A single resume looked impressive. The interview went smoothly. Everything felt right. But a few months later, that same hiring decision left a startup counting losses of more than Rs 2 lakh. Ashutosh Gupta from Praper Media opened up on LinkedIn about a mistake that taught his team a tough lesson. In his words, "We hired someone who lied about everything on their resume. By the time we found out, we’d lost 2 lakhs."
At that time, the company was still growing and did not think background checks were necessary. Hiring was simple; if someone spoke well, sounded confident and cleared the interview, they were brought on board. It felt faster and easier. The candidate, introduced in the post as Chirag, seemed like the perfect fit. He claimed to have three years of experience and said he was earning Rs 40,000 at his previous agency. Trusting his words, the startup offered him Rs 45,000.
But reality started showing itself within two months. He was given a basic reaction video editing task. He took two entire days to complete just one video. Worse, the final work could not even be used. That’s when doubts began to grow. "For someone who claimed 3 years of experience and ₹40K salary at their last agency? That made no sense," Gupta wrote. The team then decided to verify his past job details.
What they found changed everything. "Lie #1: He was making ₹25K, not ₹40K. So we’d given them an 80% raise. Lie #2: He wasn’t ‘resigned.’ He was fired. For performance issues. Lie #3: The ‘manager’ we called? Their friend. Glowing a fake review."
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The damage was not just emotional; it was financial, too. The company paid Rs 1.35 lakh in salary over three months. Around Rs 40,000 went into training efforts. Another Rs 25,000 was spent on hiring someone new. Add delayed client projects and lost productivity, and the total loss crossed Rs 2 lakh, along with four months of wasted time.
After this experience, the company completely changed its system. Now, every hire goes through strict checks. They contact the previous company’s HR, call managers through official company numbers, verify LinkedIn profiles and confirm salary slips. “People try to bypass with fake numbers and photoshopped slips. We catch them 90% of the time,” Gupta shared.
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What looked like a confident hire turned into an expensive reminder that interviews can impress, but facts need to be checked.