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MUMBAI: Flush with funds and hungry for growth, a bunch of startups is gearing up to stake claim on talent at India’s top campuses. 
 
As placements unfold over the next few months at the IITs, IIMs and other institutes, these startups look on track to give traditional heavyweights a run for their money in the battle for talent. 
 
Ten startups that ET spoke to are collectively looking to hire more than 850 graduates across leading business schools, engineering colleges and graduate schools this fiscal. 
 From established names such as <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword>, TaxiForSure and <keyword id="1006428" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Olacabs">Olacabs</keyword> to campus newbies like Vizury and <keyword id="2463175" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="CodeNation">CodeNation</keyword>, almost all are hiring in greater numbers than before, armed with attractive pay packages and the promise of greater responsibilities and faster growth for potential hires. 
 
Barely six months after being registered as a company, enterprise software developer CodeNation is already one of the most coveted recruiters at engineering campuses such as National Institutes of Technology (NITs), offering salaries of Rs 24 lakh. One of the last to go to the campuses last season, it hired 12 engineering graduates in March 2014. 
 
This time, it plans to net the best early on from the IITs, NITs, IIITs (Indian Institutes of Information Technology), DTU (Delhi Technological University) and PESIT (PES Institute of Technology). "We went to campuses very late (last time), but do not want to do the same this time. We plan to hire 50 students from the best colleges," said Anuja Sivaram, head of operations at CodeNation. 
 Another relatively new name is Bangalore-based big data analytics startup Vizury. Last year, it went to two <keyword id="2470783" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="BITS-Pilani-University">BITS Pilani University</keyword> campuses with seven offers. The startup, which in June saw a third round of <keyword id="6357455" type="EVENT" weightage="20" keywordseo="Funding">funding</keyword> totaling $16 million from new and existing investors, is planning to recruit more this year. "We plan to hire 25-30 engineers from IITs, BITS Pilani University, NITs and IIIT campuses for our product engineering team. Students will be working on cuttingedge analytics and advertising technology platforms," said Subra Krishnan, vice-president in charge of products. 
 
Taxi-service startup Olacabs, fresh after raising Rs 250 crore last month, is on an expansion mode. 
 
To drive its growth plans, the company is in the market for 100 new hires from IITs and IIMs, compared with 40 it recruited last year, said co-founder and Chief Executive Bhavish Aggarwal. 
 
Rival TaxiForSure, on its part, is heading to engineering campuses for the first time this year. Until now the company hired engineers laterally. "We will head to IIT-Madras and IIT-Bombay for the first time. Now we have five engineering managers who can train the new recruits and therefore there is sufficient leadership to hire from engineering campuses," said human resources head TN Hari. 
 While it hasn’t decided on the number of engineering students to be recruited, the startup will hire 25 from IIMs in Bangalore, <keyword id="6354925" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kolkata">Kolkata</keyword>, Ahmedabad and Lucknow as well as the <keyword id="6357275" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indian-School-of-Business">Indian School of Business</keyword>. 
 Online retailer Flipkart, last year’s biggest <keyword id="41007" type="POSITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="recruiter">recruiter</keyword> in the startup space, declined to share numbers for this year but is expected to at least match last year’s hiring tally. 
The Bangalore-based company, which made an entry into the ET Top Recruiters at B-schools survey for the first time this year, hired more than 275 students from across campuses, including 90 management trainees, 115 graduate trainees and 70 software development engineers last season. 
 
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What helps these startups attract talent other than strong hiring numbers is a vibrant work environment, and salaries that are as competitive as many established organisations. TaxiForSure, for instance, will be offering packages ofRs 8-10 lakh at IITs. At IIMs, salaries will range between Rs 12 lakh and Rs 25 lakh, compared with Rs 12-18 lakh last year. 
 Mobile marketing and communications startup <keyword id="416397" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="ZipDial">ZipDial</keyword>, which intends to hire around 20 students this year, says while its fixed salaries may be slightly lower than market rates, top performers stand to make much more in terms of variable bonuses and employee equity grants. LimeRoad.com, which operates an online shopping platform for women, will offer employee stock option programmes. 
 Restaurant-guide startup <keyword id="830092" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Zomato">Zomato</keyword> is offering around Rs 15 lakh a year while property listings portal <keyword id="1960231" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Housing-com">Housing.com</keyword> will be shelling out anywhere between Rs 12 lakh and Rs 18 lakh. 
 Mumbai-based Housing.com, which raised Rs 115 crore in a new round of funding in June, was in fact, a <keyword id="2470782" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="first-day-recruiter">first-day recruiter</keyword> at <keyword id="2470784" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="IITKharagpur">IITKharagpur</keyword> placement rounds last December, sharing space with the likes of <keyword id="6355629" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Google">Google</keyword> and <keyword id="43340" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Oracle">Oracle</keyword>. 
 
