Recruitment Services Agreement Generator (India)

About the Recruitment Services Agreement Generator (India)

A recruitment services agreement sets the terms on which a placement agency finds candidates for a company: the positions, whether the agency works alone on them, the fee — a percentage of the hire’s annual CTC, a scale by salary band, or a fixed fee — when the fee is earned, how it is invoiced with GST, what happens if the hire leaves in the first months, who “owns” a candidate the agency introduced, and how both sides handle candidates’ personal data.

This generator writes that agreement for India from your choices, under Indian law: definitions of a candidate, an introduction and a hire; the fee with a band table and a minimum; payment within your period, GST, tax deducted at source and interest; the MSMED Act terms when the agency is a micro or small enterprise; the replacement guarantee with a credit note or a part refund; duplicate introductions; candidate data under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023; confidentiality; non-solicitation; liability; term and termination; and arbitration or courts. A one-page summary of the key terms opens the file, with the fee worked out at four sample salaries.

Nothing you type is uploaded. Without a pass the agreement shows as a free preview; a Premium pass unlocks the Word and PDF files, the text and printing.

Common uses

• A placement consultancy sending its standard terms to a new client.
• A company engaging an agency for a hiring drive at a new plant or branch.
• An executive search firm working on an exclusive brief with a retainer.
• HR teams comparing agencies’ terms on the same fee and guarantee structure.

What the agreement covers

• Introductions and ownership: an introduction is a profile sent for a position after the candidate agreed to be put forward; the fee is earned on a hire within your ownership period (12 months by default), for any position; the client reports duplicates within a few working days, with the date and source.
• Fee and payment: a percentage of annual CTC, bands or a fixed fee, with a minimum; earned on joining (no fee for a no-show) or on acceptance (with a replacement for a no-show); invoices payable within your period, plus GST, less tax deducted at source.
• Replacement guarantee: one replacement at no further fee if the hire leaves within the guarantee period, except for redundancy, restructuring or the client’s breach; then a credit note, a part refund or nothing more, as you choose.
• Candidates’ personal data: each side is a Data Fiduciary under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, to the extent it is in force; data shared only with the candidate’s agreement, used only for hiring, kept secure, deleted when no longer needed, with breach notices and help with candidates’ requests.
• Conduct: no fees from candidates, no discrimination on grounds the law forbids, confidentiality, non-solicitation both ways, independent parties.

GST and tax deducted at source

Placement and executive search services fall under heading 9985 (support services) — SAC 998512 for permanent placement and 998511 for executive search — taxed at 18% GST: 9% central and 9% State tax within a State, or 18% integrated tax between States (Notification No. 11/2017-Central Tax (Rate), serial 23(iii); see CBIC’s tax information portal). An agency that is not registered charges no GST, and the agreement says so. The client deducts tax at source where the income-tax law requires it and gives the agency the certificate of the tax deducted.

If the agency is a micro or small enterprise

Tick Udyam registration and the agreement records the MSMED Act, 2006: payment by the agreed date and never more than 45 days after acceptance of the services (s.15), compound interest at three times the RBI bank rate on late payment (s.16), and reference of disputes about dues to the MSE Facilitation Council (s.18). The checks warn when the payment period is longer.

What the checks catch

• Fee bands out of order, a percentage far above what agencies charge, a payment period longer than 45 days for a micro or small agency.
• Interest above 24% a year, which a court may cut down as a penalty (Indian Contract Act, s.74).
• A non-solicitation period of more than twelve months after the agreement ends, which risks being void as a restraint of trade (s.27), and an ownership period above twelve months.
• A GSTIN with a wrong check character or State code, a Udyam number in the wrong format, an e-mail that cannot be right.
• Positions abroad: recruiting Indian workers for jobs outside India needs a recruiting agent’s certificate under the Emigration Act, 1983.

Limitations

• A template under Indian law, not legal advice. Have it reviewed before you sign it, and stamp it under your State’s Stamp Act.
• For permanent hires. Contract staffing — where the agency employs the workers and sends them to the client — needs a staffing agreement and its own labour-law compliance.
• English only. The fee examples on the summary page use four sample salaries; the fee for each hire is worked out on its actual annual CTC.
• The first PDF or Word file needs a connection once, to load the document engine.

Privacy

Everything happens in your browser: the names and terms you type are never uploaded. A draft is kept in this browser only if you tick “Keep a draft in this browser”; leave it off on a shared computer.