Corporates, today, are cautious recruiters. Weak macro outlook in the Western markets, declining consumer confidence, higher interest rates and rising domestic inflation are making them nervous about hiring. But Internet companies seem to be bucking the trend. Ask dotcom firms about the slowdown and they are quick to shrug off most concerns. For the moment, they would rather talk of “hiring ahead of the curve”. With business gaining steam, and gadget-toting consumers getting more e-savvy, these companies - particularly the ones operating in the booming e-commerce space - are rolling up their sleeves to hire professionals across categories such as technology, content, back-end supply chain, and customer care.

Hiring spree

Online fashion and shopping destination Yebhi.com began the year with 150-200 professionals and has already scaled to 800 people. By March 2012, it plans to ramp to 1,200-1,400 professionals, which means that at least 400 positions will need to be filled in the next six months. The hiring will happen in categories such as back-end supply chain, warehousing, technology, marketing, sourcing, fulfilment and customer support functions. Naaptol.com - which enables visitors on its site to compare prices and shop online - plans to spruce up its call centre operations in a big way. At present, the company's call centre support is manned by 1,000 agents – the operations are fully outsourced to third party service providers. The outsourcing model, it insists, allows flexibility to scale up faster. “We want to add 400 more positions over the next six months for call-centre support, and this will be done through outsourcing arrangements with our partners,” says Manu Agarwal, founder and CEO of Naaptol.com. The company is also looking to fill 50-100 positions on the content side – primarily content creators, graphics professionals and user interface experts. “For content-related functions we will hire some people internally, and for the rest explore the possibility of outsourcing work,” he said. In addition, the company says there are also 20 openings each in logistics and distribution, as well as for strengthening the technology platform. “The tech team has the mandate to revamp technology, change navigation on the site, increase visitor ‘stickiness' and to convert site visits into orders,” he said.

However, e-commerce companies are not the only ones talking of scale. Quikr.com, an online classifieds company, says it plans to add over 100 people in the next one year, for technology and product management roles. It is also looking for more sales and marketing hands, says Mr Pranay Chulet, CEO of Quikr. Crazeal (the India unit of GROUPON Inc., the global leader in group-buying) shies away from divulging recruitment targets but says hiring plans for this year will be “nothing short of aggressive”. “We are looking to expand our sales, operations, planning and marketing teams… We understand that we need to have the best people on the ground to bring the best deals in for our consumers. Also, these individuals are instrumental in building long-lasting relationships with our merchants,” says Ankur Warikoo, CEO of Crezeal.com. So what is driving this euphoria in hiring?

Business boom

Retail industry veteran and Yebhi.com co-founder Mr Manmohan Agarwal says there is absolutely no slowdown . Business, he says, has been growing at 50 per cent month-on-month during the last year. “The e-commerce industry is still small… it is immune to global macro factors as we do not sell or get business from global customers. Moreover, the demography is changing and the amount of time that the youth spends on, Web sites like, say Facebook, is high. There is no reason why the online space will not grow over the next 2-3 years,” he says.

Naaptol's Manu Agarwal offers a different perspective. If, at all, consumer sentiments weaken due to the macro outlook, tighter purse strings would only mean that consumers would want more bang for the buck. “In such cases , they would anyway want to explore and do more research before buying a product. And the internet not only allows you to do that, but also helps you negotiate better discounts and get more variety,” he says.

The optimism is almost infectious. And at least for now, the numbers seem to be supporting the headcount growth. The Internet and Mobile Association of India estimates that the net commerce market size in India will grow 47 per cent and touch Rs 46,520 crore by the end of 2011. The online travel market will account for nearly 81 per cent of this (Rs 37,890 crore), with non-travel e-commerce chipping in the rest.

Employment opportunities

The headroom for growth, combined with changing online business model is throwing up new opportunities for job hunters. “Earlier the model of e-commerce was centred around the ‘marketplace model'. Now these companies operate like virtual retailers. Hence, new job categories are being created including head sourcing, supply chain managers, warehousing managers, merchandising managers,” says Amarjit Batra, Country Manager of OLX India (a free classifieds site) and a keen observer of the online market.

The bigger question however remains. Will this dotcom exuberance be short-lived, like last time? Remember, the crash of 2000. What are the chances that the aggressive hiring strategy may actually backfire if the consumer spending or even sentiments were to take a drubbing in coming months or years? Chulet of Quikr says this time around the industry is not living in a bubble. “A decade ago, internet was still a new medium. Today, millions of people come every month to buy and sell on our site. These are real numbers, real people and real transactions,” he says. Naaptol's Manu Agarwal prefers to sound a cautions note. While the demand will continue to look up, the market will see a churn in the number of players who ultimately make the cut, he opines. “Only 2-3 players out of the 10-15 today, will survive. So, unless one is hiring in the right areas and in sync with the demand, there will be risks,” he points out. Cautious optimism, not irrational exuberance – that may well be a big takeaway in this dotcom gold rush.

>moumita@thehindu.co.in

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