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Joining delay: Amazon, Paytm keen on hiring graduates who got offers from Flipkart
Flipkart’s loss may well turn out to be a gain for other ecommerce companies. Rival Amazon and Paytm are among companies that are keen on hiring the B-school graduates who were offered jobs by Flipkart but were later told to wait until December to join and not in June as was promised.
Amazon, Paytm and other companies such as fashion marketplace app Voonik have been in touch with top business schools even as Flipkart continues to maintain its stance of not shortening the deferment period or increasing compensation for the students as sought by the institutes.
Meanwhile, the students who got offers from Flipkart are looking for other options as most don’t want to wait until December, said placement sources at the B-schools.
“We are very much open to hiring these guys,” Amazon HR head Raj Raghavan told ET, while adding that the American ecommerce major is on track with its own campus hiring. “From our side, we are honouring all the offers we made, onboarding people as per plan and are happy to look at these CVs,” Raghavan said. “These are all campuses we have relationships with.”
Amit Sinha, HR head at Paytm, said campuses reached out to it and since it is growing at a fast clip, “we took the opportunity to review the candidates who may have received deferred joining dates and are keen to join Paytm”.
This year, Paytm hired in two batches of 25 students each and most of its campus hires from IIM, XLRI and Indian School of Business have already joined. “We have positions open for another 40-50 people across commerce, events, bank, etc who can join as soon as August beginning, basically one month after selection,” said Sinha.
Apart from the IIMs, MDI Gurgaon placements chairperson Kanwal Kapil also said Paytm had contacted the school.
Companies from other sectors too have shown willingness in taking on board these students as the institutes swung into action to help them. Four IIMs Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta and Lucknow confirmed to ET that they have reached out to their recruiter base to line up alternative jobs for those affected.
Flipkart made offers to 45 students on these four IIM campuses: 18 at Ahmedabad, 11 at Bangalore, nine at Calcutta and seven at Indore. “All our students who had offers from Flipkart told us that they want to consider alternative jobs,” said Sapna Agarwal, head of career development services at IIM-Bangalore. “Right now, they are our primary concern.”
IIM-Ahmedabad’s placement committee chairperson, Asha Kaul, who had dashed off a letter to Flipkart on the joining date deferment issue on Monday, confirmed this. “We have reached out to recruiters and have companies contacting us as well,” she said.
At IIM-Lucknow, campus coordinator Rishabh Gupta said Amazon and Voonik had reached out to the institute, along with companies from other sectors. IIM-Indore said though candidates haven’t actively started looking out yet, they too have received an email from Voonik stating that the company has openings.
Sujayath Ali, cofounder and CEO at Voonik, confirmed its interest. “We have been approaching students. We have told them that while it’s okay if they want to wait for Flipkart, we have openings as well. Afew have already expressed interest in our offers,” he said.
Though Flipkart has provided assurance that it will honour its job offers in December, campus sources said many students would prefer not to wait if they got something good in the interim.
“I think Flipkart is hoping that the six-month deferral period will lead to some students dropping out on their own,” said a placement team member at a top IIM. “Right now, their focus on trimming costs and containing burn rate is more important to them than reputation management.” Paul Richardson Authentic Jersey
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