This year, as well, several startups are likely to be among the first and second day recruiters at prestigious campuses, a privilege usually reserved for big-ticket recruiters. 
 
"The culture of entrepreneurship that startups provide, the growth opportunities and the challenging work environment are all very attractive to a number of students," said Punj Rajan, a student placement committee member at IIT-Kharagpur. "They actually want several startups to be among the companies slotted in the first few days of placements." Rajan had interned with Jabong.com during summer. Even B-schools are ready to make extra efforts to attract more startups. 
 
IIM-Bangalore last year organised a separate day for startups to come and hire from the executive MBA batch. "Startups often offer senior positions and if they need more time and rounds, we are ready to stretch for them. In the near future, we may have separate startup fairs for our flagship PGP batch too," said Sapna Agarwal, head of career development services at IIM-Bangalore. 
 
Not surprisingly, Advitiya Sharma, co-founder of Housing.com, says he has been flooded by invitations from top colleges. His plans are not firmed up as yet, but he intends to hire around 25 people from IITs and a similar number from IIMs across software, analytics, operations and tech roles. 
 
Another startup, Wooqer, has already made three pre-placement offers at Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur. It plans to hire 25 students across IITs and a couple of NITs, and intends to reach out to IIM-Indore, IIM-Bangalore, SP Jain Institute of Management &amp; Research and NMIMS soon. 
 
Salaries will range from Rs 13 lakh toRs 17 lakh. Other institutes including graduate and design schools are also being targeted by these startups. 
 
Upasana Nath, chief recruitment officer at Zomato, said besides the 40 students it will be hiring from engineering colleges like the IITs and senior leadership profiles from IIMs and ISB, it will be taking on board 200 for front line sales and content operations from graduate colleges in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Suchi Mukherjee, CEO &amp; co-founder of LimeRoad.com, said the startup intends to get 30-50 people from campuses alone. IITs in Delhi, Kanpur, Mumbai and Chennai will be the focus for technology and IIMs in Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Kolkata for product managers, marketing and category managers.

Indian Startups Compete With Bigger Firms For Campus Recruits

Think how you would feel if you were to go for an all-paid foreign trip, adventure sports getaway, food walk, foosball tournament etc. Several Indian <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=startups">startups</a> are playing a cool <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Santa+">Santa</a> to their employees this <keyword id="8206" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Christmas">Christmas</keyword>! 
 
Many like CodeNation, Wingify, Shop-Clues, MyDala, Wego, Roadrunnr, JoyByNature and BiteClub want to celebrate their successful journey so far, and what could be best than taking them out for short holidays. 
 
15-odd employees at Wego, a travel search site, are going to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Phuket+">Phuket</a> for a three night-four day trip for overperforming targets. 
 
Bengaluru-based resource aggregator Onetimejobs is sponsoring a family vacation to Ooty for its employees while tech startup Code-Nation recently took its employees for a 3-day watersports outing in Dandeli to unwind together. 
 Delhi-based Wingify is one company that takes its employees and their families on a <keyword id="20983" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Holiday">holiday</keyword> every year. This year, it is spending Rs 65 lakh to take some 130 people across its offices in Delhi, Pune and the US to Langkawi for four days of fun and games. 
 
(Image credit: AFP)

Startups play Santa to overperforming employees, line up foreign trips, food walks and what not!

