A two to three month notice period is not an administrative detail. It is the window in which a signed candidate is talked out of joining you.
Why the counter-offer works so well right now
Indian finance notice periods routinely run to two or three months, and in that gap the current employer has every advantage: proximity, a known quantity, and a specific number to beat. The new employer has a signed letter and silence.
The counter-offers we saw this year were the largest we have recorded, and they were rarely about money alone. The strongest ones re-cut the role — a reporting line moved, a team added, a promotion pulled forward — which is much harder for a candidate to refuse than a raise.
What actually holds an acceptance
Four things, in our experience, and only one of them is compensation.
- Scope the current employer cannot matchBuilding a function rather than maintaining one is the offer a counter cannot copy quickly.
- Contact through the notice periodNot a welcome email on day one. A conversation every fortnight, with the hiring manager, not only with HR.
- A start date fixed in writing earlyAn open date invites renegotiation. A dated plan closes it.
- An honest conversation about the counter before it arrivesCandidates who have said out loud what they would do are far less likely to be moved by it.
The process change that pays for itself
Speed to offer is the lever most teams still under-use. Every extra week between final round and offer is a week the candidate spends being courted, and a week in which a second process elsewhere catches up.
Where a role has to run long, plan the notice period as part of the hire rather than as dead time — an agreed handover plan, an introduction to the team, and a first-90-days outline sent before the candidate resigns.
A hire is not made at the offer. It is made on the day they actually start.