IITs to decide on which startup to call and reject during placements amid Flipkart fiasco

Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are going to convene a meeting to decide the future course of action for e-commerce companies and startups during placement season.

After the IIM-A and Flipkart fiasco, heads of placement committees across all IITs are going to build a strategy for startups and decide what slots will be given to them and they will also decide on which startups to call.

READ ALSO: Flipkart calls deferring joining dates of campus recruits "a tough decision but necessary"

"Our AIPC (all-IITs placement committee) meeting was scheduled for October. But we have to convene this out-of-turn meeting in light of recent developments," Professor Kaustabha Mohanty, convenor of the panel, told ET.

After Flipkart, many startups such as PepperTap, Home Shopping, Runnr, Zimply, etc also deferred the joining dates of the recruits.

"Flipkart is a bellwether client of the current era of ecommerce companies. What Hindustan Unilever is to FMCG and what Infosys was to IT services, Flipkart is to ecommerce. I do believe the brand is already affected by this furore. What's worse is that it is not Flipkart alone, but the entire industry of ecommerce and the startup world that bears the brunt of this image drubbing. It's temporary for sure and life will go on, but the scar is left behind for sure," Brand strategy expert Harish Bijoor, CEO of Harish Bijoor Consults, told ET.

Meanwhile, reportedly, IITs have asked new recruits to explore other options too.

READ ALSO: Read the Curt email IIM-A sent Flipkart about bad hiring policies

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