I just learnt that Indian tech companies still employ a 250-year old recruitment strategy pioneered by the East India Company in the mid-1700s. <short thread>
The EIC employed agents who would go from village to village and pay, say the leader of the Jats, to recruit sepoys. The young recruits would then live together in company barracks and formed a unit. This is why we have community-based regiments in the Indian army even today.
250 years later, Indian tech companies have figured that this is still the best way to recruit delivery agents, for example. They literally have people on their rolls who pay community leaders to send groups of young men to the city.
These men often live together and form a sort of brotherhood. This arrangement gives them a social life in the city that they otherwise won't have. For the company it means they stick around for longer in a job that sees eye-watering levels of attrition.
To me it's instructive that, for all the innovation in recruiting, a strategy that takes into account the social realities of India still works best. Le plus ca change, I guess...
