A role has been open for 70 days. The hiring manager is doing the job herself while also running her own team. Every Friday she checks the applicant tracker and finds the same thirty resumes she has already rejected twice. This is not a hiring problem anymore. It is a cost problem that nobody has put a number on yet.
TDS Group has been on the other side of this conversation since 1998, and the same six signs show up again and again before a company calls us.
A role stays open past 45 days, applications are plentiful but unqualified, managers spend more time screening than managing, hiring is happening in bulk or in a new city, the same role keeps reopening, or the skill required is genuinely hard to find. If two or more of these sound familiar, an agency conversation is worth having.
When In-House Hiring Stops Working
In-house hiring works well at low volume, especially when a company has a strong referral network and generic roles that do not require deep sourcing. It starts to break down at specific, identifiable thresholds.
Once a company is hiring more than three or four roles a month, opening a location in a city where it has no employer brand, or trying to fill a position that needs a skill set its own HR team has never recruited for, in-house hiring stretches thin fast. The signs below are how that strain usually shows up first.
Sign 1: Roles Stay Open Longer Than 45 Days
A role open for more than 45 days is usually costing more than the salary line suggests. Work out the real number by adding the monthly salary for the position, the revenue or output that role would normally contribute, and the overtime or extra hours the existing team absorbs to cover the gap.
A ₹40,000 a month role left vacant for two extra months, with a team absorbing the workload through overtime, commonly ends up costing the business ₹70,000 to ₹90,000 in that period once lost output is counted in. That number rarely shows up on a hiring dashboard, which is exactly why the delay gets tolerated for too long.
Sign 2: You Get Plenty of Applications but Few Qualified Ones
A high applicant count is not the same as a healthy pipeline. Job portals reward volume, so a listing can pull in 200 applications where 15 are worth a phone call. Screening 200 resumes to find those 15 takes a trained recruiter roughly six to eight hours, and it takes an untrained hiring manager considerably longer because they are not scanning for the same signals a full-time recruiter looks for.
If your applicant count looks strong but your shortlist keeps coming up thin, the funnel is broken at the screening stage, not the sourcing stage.
Sign 3: Your Managers Spend More Time Screening Than Managing
We track this closely because it is one of the clearest signs a client is ready to hand hiring off. Across the roles we take over, hiring managers typically spend eight to twelve hours per hire on shortlisting resumes, scheduling calls, and dealing with candidates who confirm an interview and then do not show up.
For a manager earning ₹80,000 a month, that is roughly ₹4,000 to ₹6,000 of management time spent on tasks that have nothing to do with running their team. Multiply that across five or six open roles in a quarter and the number stops looking small.
Sign 4: You Are Hiring in Bulk or Opening in a New City
Opening in a new city means starting with zero employer brand recognition and no local candidate network of your own. A company hiring 20 people for a new Zirakpur warehouse has none of the local word-of-mouth that made hiring easy at its Delhi office.
An agency with existing candidate databases in that city can fill positions in weeks instead of the months it takes to build local awareness from scratch. Bulk hiring adds a second pressure on top of this: doing 20 structured interviews well, on a deadline, is a full-time job that most internal HR teams are not staffed for.
Sign 5: The Same Role Keeps Reopening
A role that reopens every four to six months is rarely a market problem. It is usually a screening quality problem, meaning candidates who look right on paper are not actually the right fit for the team or the manager’s working style.
This is where a replacement guarantee changes the risk calculation. Most agencies, TDS Group included, offer a free replacement if a placed candidate exits within a defined window, which shifts some of that repeat-hiring cost off the client’s books and onto the agency’s.
Sign 6: You Need Niche or Hard-to-Find Skills
The strongest candidates for a specialised role are usually already employed and not actively applying anywhere. They will not see your job portal listing because they are not looking at job portals.
Reaching them takes a warm approach through an existing network or a direct, individual outreach, which is exactly what agencies with a standing candidate database are built to do. If a role has been open for months despite a well-written job description, the problem is very likely candidate access, not the description itself.
