You will have to pay Rs 20L to Zomato: Deepinder Goyal faces backlash for unique job offer

A recent post put up by Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal looking for ‘Chief of Staff’ has been creating quite a buzz for its unique job description.

In the post, Goyal has said the organisation believes that people who apply for this role should do it for, “The learning opportunity it presents, rather than for a fancy well-paying job which will make you look cool in front of yourself, or the people you want to impress.”

There is no salary for this role for the first year. As per Zomato, the selected employee will have to, in fact, pay Rs 20 lakh for this opportunity. 100% of this "fee" will be paid in the form of a donation directly to Feeding India (if you are offered the role, and you accept it), states the post.

The company said, “At our end, we want to demonstrate that we are not trying to save money here - we will contribute Rs 50 lacs (equivalent to a Chief of Staff salary) to a charity of your choice. Second year onwards, we will start paying you the usual salary (definitely more than 50 lacs, but something we will only talk about at the start of Year 2).”

The post specified they are looking for someone who is hungry, has a lot of common sense, empathy, and not a lot of experience (and therefore no conditioning/baggage), 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 most importantly, has a learning mindset.

Netizens, meanwhile, couldn't refrain from posting their reactions. When someone trolled the idea in comments, Goyal said, “We just want one person who gets the point. Not 100.”

A commenter stated, “Guys basically he is trying to uplift those who are already uplifted. A person who can pay 20 Lakh as a joining ‘fee’ (or forced charity), and also can survive without salary would rarely be having the kind of ‘Hunger’ you are expecting.”

Nevertheless, a few even supported the idea. One commented, “I know people are commenting various stupid things about ‘paid internship’. Leaving this note here as someone who got the chance to work 1 year with @deepigoyal, if you're looking for a career in Management Consulting / Strategy, this is worth waaaay more than ₹20L!”

The post further added, “Put differently, think of this as a fast-track learning program, for you both personally and professionally - whether or not you succeed at this role. And we want learners for this role, not résumé builders.”