Zomato starts ‘Talent Directory’ to help its laid off employees find new job

The spree of layoffs in the startup ecosystem has paved the way for action of another kind that is now gaining momentum — facilitating the placement of laid off staff by going the extra mile.

Food delivery platform Zomato which earlier laid off 520 employees or 13% of its workforce in its huge retrenchment exercise owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, has created a Zomato Talent Directory for employers to access the varied employee profiles listed on its forum.

In his tweet on Saturday, Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal requested all organisations hiring to review the directory. Goyal said that Zomato had been built by some of the most passionate people. “We are deeply grateful to have had these folks as part of our journey. And we assure you, you will be too.” Goyal added in his tweet.

The directory lists out some of the ‘incredible people’ that have helped build Zomato, ranging from an eclectic variety of video editors, designers, content producers, cafe managers to training leads. Each of the profiles details the strengths and job roles of the respective associate at Zomato, together with their LinkedIn account and Resume. Besides the layoffs and salary revisions, Zomato had also announced previously that work from home, partially or fully, would be a permanent policy for the company.

Food-delivery volumes have seen a huge drop in this time, amounting to atleast 60-70% in the past two months alone compared to the time prior to Covid19 period, as many restaurants remained shut and the only business coming in was from limited home deliveries.

Besides Zomato, other startups such as Cure.fit and Swiggy have also been involved in a similar exercise of helping out laid off staff to find suitable avenues. Spreading a word across the hiring network, building up resumes, offering counselling sessions have been some of the efforts initiated by startups to offer a helping hand to those who have found themselves out of work during this period.