Cost of Recruitment: Where the Money Goes at Each Stage
Cost of Recruitment: Your Complete Guide to Where the Money Goes and How to Stop the Leaks Ask a finance head what recruitment costs and you will usually hear one number: the agency invoices and the portal subscription. Ask an HR head, and the answer grows to include tools, events and referral bonuses. Ask a hiring manager, and you will hear about the evenings spent reading resumes. All three are right, and none of them has the full picture. The cost of recruitment is spread across six stages, and most of the waste sits in places nobody tracks. A founder in Bangalore, an HR head in Mumbai, a plant manager in Pune and a hospital administrator in Hyderabad may all be paying more than they realise for stages that add little. This guide is a starting point. It maps what recruitment costs stage by stage, shows where money typically leaks, compares common fee models and gives you a simple audit to cut waste without hiring worse. If you only remember one thing from this page, make it...