‘Hire Fast, Fire Fast’: Ashneer Grover On Why He Dislikes Lengthy Onboarding, Notice Periods

BharatPe founder Ashneer Grover shared his thoughts and approach on the hiring process and said that he advocates for ‘hire fast, fire fast’. He added that he does not believe in lengthy onboarding processes and notice periods and instead prefers local optimisation.

Grover shared his thoughts during a podcast ‘Limitless with Ishan Sharma,’ which was also joined by Asish Mohapatra, co-founder and CEO of OfBusiness and co-founder of Oxyzo Financial Services, Sarthak Ahuja, content creator and director at Niamh Vebtures, and founder of Info Edge Sanjeev Bikchandani.

Calling lengthy hiring practices a waste of time, Ashneer Grover said: “What I have basically understood about hiring, and a lot of people don’t agree with this thought, it’s hire fast, fire fast. What’s happening currently is that you are investing a lot of time in hiring a person, you go through multiple rounds. The candidate is also, naturally, on his best behaviour.”

He further went on to say that sometimes people are able to sell themselves well when they are appear for interviews but one only gets to know how he works after you assign him tasks.

“When a candidate comes to sell himself or pitch for himself, then the salesman in him is at its peak. Sometimes people are able to sell themselves very well. At the end of the day, you will get to know whether he will work or not only after you give him his tasks.”

He added that personally he has not witnessed a 100 per cent success rate in hiring the right candidate.

‘Best Thing To Do Is Local Optimisation’

Explaining his stance on the hiring process he said: “My realisation is this – we spend 3 months identifying the ideal candidate, then the candidate serves his 2 months of notice period, so we wait for those 2 months. We have, at this point, already invested around 6 months into this role. Once the candidate joins, we want to give him the same amount of time to prove himself. So from 6 months, now it is 1 year. Now, for a year, you have spent the opportunity cost in that role. After a year, you realise he is not a good fit.”

“I think the best thing to do is to do local optimisation. You decide you need a candidate in a week-15 days, you get him in fast. Judge him on his work faster. And it is very simple to understand who works and who does not. So, hire fast and fire fast,” said Grover in the podcast.

Asish Mohapatra, based on his experience from his career in McKinsey, ITC, and Matrix said that he prefers to hire freshers with upto three years of experience and mould them for the role after hiring them.

He said that these employees prove to be loyal to the organisation and are eager to prove themselves.