Recruiting Challenges of E-commerce Start-ups in India

Abstract

E-commerce start-ups in India have been on rise since last decade, offering numerous product choices to customers. But the start-ups cannot sustain and flourish only on the vision of entrepreneur. They need right employees to take the vision forward. Recruiting for start-ups is a challenge as start-ups are not in a position to offer what an established business house can. This study aims to find the key challenges faced by start-ups in acquiring the right, retainable, desired talent. This study has been carried out with the support of secondary sources as well as primary sources in form of personal interview with Human Resource personnel, hiring managers and the founders of the organizations selected; and a few recruitment consultants who serve e-commerce consultants. Findings suggest a strong inclination of start-ups towards applicants with Tier-1 education institutes’ qualification and/or those coming from reputed big groups. Leadership qualities, flexibility, energetic and self-motivated, and the value/culture congruence of candidates with the organization are some of the key attributes as desired by them. High growth oriented, with almost no gestation period, and ambiguous nature of the start-ups during initial growing years throw a challenge whilst recruiting the desired talent. In todays competing era, start-ups also face competition from established groups. Whilst on applicants’ front, though there are people willing to move from established groups to start-ups, job stability is one of the key concerns on the applicants minds.

Keywords: Start-up, E-Commerce, Recruitment Challenges, Talent Acquisition

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