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Indian founder’s hiring horror story: Why she fired employee in less than 3 months
Arshia Kaur, founder of Tint Cosmetics, shares her hiring nightmare of an employee who faked his salary slips, leading to his dismissal within three months.
The founder of Tint Cosmetics has opened up about the many challenges of running a startup, not the least of which is employees out to scam the company. Arshia Kaur shared a hiring horror story in Instagram videos that have gone viral online.
Kaur revealed that her startup hired a person for the Head of Marketing position who looked “amazing” on paper, but failed to deliver on every task assigned to him. Eventually, the company had to fire him in less than three months – and it was only later that they realised that this person had faked his entire CV and generated fake salary slips to land the job.
How the hiring happened
“So back in November 2024, we wanted to hire somebody for the head of marketing position,” Kaur said. “Someone who could manage scale, growth, e-commerce, performance, ads, everything.”
One person approached the startup and Kaur said he looked “amazing” on paper. “He walked us through his previous work. All the growth he had done for his previous company and everything looked extremely legit because we actually saw the backend,” said Kaur.
The company ended up hiring him but Kaur said that within a month, “something felt off”.
The head of marketing could not communicate with the team or the management, while all his tasks were given to other team members or landed on the founder’s to-do tray because he was just not able to do them.
After multiple discussions and warnings, the employee was fired — just two and a half months after he had joined.
Fake salary slips
Kaur began to wonder how the person had supposedly done such amazing work for other brands but not even managed to pull 5% of that for her company.
Eventually, she went back and checked his previous salary slips. That’s when she realised she had been duped.
The salary slips were all faked on Microsoft Excel. What gave them away? The fact that some slips said that this employee worked 31 out of 31 days – meaning he also worked on weekends.
“There was no stamp or signature of the company on the slips,” said Kaur, showing screenshots of the slips in her Instagram video.
Founder’s appeal
Kaur said she learned her lesson the hard way and was sharing her story so others would not make the same mistake. She also asked fellow founders to double check everything before hiring someone.
“When you’re bootstrapped, every single penny matters, it’s shed earned money. you cannot pay people whatever they ask for - founders please don’t do this, it’s your right to have the correct information about anyone you’ve decided to hire!” she wrote.
