Ecommerce companies, startups step up campus hiring

KOLKATA | NEW DELHI: Ecommerce companies and startups are stepping up hiring by 50-100% from India’s leading engineering colleges and B-schools this placement season as they seek candidates who are quick to learn new-age tech skills such as Big Data and Internet of Things and adapt to fast-paced business environments.

Udaan, Droom, Flipkart, Amazon, Toppr, Testbook and NoBroker are among those hiring aggressively from campuses across multiple functions including operations, human resources, finance, business development, product management, marketing, sales, data science, software development and transformation.

For many of these companies, the campus intake from the Class of 2020 will be the highest ever. Online learning firm Toppr, for instance, is hiring more than 100, double that of last year. “Not only is entry-level talent bursting with energy to perform well, it also has an impressive learning curve,” said CEO Zishaan Hayath.

Udaan, an ecommerce platform for businesses that raised $585 million from investors a few months ago, is planning to hire more than 50 from the Indian Institutes of Technology and other engineering colleges, more than 100 from B-schools and other campuses, and more than 20 for specialised roles such as chartered accountants.

The unicorn visited more than 30 campuses this year and has increased hiring by 50%, the most till date.


“Our investment strategy is to invest in new talent so that they can build solutions for the company and contribute to business growth,” said cofounder Sujeet Kumar.

Edtech startup Testbook has increased hiring threefold from campuses this year to 36 from four IITs compared with 12 from three last year. Salaries have gone up by 20%. “The business is expanding and hiring numbers have gone up in line with that,” said CEO Ashutosh Kumar.

At the IITs, which have completed the first phase of final placements, ecommerce companies and startups have recruited in large numbers. Bengaluru-based real estate portal NoBroker, which raised $50 million in a Series D financing round in October, has given offers to 20 students from the IITs at Guwahati, Kanpur, Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai as part of campus and PPO (preplacement offer) hiring compared with just three-four last year.

They will be visiting the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) and the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) as well.

“Traditionally, we have been hiring freshers from campus and people who joined us four-five years back have already taken leadership roles. We are looking to expand further,” said cofounder Akhil Gupta.

Data science consulting firm Indus Insights has picked up 26 students from the IITs in Kanpur, Delhi, Chennai and Roorkee, with hiring at BITS-Pilani scheduled in January. At total of 50 offers will be made to new graduates this year, said CEO Saurabh Sharma.

While top Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) will begin final placements only in the new year, at other leading business schools such as SPJIMR that are done with their placements, ecommerce/ startup firms recruited more aggressively than last year. At SPJIMR, for instance, ecommerce companies made offers to about 22% of the batch compared with 17% last year.

INTERNATIONAL HIRING

Automobile marketplace and auto services company Droom is scaling up campus hiring by nearly 70%. It will be recruiting from leading Indian B-schools and engineering institutes, as well as international campuses, including the Wharton School, London Business School and Columbia Business School as it expands operations overseas, said CEO Sandeep Aggarwal.

At Flipkart, campus recruitments are similar to last year but the hiring of interns has doubled. The National Institutes of Technology (NITs) at Bhopal and Jaipur were among the schools the company visited for the first time this year.

Udaan also began visiting new IITs and IIMs that were recently launched in tier-II cities.

At Myntra Jabong, campus recruitments will constitute 20-25% of overall hires, said senior vice president Abhishek Sen.

Besides the top IIMs, the Indian School of Business (ISB) and XLRIXavier School of Management, it recruits from IITs, NITs, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the IIITs. The National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) is being tapped for design roles and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) for those in finance.

Real estate advisory firm Square Yards is looking to hire product managers from IIM-Lucknow, IIT-Bombay, the National Institute of Industrial Engineering, IIT-Delhi, IITKharagpur, IIM-Kozhikode, the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade as well as fresh graduates from tier-II and tier-III management colleges for its field sales force.