Timelines and Cost Drivers When Hiring From India

Two questions come up in almost every first conversation with an employer: how long will it take, and what will it cost? Both have honest answers, and neither answer is a single figure. What follows is the structure behind each, so you can plan a range rather than depend on a promise.

What actually drives the timeline

Timelines are determined by the slowest mandatory step, not the average. Any party quoting one number is either assuming how the authorities will behave or ignoring a stage. The realistic drivers are:

• Requirement clarity: a precise requirement can be sourced against. A vague one has to be redefined first.
• Role scarcity: common trades with deep candidate pools source faster than narrow specialisms.
• Candidate readiness: a candidate with a valid passport and complete documentation moves far faster than one starting from scratch.
• Document lead times: police clearance, medicals and attestation each take time and must not expire before submission.
• Permit processing: the employer-led step, governed by the destination country.
• Visa appointment availability: slot availability varies by mission and season, and is outside any employer's control.
• Employer responsiveness: every time a decision waits in an inbox, the timeline extends.
• Volume: a batch of five and a batch of two hundred do not scale proportionally, but they do scale.

The useful discipline is to map each stage to a named owner and a dependency, then track the dependencies rather than the calendar.

Stages that commonly delay a hire

• A passport with insufficient remaining validity, discovered late
• Police clearance obtained too early and expiring before submission
• Attestation and legalisation performed out of sequence
• Employment evidence that cannot be corroborated
• A trade test booked after, rather than before, employer commitment
• Accommodation or onboarding arrangements unresolved at departure

Almost every avoidable delay on a hire from India is a sequencing or readiness problem, not a sourcing problem.

What drives the cost

Cost is best understood as several distinct components rather than one recruitment fee. Depending on the route, a full picture may include:

• Recruitment and sourcing fees, where a registered recruiting agent is engaged
• Trade assessment and testing, including assessor time
• Candidate documentation: clearance certificates, medicals, translations
• Attestation, apostille and legalisation charges
• Government and authority fees in the destination country
• Visa fees and appointment costs
• Travel and insurance to the point of deployment
• Accommodation and induction, where the employer provides these
• Employer-side administrative time: often the largest hidden cost

Two requirements that look identical on paper can differ sharply in total cost if one involves a hard-to-source trade, a remote deployment location, or a compressed timeline.

Where cost is genuinely saved, and where it is not

The cheapest procurement is rarely the least expensive hire. The costs that matter most appear after arrival:

• Poor trade verification leads to underperformance, rework or early termination
• Weak onboarding leads to early departure and the full cost of re-recruitment
• Unregistered intermediaries add steps, add cost, and remove accountability
• Unclear terms lead to disputes that consume management time

Conversely, real savings come from accurate requirements, strong verification, complete documentation and a clean arrival process. Those reduce the two largest costs on any overseas hire: failure and delay.

How to budget sensibly

• Build the budget from the line items above rather than from a single per-head quotation
• Ask which costs are fixed, which are variable, and which are payable to authorities rather than to a party
• Ask what happens if a candidate withdraws, fails a medical, or a permit is refused
• Separate one-off recruitment cost from recurring employment cost
• Model the cost of a failed hire, and compare it against the cost of stronger verification

How to ask for a timeline

A credible timeline is expressed as a range with the dependencies named. For example: sourcing and screening depend on role scarcity; documentation depends on clearance and medical lead times; permit and visa steps depend on the destination authority. Pressing for a single date tends to produce a comfortable answer rather than an accurate one.

See How to Hire Indian Workers for Europe for the full stage-by-stage process, and Recruitment Process for how responsibilities are divided.

Planning checklist

• Requirement defined precisely before sourcing begins
• Each stage mapped to a named owner and dependency
• Passport validity and clearance windows checked early
• Document sequence agreed, including attestation order
• Budget built from components, not a single figure
• Contingency considered for withdrawal, medical failure or refusal
• Arrival and onboarding costed alongside recruitment

To work through timelines and cost drivers against your own roles and volumes, submit a manpower requirement and we will respond with an initial feasibility review.