SUMMARY
The move comes briefly after Hirect nearly doubled its workforce between January and November 2022
Several of the Hirect employees are yet to receive their dues and relieving letters and the startup has not provided any severance packages or job search assistance
It is noteworthy that up until January 2022, the startup was in pre-revenue mode and spent most of its money on marketing campaigns
Amid a season of layoffs, another startup has fallen to the dark side. Bengaluru and US-based hiring platform (specifically focussed on startup jobs) Hirect has reportedly laid off 40% (around 200) of its employees.
According to a Mint report, the startup has termed the move as a part of organisational restructuring and a strategic change in its business model.
The move comes briefly after Hirect nearly doubled its workforce between January and November 2022. As per a previous Inc42 report, Hirect had around 200+ employees in January 2022 and nearly 475+ employees by November 2022.
“They spent their entire budget on boosting the revenue of mega influencers on Instagram and putting up larger billboards in all major cities, but they could not retain their talented workforce even for 11 months,” a former Hirect employee wrote on LinkedIn.
Several of the laid-off Hirect employees took to LinkedIn to share their woes with the founder and Hirect’s HR team. These laid-off employees are yet to receive their dues and relieving letters.
Others have reported that the startup did not provide any severance package or job search assistance as well. Furthermore, employees reported that the company only recently asked them to shift to work from the office, before laying them off.
“In some cases, they haven’t even contributed to employees’ PF accounts, despite deducting the amounts from their salary. And haven’t been responding to emails at all for the same!” another employee wrote.
Launched only two years ago by IIT Bombay alum Raj Das, Hirect is a mobile-first platform to help HR professionals, CXOs, founders and business owners hire for their companies.
The startup’s Android/iOS apps feature a chat and interview option, protecting user privacy and disallowing spam calls and emails. Hirect’s USP is an AI-powered job-candidate matching algorithm. That is, unlike other job-listing platforms, people registered here need not manually search and apply for jobs.
The algorithm will automatically recommend candidates to a recruiter based on the job description. The startup also uses the AI setup to verify candidates to avoid spam applications. Some of the noted recruiters on Hirect’s platform include Flipkart, Lenskart and Udaan.
It is noteworthy that up until January 2022, the startup was in pre-revenue mode, with plans to charge recruiters and candidates on a pay-as-you-go basis. Only recently, the startup started charging a freemium fee from employers.
It claims to have more than 190K recruiters alongside 3.8 Mn+ people who are a part of the job-seeking community on Hirect.
As Indian startups have laid off nearly 16K employees in 2022 alone, employees moved to Hirect since it focussed specifically on the startup segment. As hiring in startups trickled, Hirect was sure to be impacted and hence, the operational restructuring is likely taking place.
The startup is reportedly working towards clearing employees’ outstanding settlements; a move that former employees have claimed to be a ‘false promise’.
An email sent to Hirect founder and CEO Raj Das remained unanswered till the filing of the story. The story will be updated with comments from the startup.
