Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal has stoked public outrage with a job posting for the role of Chief of Staff, where applicants are asked to pay ₹20 lakh as a one-time fee instead of receiving salary in the first year. Goyal, 41, shared the job ad on his X account, stating: “There is no salary for this role for the first year. You will have to, in fact, pay ₹20 lacs for this opportunity.”
Update: I am looking for a chief of staff for myself. pic.twitter.com/R4XPp3CefJ
— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) November 20, 2024
Charity Donation and Guaranteed Salary in Year Two
Goyal explained, clarifying the ₹20 lakh “fee” would be fully donated to Feeding India, a nonprofit initiative of Zomato’s. Thereafter, he clarified to prospective interviewees, starting from the second year, that they would get a fixed salary of more than ₹50 lakh per annum.
Special Job Expectations and Benefits
The Chief of Staff position had additional requirements, according to the job listing: “common sense, empathy, and not a lot of experience.” Goyal stated that the candidate who got the job would get more value from the experience than he would have from doing an MBA, offering what he described as a “unique opportunity” to work close to him at Zomato.
Social Media Backlash
This posting did not take long to attract swathes of criticism online. People commented on how shocking it was that a CEO would ask applicants to pay for the privilege of working with a top-tier company. Of course, the ₹20 lakh requirement would probably exclude a large portion of the population-the people who don’t have disposable wealth.
Im ready https://t.co/tBGLEqymuL pic.twitter.com/VnbGu5Ewuh
— sleepy cat || @iamdatemike@mastodon.social (@iamdatemike) November 20, 2024
The drama went deeper as users compared the posting to unpaid internships and ultimately trolled it as an attempt to further exploit the job market. A comment from one X user, Abhishek said, “As if exploiting gig economy workers wasn’t enough, now kick the middle-class parent cause food delivery company with inflated pricing wants a chief of staff.”
Critics such as X user Aman said the condition will likely filter applicants based on wealth, not merit. “Asking 20L from little experience adds an artificial selection for rich kids with daddy’s money. This means the candidate pool is of folks with high risk-taking capacity but also possible that the candidate pool is of people quite distant from ‘India’, Aman wrote.
Other users, like Mohak Mangal, expressed that the job advertisement did really filter down to those who were coming from an area of economic privilege. “Major L. By offering zero salary, you have already filtered for privilege. Just like the UN unpaid internships. Any person who has bills to pay for family cannot apply for this post,” Mangal said.
ALSO READ: Zomato CEO Announces Chief Of Staff Role: No Salary In First Year, Employee To Pay Rs 20 Lakh Fee
