Jet Airways staff get job offers via tweets

CHENNAI: Good Samaritans on social media — small and large businessmen — rose to the occasion on Friday and started to post job offers for employees of Jet Airways. Nearly 22,000 Jet employees are at risk of losing their livelihood after the beleaguered airline, facing headwinds on the funding front, was forced to halt all operations “temporarily”.

While SpiceJet CMD Ajay Singh has offered jobs to 100 pilots, more than 200 cabin crew and over 200 technical and airport staff, a publishing company owner (tweeting as @ksmkkbookscom) from Chennai offered to recruit two Jet Airways employees to man his customer support functions. Others included a PR firm and a modelling agency.

“As we expand and grow, we are giving first preference to those who have recently lost their jobs due to the unfortunate closure of Jet Airways,” Singh said.

The sinking Jet has also boosted the job market with some high quality candidates. “I have been a frequent flyer of Jet since its inception and have often been impressed by the expertise of their customer relations team. I wanted to do something tangible for them, to go beyond just offering my sympathies,” K Srinivasamurthy (who tweets under handle @ksmkkbookscom), owner of online bookstore KK Books, told TOI. About 350 retweets and nearly 500 likes were found on the tweet by Srinivasamurthy till the time of going to press.

PR professional Amith Prabhu tweeted, “Happy to offer up to 10 @jetairways staff looking for an alternative career, an interest-free education loan to do full-time postgraduate programme at @SCoReInd that culminates with a job in public relations. If you know someone connect them to @hemantgaule or me for #PRSchool.”

He further said, “We will make them take a basic written test and have an interview. Graduate in any discipline may apply.”

A friend on Twitter connected Srinivasamurthy with Jet Airways chief people officer Rahul Taneja who has now sought details from him on the exact job descriptions.

“Another friend, who is an investor, has also started spreading the word among his startup portfolio companies who seek talent for their companies,” Srinivasamurthy added.

A developing hashtag #Letshelpjetstaff has also been started for entrepreneurs to post opportunities for the airline’s staff. Other calls for jobs include tweets from national programming head R J Indira Rangarajan (whose handle is indu_r), who wants to enrol Jet employees as content writers and RJs in her organisation Mirchi Love, a channel of Radio Mirchi, which is part of the Times Group.

D Devjani (@dnaddevjani) from modelling company I-GLAM is calling for aspiring models from among Jet Airways staff to apply to their organisation.

Talent acquisition firms add that while the intent of entrepreneurs is laudable, fitments may be an issue. “These are mostly small companies who won’t have the bandwidth to match the salaries that Jet used to offer. There are startups and young firms who are approaching us on social media to absorb Jet staff,” talent search firm Xpheno’s co-founder Kamal Karanth said.