How GCC Hiring Works: How to Build a Comp Package That Attracts the Right Candidate

Описание: A VP engineering search in Bengaluru. Comp at market — 1.3 CR. Candidate was exceptional, built exactly to the brief.

He declined.

Not because of the base. Because 30% of his variable was tied to global KPIs he had no control over, and there were no ESOPs. On paper the offer was 1.3 CR. In reality it was closer to 95 lakhs. He had another offer at 1.2 CR — fixed, guaranteed. He took it.

The number was right. The structure was wrong.

This is where most senior GCC mandates break — and it almost never happens at the offer stage. It happens at day zero, when the comp structure is left undefined and the search opens anyway.

In this episode of How GCC Hiring Works, Sachith Rai walks through the six-step compensation structure framework Recruise uses before going to market on any senior mandate. Across declined offers tracked at Recruise, the number was within 10% of expectation in most cases. Three out of four rejections came down to structure — variable with no control, guaranteed cash below the candidate's real baseline, no comp review commitment on record.

Same budget. Different design. Acceptance rate from 60% to 86%. That's the BFSI GCC case at the end of this episode.

WHAT THIS EPISODE COVERS
[00:00] — The 1.3 CR offer that lost to a 1.2 CR offer — and why
[01:20] — Why comp failures happen at the start of the search, not the offer stage
[02:00] — Step 1: Lock the structure before you go to market
[02:30] — Step 2: Anchor on guaranteed cash, not CTC — how to find the real baseline
[03:00] — Step 3: Build for the candidate, not the benchmarking sheet
[03:30] — Step 4: Price the risk — what a weak offer actually signals
[04:00] — Step 5: Pressure test before release — the one question to ask your search partner
[04:30] — Step 6: Be explicit beyond year one — the one line that changes acceptance rates
[05:00] — Three mistakes that appear across most declined senior offers
[05:30] — The BFSI GCC case: same budget, acceptance rate from 60% to 86%

WHO THIS IS FOR
CHROs, Heads of Talent Acquisition, GCC Heads, and TA Directors hiring at Director, VP, or C-suite level into Global Capability Centres in India. Particularly relevant if you're opening mandates in IT, Pharma, BFSI, or ER&D — and your offers are getting declined at a rate that doesn't match the quality of your search.

ABOUT RECRUISE
Recruise Global is an intelligence-led GCC talent partner based in Bengaluru. Twenty years in the India GCC market. 4,000+ placements. 94% twelve-month retention. We work with Fortune 2000 GCCs and scaling mid-market capability centres across IT, Pharma, Life Sciences, BFSI, and ER&D.

ABOUT THE SERIES
How GCC Hiring Works is a weekly explainer series on what actually happens inside senior GCC hiring in India — compensation structure, talent availability, mandate intelligence, and the unfiltered version of what's working and what isn't in India's capability centre market.

New episode every Tuesday.

🎯 ABOUT TO GO TO MARKET ON A SENIOR MANDATE?
Get your compensation structure reviewed before the search opens:
https://survey.zohopublic.com/zs/ypC5Zq

📩 CONNECT WITH RECRUISE
LinkedIn:   / recruise-india-consulting  
Website: https://www.recruiseindia.com

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