CEO Draws Eye-Rolls With 'Interview Hacks' To 'Filter' Candidates Including Interviews At 11PM On Sundays
He says it helps him find the best workers, but others say it just helps him find the most desperate employees possible.
Krakenimages.com / Shutterstock.com; @VCBrags / Twitter The CEO of an Indian healthcare start-up raised plenty of eyebrows with a LinkedIn post about "interview hacks" that some are calling totally unhinged.
Pristyn Health co-founder Harsimarbir "Harsh" Singh says the "hacks" help him find the best candidates. But his recommendations are so extreme some say they can only attract the most desperate of workers — and they're everything wrong with late-stage capitalism.
Harsimarbir Singh's 'interview hacks' LinkedIn post drew criticism for forcing candidates to submit to wildly inappropriate demands.
At this point, we should probably be used to out-of-touch CEOs making bizarre pronouncements — they've kind of made it their whole thing in recent years. But Harsimarbir "Harsh" Singh took the art to a whole new level in the fall of 2022 when he posted his recommendations for how to find the best workers.
In a since-deleted LinkedIn post screenshotted and posted to Twitter, Singh listed "interview hacks" that help him "filter" for "special driven people" with the "right attitude."
Singh definitely seems to have some kind of bias against employees who have normal boundaries and expectations for work-life balance — around the time of his "interview hacks" scandal, he appeared on an Indian news network deriding the so-called "quiet quitting" trend as just a passing phase, comparing it to a fad diet.
Given Singh's approach to hiring, of course, that take on people's response to being overworked at jobs that don't value them should exactly be surprising. Tellingly, he's since deleted the LinkedIn post in which he listed his "interview hacks," but screenshots, of course, are forever, and the backlash to his absurd approach to hiring seems to have only grown.
The CEO's unhinged interview hacks include 11PM phone interviews and 6-8 hour office visits to determine cultural fit.
And those, arguably, aren't even the worst suggestions he makes. Singh's interview process is bizarre, unreasonable and intrusive right from the very start. Among the "interesting interview hacks we used" to find what he considers the best candidates were calling candidates at 8:00 am to request an interview in order to find "early risers."
Photo: @VCBrags / Twitter
As if that weren't bad enough, your first phone interview with Pristyn Health will occur at 11:00 pm at night. This way, Singh can determine whether you're one of the "late workers" he prizes. When exactly prospective Pristyn Health employees are expected to sleep is anyone's guess.
Singh also requires Sunday interviews, in-person meetings at 9:00 pm and asking applicants to do free work.
Singh's other "hacks" are the kinds of things that make you wonder who on Earth would even want to work for him. After your 8:00 am phone call and your 11:00 pm phone interview, if you're lucky enough to make it to the next step, your in-person interview will be at 9:00 at night. And it very well may be on a Sunday.
This, Singh says, helps him find people who are willing to endure "long working hours" and make an "extraordinary commitment" to their job. After that, you'll be manipulated and have your time wasted by being required to spend "6-8 hours in the office" — not because you've been hired and are now working for him, understand. This is simply a game he plays to see if you're a cultural fit and have "patience."
If you pass that test, your reward is to work for free. Hooray! He'll have you prepare a "detailed business case" to gauge your "real-world thinking." No word on whether you're compensated for this project, but... seems pretty likely you will not be given all his other ridiculous requirements. But if you are actually hired? He makes you start the following day to make sure you have "hustle." So at least you'll start earning right away.
Despite the uproar over the CEO's unhinged interview hacks, he continues to brag on LinkedIn about his unorthodox hiring process.
Unsurprisingly, Singh's suggestions have drawn nothing but ire. He's famous in the r/LinkedInLunatics subReddit, where people have pointed out the obvious — an approach like this doesn't attract the best talent. It just attracts people desperate for a job.
"Seriously, companies like this in the screenshot need to die," one Redditor wrote. "That’s not culture, hustle and commitment. That’s finding someone desperate enough to let their backs get stepped on and crushed so the POS can abuse them on his way to profitability."
On Twitter, Singh has invited little more than mockery, like an exchange in which people not only posited macabrely hilarious additions to his list of hacks like "cut off their hands and have them make a sandwich" to demonstrate their "problem solving," but aptly compared him to a cult leader.
Photo: Twitter
If it's made any difference, Singh certainly isn't showing it. Though he's long since deleted his list of interview hacks, he's still got plenty of posts live like the one below, crowing about how well his mind game works of making candidates spend eight hours at his office before they're even hired.
Photo: LinkedIn
Guess some CEOs never learn. He might want to rethink this whole thing though. According to a Gallup poll, that whole quiet quitting thing he slagged off as a passing phase? It now accounts for 50% of all workers. So much for that "fad diet" theory, eh Mr. Singh?
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.