BHUBANESWAR: Twenty-six B.Tech graduates from Odisha's SOA University got the shock of their life on Tuesday when they went to join a company that had purportedly 'selected' them during the campus placement in April. It turned out that the company, Huawei, had never selected them.“We got the shock of our life. We were super excited after days of extended parties to celebrate the first job. But the entire world came crashing down when the company officials said the offer letters we possessed were never issued by them,” an affected student told TOI.“It was so embarrassing. I could not look my father in the eyes,” he said.After the agitated students and their parents contacted the university, the authorities crosschecked with various companies only to find that job offers to not only these 21 but more than 100 students by nine companies (Huawei, Ircon Construction, Schneider Electric, Mitshubishi Electric, Honeywell, Toshiba, Magneti Marelli Supertech and Intel) were fake.The people who came to recruit on behalf of these companies had no connection with them.“We were initially angry with the university. But now we feel even the varsity was cheated,” said Amit Sahu, another student whose joining is due in June.A varsity spokesperson said the hiring was facilitated by a consultancy firm, who made false job promises on behalf of these companies.The firm charged a consultancy fee from the university and not from the students. “We will lodge an FIR against the consultancy on Wednesday. It’s too early to say why it did so,” a varsity spokesperson said.In a damage control, the university offered three options to the affected students.“We will provide a stipend support of monthly Rs 20,000 to them and engage them as teaching assistants for a year or till they get jobs. The varsity will explore job prospects for them,” said varsity’s registrar B B Pradhan.“If the students want to pursue M.Tech in the varsity, it will bear the entire course fee. For those willing to do MBA, the varsity will bear the first year fee,” Pradhan said.The deemed university accredited ‘A’ grade by NAAC and was ranked the 33rd best institution at the national level and the 20th best university in the India Rankings 2017, the grading of higher educational institutions by the Ministry of Human Resource Development released in April.