While Zomato’s chief of staff role became the talk of the town last year, a recent post on X has added a refreshing twist to the narrative. Sanjay Krishna, a senior product manager from Kerala, shared his experience applying for the coveted position—even though he didn’t make the final cut.
“Sent out the mail purely out of curiosity and ended up having one of the best interview experiences. Didn’t make the final cut, but the conversation and feedback have helped me tremendously over the past few months. Grateful for the opportunity!” Krishna wrote on X, reflecting on the process.
The post came in response to Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal, who recently shared updates on the company’s rigorous recruitment process. According to Goyal, over 18,000 applications were received, with interviews conducted for more than 150 candidates. Out of these, 30 people received offers, and 18 have already joined Zomato and its group companies like Blinkit in what Goyal describes as “high-impact roles.”The new hires, Goyal revealed, include “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.”
As for the chief of staff roles, Goyal mentioned, “4 of the 18 people who have already joined us, work directly with me, and 2 of them are in Chief of Staff roles. And we’re not done. With 18,000+ applications, we’re still carefully sifting through this amazing talent pool.”
The Zomato CEO said the joinees are being “handsomely compensated for the value they bring”, and that nobody paid anything to work with them. When Goyal called for applications, the description said that the selected candidate would not be paid any salary for the first year, and they would have to, in fact, pay the company Rs 20 lakh for the role. Goyal stated that a hundred percent of the fee for the role would be donated to Feeding India. The candidate would receive their salary only at the beginning of the second year, and that is a discussion they would reserve for the start of Year 2.