Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal has been at the center of a heated debate after posting an unconventional job listing for his Chief of Staff role. The offer: no salary for the first year and a Rs 20 lakh "donation" to Zomato's Feeding India initiative.

While the post drew widespread criticism, Goyal in the latest post that he shared on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter has clarified that the polarising conditions were merely a "filter" to identify exceptional talent.

In his latest update, the Zomato boss said that the application window has officially closed, with over 18,000 aspirants applying for the role.

Goyal's initial post, which the unprecedented conditions, raised eyebrows and sparked debate on X.

In his follow-up post captioned "Update 3", Goyal addressed the backlash.

The post read: "We have closed applications for my chief of staff role. We have received more than 18,000 applications. We will go through these applications over the next week, and reach out to the people who we think are the right fit for an organisation. We want to build a learning organisation, and we now know thousands of people who exhibit their hunger for learning and constant improvement, over short term constraints and their current reality of life."

He further clarified that the Rs 20 lakh condition was never intended to be enforced.

"This wasn't just another hiring post. As some people pointed out, the "you have to pay us 20 lacs" was merely a filter, to find 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," the post read.

"We are going to 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," added the post further.

In a final note, Goyal explained that this hiring experiment was never meant to set a precedent.

"Something like this can only be pulled off once in the world. Now that everyone knows the real intent behind this, we won’t be able to get the desired outcomes if we do this again."

"And I really hope that 'pay the company to get a job' doesn’t become a norm in this world—that’s not cool. Money is an essential thing to keep people’s lives running, and I believe in paying more than market rate so that money doesn’t come in the way of great work," the post read.

Netizens React

Zomato's unconventional hiring strategy for the Chief of Staff role garnered widespread reactions online, with many netizens sharing their opinions on the controversial Rs 20 lakh donation condition.

An X user responding to it wrote, 'Why exactly did you need the 20L filter? Pretty sure there must be many out there who have the right intent but money would be a deterrent. So essentially you've filtered out most of India that isn't as privileged."

Responding to this comment, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal clarified, "Please read update 3. As I said, we have a lot of people who don't have the money and still wrote in, without feeling constrained about the 20 lacs. Those are the people we will interview for the job. Not the ones who have the money."

Another user added, "This was a brilliant play in online reputation management to distract attention from the drugs case in Chandigarh. Kudos to you & your PR team."