Startups are unaffected by getting banned and are recruiting top talent at IIT placements this year. Regardless of the fact that many of the startups are being blacklisted by the institutes, many international companies that have just started in India are providing the students great offers and some big recruiters' individual hiring numbers. 
 Many like <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword> and <keyword id="541988" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="SnapDeal">Snapdeal</keyword> are amongst the blacklisted ones, their rival likes <keyword id="18635" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Amazon">Amazon</keyword> and <keyword id="6357120" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="PayTM">Paytm</keyword> are hiring aggressively at several <keyword id="6386086" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indian-Institutes-of-Technology">Indian Institutes of Technology</keyword>, and commanding premium slots in placements along with the likes of logistics startup <keyword id="3932850" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="rivigo-services">Rivigo Services</keyword> and enterprise software developer CodeNation. 
 Amazon is planning to visit 17 <keyword id="49737" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="IITs">IITs</keyword> this year and is looking forward to hiring more engineers than last year. It is making its first Jodhpur, Indore and Bhubaneswar IITs. 
 "We firmly believe that as we expand and grow in the country, talented engineers from these institutes will play an instrumental role in driving Amazon's growth in India. We continue to be aggressive in our hiring outlook as we scale up our operations in India,” <keyword id="662878" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Raj-Raghavan">Raj Raghavan</keyword>, HR director for APAC at Amazon, told ET. 
 
Paytm, after being benefited by the government’s demonetisation scheme, is now looking forward to increasing its intake from IITs this year. 
 "Paytm is expanding quickly and we are constantly on the lookout for talent to help us keep the momentum,” <keyword id="214729" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Amit-Sinha">Amit Sinha</keyword>, senior VP at Paytm, told ET. 
 
The Noida-based ecommerce and digital payments provider has hired from Guwahati, Roorkee, Madras, Bombay and Varanasi (BHU) IITs this year. Besides these biggies, several smaller startups, too, have joined the rush to attract top talent from the country's premier engineering campuses. 
 
"Startups are far from disappearing from the campus. For us, they hold a good share in the placements this year. Where 55 startups have registered for placements this year, up from 50 last year, and they've already handed out more offers than last year,” NP Padhy, professor-in-charge for training and placement at IIT Roorkee, told ET. 
 
There are many new comers in the placement league and the list includes Smartprix, FlyNava Technologies, Clustr, Hike and Buyhatke. 
 
"There are still many startups coming. While most hire in small numbers, they still find takers, especially among students who have a risk appetite,” a senior person involved in IIT placements, told ET. 
 
The IITs also blacklisted a list of startups over a list of numerous reasons. Despite some startups revoking offers in previous years, several students are still eager to join such firms. 
 "Students are now more aware about the uncertainties associated with startups, and more informed. Many are eager to join them, especially those who want to start something of their own in the future and want to gain the experience,” B Venkatesham, placement-in-charge at <keyword id="922152" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="IIT-Hyderabad">IIT Hyderabad</keyword>, told ET. 
 
Even in campuses where the number of startup recruiters is less than last year, such firms are among the popular recruiters. IIT Madras has given premium slots to companies such as Amazon, Next Education, CodeNation, Rivigo Services and Paytm in the placement process.

Despite getting blacklisted, startups still rock at IIT placements

Companies and startups are ready to raid engineering and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=B-school+">B-school</a> campuses across India this placement season, adding to the fierce war for talent already raging between large e-Commerce companies and established old-world recruiters. 
 
The startups which are looking for fresh talents include ShopClues, LocalOye, Urban-Clap, PropTiger, Indus Insights, MyRefers, CodeNation, Embibe, Jombay, Lybrate and ShadowFax. 
 
Moreover, a survey of 11 startups suggests they will step up overall <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=campus+hiring+">campus hiring</a> to 770 students from the Class of 2016 compared with only 250 that they hired from the last batch. 
 
Bulk of this hiring will be across top engineering colleges and B-schools, including Indian Institutes of Technology, National Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management. 
 
Don’t be disappointed if you are not studying in the above mentioned institutes as a handful will also recruit at leading undergraduate colleges including Shri Ram College of Commerce, Lady Shri Ram College and St Stephen's, and design schools such as National Institute of Design and National Institute of Fashion Technology. 
 
Now comes the most interesting part- salary! Average salaries offered by these startups range between Rs 12 lakh and Rs 18 lakh at engineering colleges and B-schools, say campus sources. Prop-Tiger, for instance, is paying upwards of Rs 15 lakh plus benefits at tech schools; CodeNation will pay around Rs 24 lakh. 
 
