Even as e-tailers go on a hiring spree, Snapdeal is looking beyond the usual headhunters, job portals and employee referrals to mop up quality technology professionals. The Delhi-based e-tailer has put up billboards near technology hubs in Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and Bangalore, urging professionals to “build for India” instead of working for “foreign clients”.
Snapdeal, which competes with the homegrown Flipkart and international e-commerce major Amazon, had recently set up a development centre in Bangalore, where it plans to hire about 300 professionals. It also plans to expand its technology team to a 1,200-member unit by the end of the fiscal. To start with, Snapdeal has put up about 50 billboards, with a focus on key IT hubs. “Why work for foreign clients, when you can build for India,” reads the message.
“Since we are in the midst of a massive technology ramp-up, we wanted to make sure that no channel to attract the best talent is left unexplored.
Through the billboards, we are trying to communicate a message to the talent pool about Snapdeal’s culture, drive for innovation and state-of-the-art facilities. Much of the technology talent might not be actively looking for a job change. So, we talked about creating a storyline in the minds of the people, so that they would consider working with us. That’s the idea behind the campaign,” Saurabh Nigam, vice-president, HR, Snapdeal, told FE.
Snapdeal aims a major ramp-up in terms of manpower. It plans to close the fiscal with a headcount of about 4,500. Besides technology, the sales team will nearly treble to 600-700 while the supply chain and operations vertical will double from a 200-member unit to a 400-member team to penetrate deeper into tier II/III cities.
“It’s another way of advertising. It’s like appealing to your emotions and another way of catching attention. This kind of billboards won’t fetch you numbers. What it does is create a recall value for Snapdeal. That is probably the objective behind this drive,” said Kamal Karanth, MD, Kelly Services, India and Malaysia.
Interestingly, Bangalore-based online furniture store Urban Ladder last September invited customers to recommend potential candidates for entry and mid-level positions across domains. On successful referral, a customer was awarded a gift voucher of Rs 10,000. In the first two weeks, Urban Ladder received about 10% of the references through UL Connections.
Snapdeal’s initiative also reflects on the huge advertisement spends made by the e-tailers. According to a report by global media buying and planning firm GroupM, advertisement spends in the country will touch Rs 49,000 crore this year, an increase of over 12% from the year before. The report also suggested that advertising by e-commerce companies is expected to grow the fastest. Total advertisement spend in 2014 stood at Rs 43,490 crore, the report stated, thanks to hefty spends by political parties, telecom companies and e-tailers.
Though a bulk of the advertisements by e-commerce companies were for digital media, the out-of-home segment is benefiting as well. “Apart from online and other forms of media, billboards give you that largeness and impact. That is why Snapdeal probably resorted to this form of campaign. Last year, the real estate and e-commerce companies were the biggest spenders in out-of-home advertisements. To our estimate, real estate accounted for about 30% of the spend while e-commerce was about 10-15%. followed by automobiles, consumer durables etc,” said Haresh Nayak, MD, Posterscope India, adding that out-of-home advertisement spend was estimated at Rs 2,100-2,400 crore in 2014.