21st July, 2021
A few weeks ago, Mukesh*, a Talent Acquisition Specialist at Amazon, reached out to me on LinkedIn. He believed my profile was well-suited to the Senior Software Development Engineer (SDE-II) role at Amazon, and asked me to share my resume if I was interested.
Mukesh probably thought I’d be a good fit because I was an SDE-I at Amazon four years ago. I’d gained entry to their hiring process through a referral; I still believe that referrals are the fastest route to get interviews at most big companies, whose HR departments are inundated with resumes pouring in unchecked through their sites.
Having since been part of hiring processes as a recruiter myself, I understand that reaching out to potential candidates on LinkedIn—some of whom have graduated from their engineering careers onto entirely new professions and industries—is likely an act of desperation. Inbound CVs somehow don’t fit the bill; one needs to tap into networks of suitable candidates who match requirements of background and qualifications.
LinkedIn is an easy place to browse and filter candidates by such criteria. As of 2019, its Talent Solutions comprised of more than half its total revenue, which otherwise come from premium subscriptions and advertisers. In 2021, however, this traditional method of sourcing talent may work well only for established tech companies.
BharatPe, a fin-tech company and one of India’s new-age tech hirers, decided to adopt unconvential, viral publicity as a strategy to generate inbound interest.
On 19 July, BharatPe announced two packages, the “Bike Package” and the “Gadget Package”, for all new tech hires and referrers within the company, including alumni. It would also host its entire Tech team—to be tripled in size by FY22 before the launch of many new products—at the T20 cricket world cup in Dubai later this year. Appraisals with 75% increments had also been fast-forwarded by eight months.
It is easy to mistake BharatPe’s two packages as simple freebies or incentives that would boost its tech hiring efforts. Because what typical engineer—individualistic, probably introverted, coding at home amidst a global pandemic—would want a BMW G310R, or a Jawa Perak, or a KTM Duke 390, or a KTM RC 390 or a Royal Enfield Himalayan? What hidden passion for biking will suddenly be unleashed on India’s water-clogged roads among the country’s top techies?
Whether the Bike package is appealing to engineers, however, is less important than the reactions it evoked online. India’s funny Twitterati likened BharatPe’s team meetings to scenes from racing movie Dhoom, and India’s non-tech talent to *villagers from Lagaan,* the colonial-era drama film. Someone even asked if BharatPe would include petrol.
The next day, BharatPe’s stunt—nothing less than an orchestrated marketing effort aimed at a well-defined audience—was trending on LinkedIn News, which reaches about 5-6 million Indian readers daily, according to a source in the company.