Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal announced the closing of applications for his chief of staff job role after receiving over 18000 applications within two days of the job posting.

The unique job role posted by the Zomato CEO and the criteria attached to it invited public debate on social media. Deepinder asked prospective candidates to pay Rs20 lakh and no salary for the first year. The Rs 20 lakh paid by the selected candidate will be given to Feeding India. Additionally, Zomato will contribute Rs50 lakh, equivalent to the chief of staff's annual salary to a charity of the candidate’s choice.

Zomato will go through these applications over the next week, and reach out to the people they think are the right fit. "We want to build a learning organisation. “We know thousands of people who exhibit their hunger for learning and constant improvement, over short-term constraints and current reality of life,” said Deepinder in a LinkedIn post.

According to Deepinder, this was not another hiring post. As some people pointed out,"you have to pay Rs 20 lakh, was merely a filter, to find out people who had the power to appreciate the opportunity of a fast-track career, without getting bogged down by the constraints in front of them.

"We will reject most of the applications who have the money or even talked about the money. We are going to find genuine intent and learning mindset from the sea of applications we have received,” he added.

Many social media users took a jibe on HR of the Zomato seeing a huge number of applications for the chief of staff job role. “What a miss, In case you wanted only serious applicants, you should have asked applicants to first deposit application money and then send email with proof of transaction. Then refunding the amount just to prove your latest update. Zomato HR, 18000 is a big number. All the best, downloading those applications and filtering those that meet the requirements. And lets hope you don't get fired for wrong hiring,” commented a user on Linkedin user. He adds that waiting for you to announce COS within the next couple of weeks.

While Dr Tavleen Kaur, another LinkedIn user compared Deepinder's job posting with Poonam Pandey who pretended to be dead only to raise awareness about cervical cancer. "Reminds me of Poonam Pandey’s stunt that she is dead only to raise awareness about cervical cancer. Don’t you think that had you not put the condition of “paying the company” you would have received more applications who are genuinely passionate and have the right intellect. “Paying the company” filter would have filtered those who are talented, passionate but do not have 20 lacs. How would you reach back to those profiles lost?"