Finding the right person is half the job. Getting them onto the payroll correctly is the half that has just changed
Recruitment in India used to be a commercial exercise with a compliance step at the end. Since 21 November 2025 it is both at once. The four Labour Codes commenced, twenty-nine central Acts were repealed, the meaning of wages changed, an appointment letter became a statutory obligation, and the threshold for contract labour more than doubled. We recruit, and we make sure the paperwork behind the hire matches the law as it now stands rather than as it stood two years ago.
- Permanent recruitment, executive search, contract and fixed term staffing, volume hiring, recruitment process outsourcing and campus programmes.
- Every statutory position on these pages carries a source and a date it was checked, and where the primary source could not be read the page says so and states the question rather than filling the gap.
- We are explicit about which parts of this are unresolved. Several are, and any page presenting the current Indian employment position as settled is not describing reality.
Four ways we hire, and the compliance layer under all of them
Talent acquisition and executive search
Permanent recruitment across levels, executive and leadership hiring, contract and temporary staffing, and volume or bulk hiring where the constraint is process throughput rather than candidate scarcity.
Recruitment process outsourcing
End-to-end management of a hiring function: sourcing, screening, interview coordination, verification, offer management and employer positioning, run as your process rather than as a vendor's.
Industry specific recruitment
Information technology, finance and accounting, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing and engineering, and retail and e-commerce. Sector knowledge matters mostly for assessment and for knowing where the people actually are.
Campus and fresh talent hiring
Campus recruitment drives, internship and graduate trainee programmes, and pre-hire assessment, with the apprenticeship route treated as the distinct legal arrangement it is.
Five guides, in hiring order
If you read one, read the first. The Labour Codes changed what an offer letter has to be and what a salary structure can look like, and both of those are decided before a candidate is found.
Hiring Under the Labour Codes: What an Offer Must Now Say
What actually commenced on 21 November 2025 and what did not, the appointment letter that is now a statutory obligation, the redefined meaning of wages and what it does to a salary structure, and the registrations a first hire triggers.
Executive Search and Senior Appointments
Leadership hiring where the appointment is also a corporate act: key managerial personnel, director appointments and the checks that precede them, and the independent director databank and proficiency test.
Contract Staffing, Fixed Term Employment and Gig Workers
The three non-permanent routes and when each is lawful: fixed term employment and its one-year gratuity, contract labour at the raised threshold with the core activity prohibition, and the aggregator obligations now live for platform work.
Screening, Background Verification and Candidate Data
What may be checked and what may not, the data protection regime that is commencing in phases rather than all at once, and the difference between an applicant and an employee that the statute does not clearly resolve.
Campus Hiring, Internships and Apprenticeships
The employer side of campus recruitment, the legal difference between an intern, an apprentice and an employee, apprenticeship obligations and stipends, and the incentive schemes currently running.
Five steps, and the paperwork treated as part of the hire
Define the role properly
What the person will actually do, what they must have done before, and what is genuinely negotiable. Most failed searches were mis-specified rather than badly executed.
Agree the structure
Permanent, fixed term, contract or apprenticeship, decided against what the work actually is rather than against convenience. The three routes carry different obligations and are not interchangeable.
Source and screen
Search, referral and, where it fits, an advertised process. Screening against defined criteria with a written basis for each decision, which matters both for quality and for defensibility.
Assess and verify
Structured assessment against the role definition, then verification with the candidate's consent and with a record of what was checked and why.
Offer and onboard
An appointment letter that meets the statutory requirement, a salary structure that works under the new definition of wages, registrations completed, and a handover into payroll.
What changed on 21 November 2025, in one place
| Change | Where it comes from | What it means when you hire |
|---|---|---|
| A written appointment letter is a statutory obligation | Section 6(1) of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 | Every employee gets one, in the prescribed form, on appointment |
| The meaning of wages changed | Section 2(y) of the Code on Wages, 2019, with the 50 per cent proviso | A salary structure built mostly of allowances no longer works as it did |
| Contract labour threshold raised | Section 45 of the Occupational Safety Code | The contract labour provisions apply at 50, not 20 |
| Fixed term employment gets gratuity at one year | The definition in section 2 of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 | Fixed term is a real option with a real cost attached |
| Equal remuneration moved into the Code on Wages | Sections 3 and 4 of the Code on Wages, repealing the 1976 Act | Sex discrimination in recruitment for the same or similar work is prohibited by the Code itself |
| Platform and gig work has a statutory framework | Section 2 definitions and the aggregator provisions of the Code on Social Security, 2020 | An aggregator has live registration and data obligations, whatever the contribution rate turns out to be |
Two of the four Codes commenced only in part, and one important repeal was not made in the way it is usually described. Guide 1 covers both points.
Where these pages stop
These pages cover the window between deciding you need someone and getting them onto the payroll. Developing the people you already have is covered on our learning and development page. Preparing candidates to be employable, which is work we do with institutions and sponsors rather than with employers, is on our employability skills page. Everything after the first payslip, including provident fund and other statutory administration, is on our payroll services page.
Questions we are asked before an engagement starts
Do you work on retainer or contingency?
Both, and the right answer depends on the role. Executive and specialist searches where the candidate pool is small are retained work, because a contingency arrangement gives no incentive to run a genuine search. Volume roles work well on contingency.
Can you handle hiring across several states?
Yes, and it is worth flagging early because registrations, working hours and leave rules under state shops and establishments legislation still vary between states even after the Codes. A multi-state hiring plan needs that mapped rather than assumed.
Will you advise on the salary structure?
On its statutory shape, yes, because the redefinition of wages changed what a structure can look like. On what the market pays, we can tell you what we see. On individual tax planning for the employee, no.
Do you do background verification?
We coordinate it and we are careful about it. What may be checked, what consent is needed and what may be retained are covered in guide 4, and the data protection position there is genuinely unsettled.
Send an enquiry
Tell us the role, the location, the structure you have in mind and when you need someone in place. If the structure is not settled, say so, because that is the decision with the longest consequences.
This page is general information, not professional advice. Indian employment law is in the middle of the largest transition it has had in seventy years. The four Labour Codes commenced on 21 November 2025, two of them only in part, repealing twenty-nine central Acts. New central rules under two of the Codes were notified in May 2026 and new provident fund and pension schemes in June 2026, one of which was corrected in August 2026. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act is commencing in phases that run to 2027. Several positions on these pages are marked as unresolved because the primary source could not be read, and a page that pretended otherwise would be worth less than one that says so. Take professional advice before acting on anything on this page. We are happy to be that adviser, but we do not act on a web page, ours or anyone else's, without one.