Top e-commerce companies and startups, which are flush with cash and growing at a heightened pace post-Covis, are rushing to campuses to hire fresh engineering and management talent to increase stickiness as most of them are facing rising attrition and high offer drop-outs–candidates rejecting an offer from one company and taking up another–especially for tech talent.
According to a report in the Economic Times, Amazon, Meesho, Inframarket, Urban Company, Good Glamm and PhonePe are among firms that are stepping up their campus hiring. They say hiring from campuses will help them nurture young talent and create more stickiness among them. They are also offering attractive pay cheques and growth opportunities to the youngsters in a hyper-competitive talent market.
Ecommerce major Amazon said it is hiring thousands of students for 2022, “more than in the past years” across tech and non-tech profiles. “We hire students from IITs, NITs, IIMs, ISB and many other engineering colleges and B-schools,” the financial publication quoted a company spokesperson as saying.
At Internet commerce company Meesho, the planned campus hiring number for 2022 is ten times compared with the previous years.
Ashish Kumar Singh, chief HR officer, Mesho said his company is targetting students with a computer science background from top engineering institutions. “Over 150 new campus recruits will join us in 2022,” he told the publication.
The publication citing job market experts mentioned that companies are outbidding each other in the salary offers and the kinds of perks and other incentives. The young employees are also offered a lot of flexibility in job timings and location.
“Salaries will get inflated at the top colleges like the IITs and IIMs. At the tier-2 and tier-3 colleges too, startups are going all out to double the offer given by some of the larger tech companies,” the ET report quoted Anshuman Das, chief executive of CareerNet & Longhouse Consulting as saying. “There is a 15-20% increase in salaries compared to last year,” he said.
High attrition of tech talent is prompting many of these companies to do a lot of replacement hiring — taking a fresher in roles earlier occupied by someone with up to two years of experience.
Despite the increased salaries and expenses on training, campus hiring is more cost-effective, and companies are willing to invest in their training, said Das.
Edtech market leader Byju’s plans to hire 3,000-4,000 people across levels in technical and non-technical roles in the next six months and campus hires will be an important part of talent acquisition. “We want to keep engaging with the untapped potential of a young and inquisitive generation,” said chief people officer Pravin Prakash.
Beauty unicorn Good Glam Group is hiring more numbers from campuses than in the last three years combined, said Kartik Rao, its chief HR officer.
Urban Company plans to hire software engineers, product designers and product managers from campuses over the next 7 months, which Neha Mathur, its senior vice president, People Success, said will increase its workforce by 10%.
Manmeet Sandhu, head of HR at PhonePe, told the publication, “We have had a sub-10% attrition rate for campus hires across functions over the last 5 years.” The company is planning to hire over 200 students from campuses this year.
