned documents, he said he will get an update from the team, but he hasn't reverted back.