Amazon, Flipkart lead in B-school hiring

NEW DELHI: In the hunt for talent on Indian campuses, early trends show Amazon as the top recruiter among ecommerce and tech companies with Walmart-owned Flipkart following closely. At the National Institutes of Technology (NITs), where final placements are underway, Amazon is ahead. It also leads in summer placement offers at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and the schools expect this trend to continue for the finals as well.

Amazon has been increasing offers at IIM Ahmedabad for the past three years.

“We expect that the demand for talent by top ecommerce companies would only go up as they are penetrating more small towns and cities,” said Amit Karna, chairperson of the placement committee at IIM Ahmedabad. “They would need more talent, especially from premium management schools.”


Flipkart is looking to hire interns from the top 22 B-schools, a company spokesperson said. “We continue to hire across business and product roles through campus hiring,” the person said.

“This year would truly reflect Walmart’s buying into Flipkart,” Karna said. “As a result, we expect more offers being made in the finals.”

Amazon didn’t respond to queries.

The ecommerce marketplace is the top recruiter at the NITs, including those at Jalandhar, Trichy, Calicut and Malviya NIT, Jaipur. Amazon was day 1 recruiter at NIT Trichy this year along with others like Microsoft, DE Shaw and General Electric (GE).

At the IIMs, where summer placements are almost over, Amazon and Flipkart are ahead of other companies. According to the IIM placement cells, the ecommerce companies are looking to fill roles in new business and operations in addition to those they have been offering.

“Discussions this year are mostly around hiring talent for businessoriented roles with the major ecommerce companies as opposed to hiring for tech roles in in the past,” said Abhishek Goel, chairperson, career development and placement convener, IIM Calcutta.

Until last year, ecommerce companies had hired for tech roles, especially emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, internet of things (IoT) and machine learning (ML).

Both ecommerce companies are also visiting the Calcutta and Kozhikode IIMs apart from Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon and Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi, for the upcoming final placements.

“There has been a 75% increase in offers for summer internship from the ecommerce sector mainly due to these two companies,” said Shovan Chowdhary, chairperson of the placement committee at IIM Kozhikode. Companies shortlist and recruit students from campuses on the basis of their performance during internships.

Historically, Amazon has given more offers than Flipkart across all three kinds of placements including lateral, final and summer across all campuses. “But this year, Flipkart is willing to offer more roles,” Shovan said.

Digital payment solution provider PhonePe and Amazon made their debut at MDI’s summer placements this year. “We had initiated a relationship with Amazon during final placements 2019 with one offer in the HR domain,” said Kanwal Kapil, dean of placements at MDI.