How a SaaS company hired 120 people for its India centre, then took recruiting in‑house.
A US product company was opening an engineering centre in Hyderabad and didn't want to rely on agencies for years. Skillfi ran its hiring end to end in year one, built and trained an in-house recruiting team alongside, then stepped back to selective support. It's a build-operate-transfer model, run through our RPO solutions.
A hiring plan of 120, and nobody on the ground to run it.
The company had signed the lease on a Hyderabad office and committed to 120 hires in the first year, mostly engineers. Its recruiters were all in the US, already stretched, and had never hired in India.
Early roles went to five different agencies. Fees ran close to 19% of first-year salary, candidate quality varied from week to week, and a third of offers were turned down. At that pace, agency fees alone would have reached $840K, and the company would end the year with no recruiting team of its own.
We needed to hire fast, but we didn't want to rent a recruiting team forever. By the end of the year we wanted to own it.
VP of Engineering, client
Run the hiring in year one, and hand it over as their team grows.
Skillfi agreed the end state on day one: an in-house team of six recruiters running most hiring by month twelve. Everything we built, from scorecards to reports, was designed to be handed over.
Full-cycle hiring under the client's name
Our recruiters sourced, screened, scheduled and closed every role as part of the client's team, with no agency branding in front of candidates.
A process the client would keep
The client's ATS set up for India, interview scorecards for each role family and a weekly pipeline report for the leadership team.
An in-house team, hired and trained
We recruited a TA lead and five recruiters, trained them on live roles, then moved to selective support for senior and niche hires only.
12 months, build to handover
From five agencies and no local team to an in-house recruiting function. Here's how the year unfolded.
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Month 1120 roles mapped
Hiring plan & setup
Every role mapped by quarter, salary bands checked against the Hyderabad market and the ATS set up for India.
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Month 2–442 hires
End-to-end hiring
Skillfi recruiters ran every role, starting with the engineering leads who would build the rest of the team.
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Month 4–63 recruiters in
In-house team starts
A TA lead and two recruiters hired, each shadowing a Skillfi recruiter on live roles.
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Month 6–8Agencies phased out
Shared delivery
The in-house team took over generalist roles. Skillfi kept senior and hard-to-fill roles, and the last agency contract ended.
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Month 9–116 in-house
Selective RPO
Three more recruiters joined. The in-house team ran most hiring, with Skillfi on leadership and niche roles only.
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Month 12120 hires
Handover
The year's hiring plan completed, with the playbook, templates and reporting handed to the TA lead.
Four stages, from our recruiters to theirs
Handing over too early slows hiring. Handing over too late means the client never owns it. The plan moved responsibility across one stage at a time.
We run it
- Full-cycle hiring, client brand
- ATS & scorecards set up
- Weekly pipeline report
We hire your team
- TA lead & first recruiters hired
- Shadowing on live roles
- Interview calibration
We share it
- In-house owns generalist roles
- Skillfi on senior & niche
- Joint weekly review
You run it
- Team of six fully hired
- Playbook & templates handed over
- Skillfi on call for hard roles
What the first year delivered
Offer acceptance rate
Share of offers accepted, across all roles hired in year one.
Year one went to plan, and we now have our own recruiting team in Hyderabad. We still call Skillfi for the odd hard role, but that's it.
Head of Talent, clientOpening an offshore team and want to own the hiring?
Our RPO team can run your hiring from day one, then build and train your in-house recruiters so you're not renting a team for years. Just need a few hard roles filled? Our fractional recruiter team can help.
- Full-cycle hiring from day one
- An in-house TA team, hired & trained
- ATS, scorecards & weekly reporting
- Selective support after handover
30 minutes. No obligation.
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