Most New unicorns Hiring For Mid-Level, Experienced Professionals, Bengaluru Most Preferred Work Destination

It’s the season of the unicorns with India adding 36 new ones to its tally in 2021 till now. With this, it's also the season of aggressive hiring at unicorns as most are expanding their workforce with hiring witnessing a 15-20% increase in 2020-2021 v/s 2019-2020, found a recent TimesJobs survey. This survey was conducted among 364 HR leaders and managers from the unicorns and startup ecosystems to decode the hiring trends at unicorns. Most (76%) respondents said that hiring saw ‘significant improvement’ from Jul’21-Nov’21 v/s Jan’21-Jun’21. 

Other major trends outlined by the TimesJobs' ‘Unicorn Hiring Survey' are:

Most unicorns hiring mid-level professionals: 

The TimesJobs survey asked about the most preferred work experience group and mid-level 

managers were voted by most (39%) respondents. This was followed by the recruiters’ preference for freshers/people with up to 2 years of experience (36% votes) and entry level positions (13%). Recruiters’ preference for senior professionals (10-15 years experience) and C-suite leaders was voted at 9% and 3% respectively. This hints that unicorns are strengthening their middle layer to scale up their products and services.  

E-commerce unicorns to create most jobs:

TimesJobs asked the survey group about which sector unicorns would be the top job churners, and E-commerce topped the list with 28% votes. This was followed by IT/ITeS (24% votes) and E-service providers (16% votes). 

Product leaders most accountable for unicorns’ growth: 

* The TimesJobs survey asked unicorn recruiters about which C-suite profile is most accountable for a unicorn’s growth, here are the responses:

The most popular work destination for unicorns: 

Among all Indian cities, Bengaluru continues to be India’s Silicon Valley with nine of this year’s unicorns originating from there. Mumbai comes right after with seven unicorns, 

followed by Delhi and Gurugram. When asked about preferred work destinations for unicorns, Bengaluru was voted on top by 41% respondents, followed by Delhi-NCR (24%) votes. 

Most employees ditch MNCs to join unicorns in hope of better work-life balance:

TimesJobs reached out to 587 employees from startups to understand if Indian unicorns offer good career growth opportunities and 92% employees said ‘yes’. Only 8% disagreed with this stance. 

Also most said that the main reason for them to choose a unicorn job over a MNC job is their preference for work-life balance, voted by 37% respondents. This was followed by better career growth (voted by 28%) and work accountability (13%) offered by unicorns. 

Commenting on these trends, Sanjay Goyal, Business Head, TimesJobs and TechGig said, “Unicorns enjoy a unique place - sandwiched between growth-focussed MNCs and the lean-structure focussed startup ecosystem - and this makes them attractive employers. With a boom in the virtual experience, unicorns in E-commerce, Edu-tech and Retail will be the new mass employers. And, to attract high potential candidates, these unicorns should focus on providing good work-life balance and using innovative recruitment strategies more than ever.”

In the virtual world, hiring skilled candidates is more complex and challenging than otherwise. TimesJobs asked unicorn recruiters about their candidate sourcing technique, and most (35%) said they use career sites & job postings.