As Flipkart and Amazon have been locked in an intense battle for leadership in the Indian online retaill market, the impact is going to be felt in campus recruitment mainily at Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs) this year. According to a report in The Economic Times, both Amazon India and Flipkart are planning to grab the best available talent in the country as they want them to work on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, internet of things (IoT) and machine learning (ML). 

According to the financial daily, Flipkart this year is making a debut in final placements at NIT Warangal, National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), National Institute of Design and Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) Delhi, for summer placements. 

Meanwhile, institutes are hopeful that with Flipkart in the process of being taken over by Walmart, it may give a close contest to Amazon in campus hiring. “This year, we are expecting Flipkart to easily hire larger numbers from our campus due to funding from Walmart,” the financial daily quoted a student who’s on the IIM Calcutta placement cell as saying. “Students’ interest in these companies is quite high as they offer product development and operations roles,” he added.

It is worth mentioning here that last year, Amazon took the lead both in terms of the number of offers and pay in campus hiring at these top colleges. The ET report citing campus sources said, Amazon offered annual packages close to Rs 30 lakh, including stock options, compared with Rs 21 lakh without stock options offered by Flipkart.

The ET report further said that Flipkart may boost hiring as it prepares itself for the future. “Big data, machine learning, decision sciences and artificial intelligence will be the key focus areas for this season’s hiring plan — there is increasing need of resources in these emerging technologies,” the business daily quoted a Flipkart spokesperson as saying in an email.

So far, students prefer Flipkart to Amazon India. “Flipkart being a smaller organisation offers a variety of roles to students compared to Amazon that has limited roles to offer,” the ET report quoted a IIT Kanpur student who is on the placement cell of the B-school as saying.