Choosing a recruitment and staffing agency in India means picking the partner whose vetting depth, time-to-fill, and replacement terms will decide whether you fill a role with someone who lasts — or restart the search in three months having paid a fee for the privilege. The lowest placement fee is rarely the cheapest hire once you count the cost of a bad fit, the ramp time lost, and the second search.
This is a vetting checklist, not a directory. The eight questions below are in the order they usually break a deal, and they let you tell a real recruiting operation from a resume forwarder on a first call.
1. What does their vetting actually involve?
Ask exactly how a candidate gets from sourced to shortlisted. A credible agency describes a multi-stage process — screening, skills assessment, structured interview, reference checks — not “we send you the best resumes.” AB7 runs a multi-stage vetting process before a candidate reaches you, so a shortlist is a filtered set, not an inbox dump. A forwarder that ships ten resumes and lets you do the filtering is charging you for work it did not do.
2. What is the realistic time-to-fill — and will they commit?
Ask for the average placement window for your role type and what they will commit to. Vague speed promises hide slow pipelines. AB7’s recruitment placements average a 30–40 day window with standard remote roles deployable far faster, and the agency states the timeline for your specific role up front. A vendor that will not name a window has not measured one.
3. What are the replacement and guarantee terms?
Hires fail; the question is who pays when they do. Ask for the replacement guarantee in writing — the window and whether it is a free refill or a partial refund. The right agency commits to a guarantee period rather than treating a failed placement as your problem. A vendor with no guarantee is confident only in collecting the fee.
4. Which pricing model fits your hiring — and will they say so?
There are honest ways to price recruitment: contingency or fixed placement fee for permanent roles, RPO retainer for ongoing volume, and a dedicated FTE or contract recruiter for sustained hiring. AB7 prices a dedicated recruiter or staff FTE from $1,500/month, multi-discipline pods from $4,500/month, and fixed-scope RPO projects in a flat $2,000–$25,000 band, at 50–70% savings versus building an in-house team. The detail sits on the Recruitment hub and the pricing page.
5. Can they prove depth in your specific role and vertical?
Sourcing a sales rep and sourcing a SOC analyst are different muscles. Ask what they have actually closed in your function. AB7 has closed 1,200+ roles since 2015 across engineering, healthcare, sales, and finance, with visa-aware sourcing — H-1B, TN, OPT, UK Skilled Worker, AU 482 — and ATS work in Greenhouse, Lever, and Workday. A generalist that has never filled your role type will learn on your req.
6. How do they handle compliance and candidate verification?
A staffing agency that skips background and right-to-work checks hands you the liability. Ask how they verify identity, employment history, and work authorization for your jurisdiction. AB7 runs DPDP-aligned candidate data handling and verification appropriate to the hiring geography. A vendor that treats verification as optional is a compliance gap with a commission.
7. Who owns the candidate pipeline and the data?
Confirm that candidates sourced for you are yours to hire directly without an off-limits clause that locks your pipeline behind their fee forever, and that candidate data is handled under DPDP-aligned terms. An agency that treats every introduction as a permanent toll booth is renting you your own talent pool.
8. Will they run a paid trial role you can judge?
This is the test that collapses the shortlist. A confident agency takes one real open role, runs its full process, and lets you judge the shortlist quality and the speed. AB7 starts engagements this way deliberately so a 300-person company’s head of talent scores real candidates by week 2, not a sales promise. A vendor that wants an exclusive retainer before delivering a shortlist is telling you what its pipeline looks like.
Putting the checklist to work
Run these eight past every agency and the shortlist thins fast. Most resume forwarders fail on points 1, 3, and 8 — real vetting, a real guarantee, and the nerve to be judged on one trial role. A VP of engineering hiring out of Cyber City, Gurugram does not need the lowest fee; they need a shortlist that does not waste their interview panel’s time. For the model behind point 4, see the pricing page; for the role and vertical range behind point 5, see the Recruitment hub.
Vetting recruitment partners right now? Send AB7 Solutions founder Ashok Benial the role, the must-have skills, and your deadline and get a paid trial req you can score on real candidates — not a fee schedule. Call +1-321-341-7733, email director@ab7solutions.com, or book a slot at calendly.com/ashok-benial/meeting.