Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal hires 2 chief of staff after ‘pay ₹20 lakh’ job opening; see funny social media reactions

Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal on Wednesday announced that the company has hired two people for the role of Chief of Staff. This development comes months after the online food delivery giant released an advertisement asking candidates to pay ₹20 lakh for the role.

Sharing an update on Zomato’s hiring on X, Deepinder Goyal said the company has recruited 18 people for top positions, with two of them serving as Chief of Staff.

Update on Zomato Chief of Staff hiring

“4 of the 18 people who have already joined us, work directly with me, and 2 of them are in Chief of Staff roles,” read a post by Goyal on X.

“We started with 18,000+ applications and have had the privilege of meeting over 150 incredibly talented individuals. From this, 30 exceptional people received offers, and 18 have already joined Zomato (and other group companies like Blinkit) in high-impact roles,” wrote Goyal in a social media post.

Elaborating on who these 30 individuals were, Deepinder Goyal described them as “Founders who bootstrapped startups from their dorm rooms, engineers who rewrote entire tech stacks over a weekend, operators who turned chaos into scale, and a handful of brilliant young minds fresh out of college.” 

Deepinder Goyal says these people “will lead the company into the future.”

In November last year, Deepinder Goyal shared a post on X calling for applications for the Chief of Staff role. 

“There is no salary for this role for the first year. You will have to, in fact, pay ₹20 lacs 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),” according to the job offer.

The job opening garnered massive social media backlash because of the hefty fees the candidates were asked to pay for the role. Deepinder Goyal had later clarified that the ₹20 lakh payment was merely a “filter” to find candidates who appreciated the opportunity.

Social media reacts to Zomato Chief of Staff hiring update

The recent update on Zomato’s Chief of Staff hiring has also garnered hilarious social media reactions.

“Wow, 18,000 applications! Feels like getting into Zomato is harder than getting a table on a Saturday night. Sounds like you’ve built a dream team though! [sic],” read a comment on the post. 

“Application phir se open karo na. Some of us really were restricted due to that 20Lakhs clause [sic].”

“18,000+ people applied, 30 made the cut—basically, tougher odds than getting into Hogwarts. But hey, the future’s in good hands! it’s @deepigoyal building a dream team [sic].”

“Curious to know how would the phrase “handsomely compensated” be in monetary terms [sic].”

“So, 18,000+ applied, 30 got offers, and 18 joined. With these odds, I’d have better chances getting into Hogwarts [sic].”