At least three of these startups — Lybrate, LocalOye and ShadowFax — are first-timers on campus while others, at the very least, are doubling last year's numbers. In some cases, hiring targets are going up five-fold or even 16-fold compared with last year. 
 
The strategies behind the hiring are discussed below: 
1. Depending on the kind of institutes, students are being hired for a variety of roles: from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=software+development+engineers">software development engineers</a>; core management &amp; data scientists; product, operations and marketing; merchant acquisition and servicing, to human resource management, product and graphic designers and even entrepreneurs in residence. Sanjay Mehta, a Mumbai-based angel investor who participated in and led 11 angel deals in 2015, says the reason why startups are so gung-ho about <keyword id="511161" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="campus-hiring">campus hiring</keyword> is because they want to put this talent to work on cutting-edge technology and new delivery models. Not surprisingly, several institutes where placements have started, including Birla Institute of Technology &amp; Science-Pilani and <keyword id="75110" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="NITs">NITs</keyword>, are seeing these startups go head-to-head with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=traditional+recruiters+">traditional recruiters</a> to hire talent. At other B-schools and <keyword id="49737" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="IITs">IITs</keyword> where pre-placement offers (PPOs) have started flowing in, it is again the startups that are leading the pack. 
 
2. Much high in numbers: The numbers speak for themselves. If ShopClues is revising its hiring intake from around 100 last year to 180-250 this time, realty portal PropTiger is doubling its target to 50. Even five-month-old B2B (business-to-business) hyperlocal delivery startup ShadowFax, which raised $300,000 from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Snapdeal">Snapdeal</a>'s founders and others in August followed by a $8.5-million Series A round by Fidelity's proprietary investment arm Eight Roads Ventures barely a month later, is looking to hire from IITs, <keyword id="46923" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="IIMs">IIMs</keyword> and other leading management institutes for its technology, data science and operations teams. 
 
3. Tapping more institutes: In the process, these companies are reaching out to many more institutes this year. "If there is a campus that attracts bright minds of the country, we want to be there. This includes other engineering colleges as well as top colleges in economics and commerce," says Saurabh Sharma, founder &amp; chief executive officer of Indus Insights. The Big Data firm made 40 offers last year, mostly at the top IITs (Bombay, Delhi, Madras). This year, it plans to make 100-plus, including at NITs (Trichy, Warangal, etc), SRCC, LSR, Christ College and Indian School of Business. 
 Similarly, Delhi-based mobile services marketplace UrbanClap, which hired 30 business development and operations specialists from <keyword id="6360099" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Delhi-University">Delhi University</keyword> last year, is extending its reach to several new institutes, including <keyword id="6431668" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="IIT-Delhi">IIT-Delhi</keyword> and IIM-Ahmedabad as it gears up to take on 80-100 this year. 
 
Salaries apart, the other drawing factors include the opportunity to work on challenging problems. "We don't have any glass ceilings. Freshers could be running entire teams within six months of joining," says Aditi Avasthi, founder and CEO, Embibe. "Students are opting for startups aggressively as some of the roles offered by them are quite challenging and inclined with their aspirations," sums up Rahul Katyal, placement manager at IIT-Bombay. 
 
(Image: Indiatimes)

Gear up to face interviews! Engineering and business schools to witness over three-fold jump in recruitments in India

MUMBAI: <keyword id="6355629" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Google">Google</keyword> has set the placement season at top non-IIT engineering colleges off to a rocking start, offering $2,35,000 (Rs 1.44 crore) to BITS-Pilani students who make the cut for international vacancies, according to campus sources involved in the process. <keyword id="10387" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword> is offering Rs 79.51 lakh for jobs at its Redmond headquarters. 
 Last year, Google and Microsoft had offered top salaries of Rs 68.34 lakh and Rs 60 lakh, respectively. Reflecting upbeat business sentiment, aggressive recruiters including <keyword id="18635" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Amazon">Amazon</keyword>, eBay, Flipkart, Schlumberger and lesser-known startups such as CodeNation have hiked pay packets by up to 25 per cent compared with the previous year, mostly for domestic jobs. 
 
They are also stepping up hiring in a big way. “There has been more than 40 per cent growth in the number of recruiters this year and the Goa campus has seen a 100 per cent increase,” said G Balasubramanian, chief placement officer at BITS-Pilani University. 
 
