Hiring in India
Hire talent in India.What it costs, how long it takes, what goes wrong.
Entity and payroll, the real cost by city, notice periods, the overlap window and the four things that make an India hire fail.
Plan for 60 to 90 days of notice
Trusted by growing companies and global teams.
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The honest version
Four things that make an India hire fail.
None of them are about the candidate pool, which is deep. They are about the brief.
A salary band set on a national average.
Pay moves by half again between Bengaluru and Kolkata for the same role.
A shift expectation discovered at offer stage.
Put the working pattern in the brief and test every shortlisted person against it.
No senior person on the ground.
Hire the supervisor first.
Planning around a 30-day notice period.
Sixty to ninety days is normal at manager level and above.
Roles we hire
What we hire, and what we do not.
We stay inside finance, accounting, analytics, AI and the engineering around them. Outside that, we refer you on.
Finance & accounting
Controller, R2R lead, statutory and group reporting, chartered accountants
FP&A
FP&A manager, business finance partner, commercial finance
Data & analytics
Analytics manager, data engineer, BI lead, data scientist
AI & ML
ML engineer, applied scientist, LLM and platform engineers
Technology
Backend, full-stack, cloud, DevOps, engineering manager
Leadership
India site head, country finance head, CFO
The part people underestimate
Notice periods change your whole plan.
Sixty to ninety days is normal, and that is after a four to six week search.
Work backwards from the start date you need: a specialist hire that opens in January is usually at a desk in April. We put the realistic joining date on the shortlist, next to the pay.
How we run a searchGetting set up
Entity, payroll and the first offer.
Most clients make their first hires before the Indian entity exists.
Employer of record
Your hire is employed by a licensed Indian provider and works for you. Set-up takes days.
Your own entity
A private limited company plus a payroll provider, worth it from roughly the fifth hire.
What goes in the offer
Cost to company, provident fund, gratuity, notice period and the joining bonus that is market for the role.
Where the hiring happens
Pick the city before the role.
Function, cost and retention all point to different cities. Each city page covers its employer set and what drives pay there.
Questions
What head offices ask us.
What does it cost to hire in India?
It varies more by city and function than most head offices expect, so we benchmark each role against the specific employers competing for the person.
What is a normal notice period?
Thirty days at junior levels, 60 to 90 at manager level and above, and sometimes longer in financial services.
Can an India team work our hours?
The UK, the UAE and Singapore overlap comfortably, Australia works from its afternoon onwards, and the US needs a 2pm to 11pm IST shift.
How are your fees structured?
A percentage of annual fixed pay for contingency, a staged fee for retained leadership search, and a monthly rate for dedicated team hiring, all agreed in writing before the search starts.
Let’s talk about your next hire
Who are you looking to hire?
Tell us about the role. We will suggest the right search approach.
Start a hiring conversationFor candidates
Your next move, thoughtfully matched.
Join the talent pool for future roles, or browse the roles we are hiring for now.