Permanent vs contract hiring.
The difference, and why Mindpool India only does permanent.
In permanent hiring the person becomes a full-time on-payroll employee of the company, with benefits, equity eligibility, and long-term ownership of their work. In contract hiring they are employed by an agency or work as a 1099 contractor for a fixed term. Mindpool India places permanent employees only.
How they differ
The employment relationship changes almost everything downstream: cost structure, retention incentives, IP ownership, security clearance eligibility, and how deeply someone invests in a multi-year roadmap.
- Employment: on-payroll employee of your company vs agency-employed or 1099
- Cost: one-off placement fee vs ongoing hourly margin
- Retention: equity and career path vs fixed end date
- IP and clearances: usually cleaner under direct employment
- Depth: permanent hires own roadmaps; contractors deliver scopes
Why we chose permanent only
Deep-tech roadmaps run for years. Silicon tapeouts, grid interconnection, and model-infrastructure programmes all reward continuity, so we built the firm around retention economics rather than utilisation. We do not offer contract, temp-to-hire, or contingent staffing.
Frequently asked
Is permanent hiring more expensive than contract?
Permanent hiring carries a one-off placement fee, while contract carries an ongoing hourly margin. Over engagements longer than a few months, permanent is usually the lower total cost.
Does Mindpool India offer contract staffing?
No. Mindpool India is a permanent executive and professional search firm and places full-time, direct-hire employees only.
How a Mindpool India search runs
Every engagement starts with a briefing call in which we pull apart the role rather than the job title: the problems the hire owns in their first two quarters, the systems and tooling they inherit, who they work alongside, and which parts of the specification are genuinely non-negotiable. That brief becomes the scorecard we screen against for this search, so shortlists are argued for on evidence instead of keyword overlap.
Sourcing is deliberately two-track. We approach specialists already known to our sector recruiters, and we run targeted, specialised outreach into the specific teams, programmes, and technologies where the relevant experience actually sits, including people who are not searching. Candidates are then interviewed by a recruiter who understands the domain, reference-checked on the claims that matter, and presented with a written rationale, compensation expectations, notice period, and location constraints already confirmed.
Permanent hiring only, what that means
Mindpool India is a permanent recruitment and executive search firm. Every placement is a full-time, direct-hire employee on your payroll, on your benefits, and inside your engineering culture. We do not provide contract, temporary, temp-to-hire, or contingent staffing, and we do not act as an employer of record. That single focus is why our process optimises for retention rather than time-to-fill alone.
- • Contingent permanent search, retained executive search, embedded RPO, or research-led talent mapping
- • Sector-specialist recruiters in AI infrastructure and ML platform, energy, and semiconductors
- • Roughly 21 days from brief to a signed offer on a typical search
- • 90-day retention guarantee on every permanent placement
- • India-wide coverage
Hiring managers can book a call or email a hiring brief and receive a calibrated shortlist with market context on availability and compensation before committing to a full search.