The college has 4 campuses across Pilani, Goa, Hyderabad and Dubai. “Salary packages have gone up by an average of 20 per cent at several companies,” said Samuel Rajkumar, deputy director (placements), VIT University. 
 
Placements at the non-IIT campuses are a precursor to campus hiring at IITs, which kick off in December. Early indications at these institutes suggest that happy days are here again for the job market. 
 Epic Systems with a $1,08,300 (Rs 66.4 lakh) offer and Schlumberger with $1,05,000 (Rs 64.4 lakh) are the other top paymasters soon to arrive on campus during the placement season. According to campus sources, <keyword id="6361649" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Goldman-Sachs">Goldman Sachs</keyword> paid Rs 13 lakh this year for roles in the technological division compared with Rs 11 lakh last year. 
 
 
 
 
For strategy roles, Goldman Sachs has paid up to Rs 35 lakh this year at certain campuses. Amazon has offered Rs 25 lakh to three students of Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT), Allahabad, and NIT-Calicut. 
 At NIT-Warangal and NITK-Surathkal, the offers were for Rs 18 lakh. This is for domestic jobs. Rival Flipkart is offering Rs 15 lakh plus benefits across campuses and its subsidiary <keyword id="319719" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Myntra">Myntra</keyword> is picking up students for a similar amount but through a separate process. 
 AT NITK-Surathkal, Flipkart has been given the ‘dream company’ status along with <keyword id="28120" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Linkedin">LinkedIn</keyword>, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. All students can sit for interviews at these firms even if they have other offers. 
 
Even lesser-known startups are waging a fierce war for engineering talent. Code-Nation — which develops high-quality enterprise software — is offering Rs 24 lakh across campuses, substantially more than Flipkart. It has hired from NIT-Warangal, VIT-University and will visit NITK-Surathkal in the next few days. It is looking to hire 35-40 students overall, the company has said on its official website. As always, Esops are also in play. 
 
LinkedIn is offering stock options worth $40,000 and a Rs 1.3 lakh bonus over and above a Rs 13 lakh salary. “Our placements started around 10 days ago. Around 50-60 offers have been made by 15-odd companies so far, not including PPOs,” Sumit Mishra, placement coordinator, MNNIT-Allahabad. The college has 800 students. Placements will go on for a few more months.

Big Salaries Make A Comeback For Engineering Grads; Google, Microsoft Offer Crore-Plus Pay Packets

The biggest cash-cow in the Indian market, the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=e-Commerce">e-Commerce sector</a>, will be offering handsome packages to graduates of best engineering colleges in the near future. 
 
As reported by Economic Times, at least 11 startups will be offering packages in excess of Rs 20 lakh this year to graduates of country’s best engineering colleges like Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) in Pilani, apart from the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=IIT">Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)</a>. 
 
If previous year’s records are to be believed, the average package offered to a BITS Pilani graduate was around Rs 7.5 lakh. 
 
Startups like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Zomato">Zomato</a>, Practo, Endurance, InMobi, Code-Nation, Housing, Unicommerce, Sprinklr and Codigami are among those who have lined up to hire fresh talent from the colleges and are offering attractive salary packages. The trend might also challenge a couple of top traditional recruiters. 
 
Campus sources informed that only three startups offered Rs 20 lakh-plus packages last year and that the number is nearly four times with a number of startups raising offers and new ones getting space into the list. 
 These startups are offering more compensation than well-established companies. Popular recruiters Texas Instruments and <keyword id="104695" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Qualcomm">Qualcomm</keyword>, for instance, pay in the bracket of Rs 14-15 lakh, while <keyword id="10387" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword> offers Rs 18 lakh for domestic postings. Visa, which hired around 250 students across engineering campuses last year, is paying Rs 18 lakh for Indian roles. 
 
According to the Campus sources, the presence of so many cash-rich startups will spark a fierce talent war with traditional, well-known recruiters for the best and brightest among the graduating batch of 2016. 
 
"A number of bright students who would otherwise get into traditional development roles in branded companies, get swayed by the compensation and join these startups," said G Balasubramanian, chief placement officer, India and Dubai, BITS Pilani University. But it's not just about the money, it's got a lot to do with changes in outlook as well. 
 
Image: thinkstock

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