Notice period is the most consequential and least discussed variable in Indian hiring. Salary gets negotiated openly, skills get assessed for hours, and then a process collapses because the candidate cannot start until October. This guide covers how notice actually works, what it runs by employer type, and how both sides should handle it.
The basics: contract, not law
India has no single statute fixing white-collar notice periods. It is a term of the employment contract. State Shops and Establishments Acts set minimums in some cases, typically around 30 days, but those are floors rather than caps, so a contract specifying 90 days is normally enforceable.
This is why notice varies so much between two people doing identical work. It reflects the employer's attrition policy and how painful they found their last wave of exits, not the nature of the job.
What notice actually runs, by employer type
Notice length is highly predictable once you know where someone works. These are the patterns we see consistently in the Indian market, and they are the priors our own joining-window model uses before any candidate-specific evidence is applied.
- Large IT services firms: commonly 60 to 90 days, with 90 the norm at the largest. This is the single biggest cause of long joining timelines in Indian tech hiring, and it applies to a very large share of the candidate pool.
- Product multinationals and GCCs: typically 30 to 60 days. Global HR policy tends to pull toward shorter notice than Indian services norms.
- Funded startups and unicorns: usually 30 to 45 days. Shorter contractually, and often flexible in practice when handover is clean.
- Senior and leadership roles: stretch longer at any employer type, because handover genuinely takes longer and the employer has more to lose.
- Probation: frequently much shorter, sometimes 15 days or less. Worth checking, since a candidate four months into a job may be far more available than their employer's standard policy suggests.
Two situations compress these sharply: a candidate already serving notice, and a candidate between roles, who is immediately available. Both are worth identifying early, because they are the people who can solve an urgent requisition.
Buyout: how it works and where it fails
A buyout means paying for unserved notice days in order to leave early. Three things decide whether it will actually work.
- Does the contract allow it. Many do; some explicitly do not, and some make it conditional on management approval, which is functionally the same as not allowing it.
- What is the base for the calculation. Salary for the unserved days, but on basic pay or on full CTC. The difference can be several times the amount, and candidates routinely underestimate it.
- Will the current employer agree. This is the one people forget. Even with a buyout clause, employers can and do refuse when a project is at a critical stage. A clause is a right to ask, rarely a right to leave.
If the new employer is funding the buyout, get it in writing in the offer letter, including whether it is paid up front or reimbursed after joining. Verbal commitments here fail often enough to matter.
Terms that confuse people
- LWD: last working day, the actual final date of work. Ask for this rather than notice length once someone has resigned.
- Garden leave: the employer pays out the notice but stops the employee working, common for senior or competitively sensitive exits.
- Relieving letter: confirmation that the employee left properly having served or settled notice. Most Indian employers ask for it before onboarding, which is why abandoning notice creates real downstream problems.
- Full and final settlement (F and F): the closing payment covering dues, unused leave and any deductions, typically settled within about 30 to 45 days of exit.
For recruiters: screen for it in the first conversation
The most common wasted cycle in Indian recruiting is running four interview rounds and then discovering the timeline does not work. Establish the joining window in the first call, alongside compensation, not at offer stage.
Ask three specific questions rather than one vague one. What is your contractual notice. Has your employer released people early in practice. Does your contract permit buyout, and would you consider it. The answers to those three predict the actual start date far better than the number on the contract, which is what most databases record if they record anything at all.
Better still, know the likely answer before you write the first message. Our platform estimates a joining window for every sourced profile from employer type, seniority and any availability the candidate has stated publicly, then confirms it from their first reply. That is why joinability belongs in your screening criteria, not in your offer-stage surprises.
For candidates: the clean exit checklist
Read your contract before you resign, not after. Confirm the buyout base if you intend to use it. Ask whether accrued leave can offset notice. Get the release date agreed in writing with your manager. And do not start the new job before your LWD, however tempting dual employment looks, because it jeopardises the relieving letter that the next employer will ask for.
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