Something for the weekend: Indian food delivery giant Zomato has opened applications for a chief of staff role with an unusual twist: no salary will be paid for the first year.
Instead, Deepinder Goyal, chief executive officer of the organisation, has stated that the position comes with a two million rupees (£18,757) fee, which will be donated to charity and is intended to offer the successful applicant “10-times more learnings than a two-year degree from a top management school”.
According to the job description, the organisation is looking for someone who “has a lot of common sense, empathy and not a lot of experience, is down to earth and has zero entitlement, wants to do the right thing even if it comes at the cost of displeasing others, has Grade A communication skills and a learning mindset.” They must also be willing to help build Zomato, its quick delivery business Blinkit and other verticals.
The position will come with an annual salary of at least five million rupees (£46,949) from the second year if the candidate is still in the role.
The job advert has raised some eyebrows online, particularly after Goyal’s update post sharing that it had received more than 18,000 applications. He said that “charging people was never part of the plan” and “it was a merely a filter to find people who had the power to appreciate the opportunity of a fast-track career. We are going to reject most of the applications who have the money or even talked about the money. We are going to find genuine intent and learning mindset from the applications we have received.”
Some LinkedIn comments disagreed with his approach, with one user saying: “You might have gotten 18,000 entries but you have lost my respect by being a frivolous founder who is using his social media klout for such stupid PR stunts.”
However, some comments were more positive. One X user said: “He’s basically testing your ability to cut through the noise.”
While this is an interesting way of gaining attention for a job, and finding an applicant who is genuinely interested in progressing their career through the role, we would questions whether it was worth the thousands of negative comments that Goyal received!
