Inside India’s startup hiring frenzy

Tech hiring in India has reached fever pitch in the last six to nine months. Not only is there a massive demand for new-age tech skills, but the country is also witnessing an acute talent gap. 

This has been aggravated by the rapid digitisation of sectors post-pandemic and the widespread creation of new jobs by homegrown startups, Silicon Valley tech companies, and legacy MNCs setting up offshore offices in India — all at the same time.   

As of August 2021, there were over 70,000 active openings for the top six skills: full-stack engineers, data analysts, front-end developers, SRE/DevOps, data scientists, and backend engineers. Collectively, these contribute 30 percent to job openings in the IT sector.

This has led to companies doling out “reckless” pay packages, extravagant perks, joining bonuses, and referral goodies, and more. Candidates are going shopping, with 4-7 job offers on an average at any given time, often leaving recruiters in the lurch. 

The talent acquisition director at a Bengaluru-based unicorn tells YourStory, “One guy came to us with seven offers. He did three interviews in a week, and his Rs 45 LPA went to Rs 75 LPA. It is so easy to do a job interview today. You don’t even have to put on pants. This has also heated up the market.”

Startups say that engineers have become kingmakers in the last one year. Hence, post-offer dropout rates have also shot up. Data from specialist staffing agency Xpheno indicates that dropout rates stood at 42-47 percent for the key tech roles, more than doubling from last year.

For more insights and anecdotes on the ongoing startup hiring frenzy, read YourStory’s deep dive here. 

Read all about how the Indian startup ecosystem is battling the second wave of COVID-19 here.

Here are some useful tools to help you find the nearest vaccine centres in real-time.

You can also share a tribute to COVID-19 warriors, saviours, and survivors here.

The Interview

From co-founders, employees, designers, accountants, and band members, to even plasma and blood donors during the second wave of COVID-19 — Tinder is fostering human connections of all kinds.

Taru Kapoor, General Manager, India, Tinder and Match Group reveals that more than just finding romantic connections, people have been using the dating app to gather resources as well.

Editor’s Pick: 100x Entrepreneur Podcast

While in their final year at IIT Roorkee, entrepreneurs Sambhav Jain and Kush Taneja observed that India has low levels of financial literacy, and that was because children aren't taught to manage finances from an early age. 

To help children and teenagers achieve financial independence, the duo started FamPay. The app empowers children to do online transactions, without having to ask their parents to input banking details, or waiting for them to give them OTPs. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

Building a B2B transport marketplace

Realising the inconveniences in the logistics business, IIT graduates Karan Shaha and Vikas Chandrawat launched Vahak, an online transport marketplace, in 2019.

Vahak allows client businesses to book lorries online, helps in transport business branding, and network expansion. It offers a live transport marketplace app to help client businesses directly connect with trusted transporters and truck owners across India. Read more.

News & Updates

• Zooming its focus on technology, Oyo has launched a self-onboarding tool — OYO 360 — which will enable hotels to turn into an OYO in under 30 minutes, as against a typical 15-day process.

• Just as it announced support for the Polygon network for both Coinbase Wallet and extension, Coinbase — the world's second-largest crypto exchange by daily volume — now plans to integrate the scaling solution to reduce prices and settlement times.

• Actor Malaika Arora takes her entrepreneurial pursuits one step further by announcing the launch of Malaika Arora Ventures (MAV) to actively invest in lifestyle, health, and wellness brands. 

• Trifecta Capital announced the launch of its third venture debt fund, Trifecta Venture Debt Fund – III. With a target corpus of Rs 1,000 crore ($133 million) and a greenshoe option of Rs 500 crore ($67 million), it will be the largest in the series of venture debt funds managed by the firm.

Before you go, stay inspired with… 

“Startups use ESOPs as a mode of compensation to attract top talent. But the average engineer will not care about ESOPs. They want cash in their bank accounts. ESOPs have to be used selectively to sweeten the offer. With those, companies are trying to reduce their monthly burn.”

— Deepak Abbot, Co-founder, Indiagold

Now get the Daily Capsule in your inbox. Subscribe to our newsletter today!