What Does a Recruitment Agency Cost in India?
Recruitment agencies in India typically charge a success fee as a percentage of the candidate’s annual CTC, paid only once the candidate joins. Entry and mid-level roles usually run 8.33 percent to 12 percent of annual CTC, senior or managerial roles run 12 percent to 15 percent, and niche or executive-level searches can go higher depending on how hard the role is to source.
Contract or temporary staffing works differently, with agencies charging 10 percent to 25 percent on top of the monthly CTC, since the agency also handles payroll and compliance for that employee.
| Cost Component | In-House Hiring | Recruitment Agency |
|---|---|---|
| Job portal subscriptions | ₹15,000 – ₹40,000/month | Included |
| HR/manager screening hours per hire | 8 – 12 hours | Minimal, shortlist delivered |
| Time to first shortlist | 3 – 5 weeks | 1 – 2 weeks (varies by role) |
| Cost of a bad hire (rework + reopening) | Often unbudgeted | Reduced via replacement guarantee |
| Fee structure | Fixed salary cost regardless of outcome | Percentage of CTC, paid on successful joining |
The in-house column looks cheaper on paper because most of its real costs, staff hours, extended vacancy periods, and the cost of a hire who does not work out, never get tracked as a line item.
The agency column looks more expensive because it is a single visible invoice. Once both are measured the same way, the gap is usually smaller than either side assumes, and sometimes the agency route comes out ahead once the vacancy period is priced in.
When You Do NOT Need a Recruitment Agency
An agency is not always the right call, and we would rather say so upfront. If your hiring volume is low, your referral pipeline is consistently strong, the roles you are filling have deep local supply and generic requirements, or your budget is tight and you genuinely have time to wait out a longer search, in-house hiring is usually the better fit. A company hiring one or two generic roles a year with a healthy employee referral program rarely needs to pay a success fee for something its own network already handles well. Knowing when not to use an agency is part of giving honest advice, and it is also part of why clients come back to us for the roles that actually need it.
How to Start Working With a Recruitment Agency
Before your first call, prepare a clear job description, the confirmed salary band, a few available interview slots, and confirmation of who the final decision-maker is. Ask the agency directly about their fee structure, their typical time to first shortlist for a role like yours, and what their replacement guarantee covers.
A good first shortlist should arrive within one to two weeks and should already be pre-screened against your stated requirements, not just a batch of resumes pulled from a portal search. If you want to see how this works end to end, TDS Group’s recruitment services page walks through our process city by city.
Frequently Asked Questions
Most agencies charge 8.33 percent to 15 percent of the candidate’s annual CTC for permanent roles, with the fee due only after the candidate joins, and 10 percent to 25 percent on top of monthly CTC for contract staffing.
It depends on how you count the cost. In-house hiring has fewer visible line items but often hides staff hours, extended vacancy costs, and the price of a bad hire, so agency fees frequently come out closer to in-house costs than they first appear.
A first shortlist typically arrives within one to two weeks for standard roles, faster for high-volume bulk hiring with an established candidate database, and longer for niche or senior positions that require passive candidate outreach.
Yes, bulk hiring is one of the areas where agencies add the most value, since filling 15 to 20 roles at once requires structured interviewing capacity most internal HR teams are not staffed to handle on a deadline.
A replacement guarantee is a commitment from the agency to source a free replacement candidate if the person placed leaves or is let go within an agreed window, usually 90 days, which shifts some of the risk of a bad hire off the client.
The Real Question Isn’t Cost, It’s How Long the Seat Stays Empty
Every one of the six signs above points back to the same underlying cost: time. A role sitting open for two extra months costs more than most agency fees ever will, it just does not show up as a single number on an invoice.
If two or more of these signs match what your team is dealing with right now, talk to TDS Group about the roles you are trying to fill. We will tell you plainly if an agency is the right call or if your in-house process just needs a fix. TDS Group is India’s best manpower consultancy.
Call Us: +91 172-5090668
Email: info@tdsgroup.in
