After ‘18-hour CEO,’ Pristyn Care co-founder under fire for ‘toxic’ interview practices

Harsimarbir Singh is the co-founder of health-tech company Pristyn Care (Image credit: LinkedIn)

Hot on the heels of ’18-hour work day’ CEO comes another controversy about toxic work culture. This one centres around a now-deleted LinkedIn post from Pristyn Care co-founder Harsimarbir Singh, who elucidated at length about the “interview hacks” used at the health-tech company to filter out candidates. Aforementioned “hacks” include making job-seeking candidates wait for 6 to 8 hours in office (ostensibly to test their patience), regularly scheduling interviews for Sunday and late at night or early in the morning, and even asking outstation candidates to show up in office the next day to test their “hustle”.

At a time when ‘hustle culture’ is already under fire for being nothing more than a euphemism for toxic work practices, this list of interview hacks at Gurgugram-headquartered Pristyn Care, when revealed on LinkedIn, invited massive backlash.

Although Harsimarbir Singh now seems to have deleted his offending LinkedIn post, screenshots of it are being widely-circulated and soundly criticised on Twitter and other social media platforms.

Don't apply to work in such companies if you have even an iota of self-respect. pic.twitter.com/l9AoBZkVGq

— The Educated Moron (@EducatedMoron) September 1, 2022

If you work in Pristyn, get in touch with me and I'll happily help you get jobs at companies with better culture. https://t.co/rZablX8Rq6

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— Narayanan Hariharan (NithyaKarma.com) (@narayananh) September 2, 2022

Several others reiterated the offer, noting that a company which followed such unreasonable procedures at the interview stage would expect their employees to be available 24/7 for work.

Honestly if you work at Pristyn Care, feel free to DM me, I'm happy to help you find jobs elsewhere.

This sounds like a slave owner not a company founder.

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Apart from the business case studies everything else is bonafide "harrassment" category. https://t.co/BZPZE2c5XG

— Arnav Gupta (@championswimmer) September 1, 2022

List of organisations I shall never apply to unless my loved ones or I are starving:

1. Pristyn Care
2. pic.twitter.com/HZIhLr7uPY

— Abhishek Mukherjee (@ovshake42) September 2, 2022

Pristyn Care should mention this in their JD so that people never even apply for the job. pic.twitter.com/sdlsWt9all

— Amanpreet Singh Gulati (@amanpreet_27) September 2, 2022

He went on to elaborate on the hacks – the first of which was calling up the candidate at 8 am.

Hack number two – scheduling a telephonic interview at 11 pm to find “late workers”.

“Got the candidate to do a detailed business case – Real world thinking,” and “Got the candidate to spend 6-8 hours in office – culture and patience,” made up the next two points.

The company also did “in person interviews at 9 pm” and scheduled interviews for Sunday, besides asking candidates not based in the city to show up the next day for job interviews.

All of this predictably enough, earned social media’s ire – especially as it came days after Bombay Shaving Company CEO Shantanu Deshpande’s widely-panned post in which he advised freshers to work 18 hours a day.

A large section of the professional work force has criticised these practices as outdated and toxic, especially in the era of the ‘Quiet Quitting’ movement where workers are refusing to put in unpaid overtime or take calls after work hours – in other words, doing the bare minimum required of them at their jobs.