How to hire creative talent in India
India offers the largest creative talent pool in this list by a wide margin, with established production and post-production industries in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune serving both domestic and international clients.
What the creative pool in India actually looks like.
Very deep in motion design, video editing, 3D and visual effects, with an animation industry that has done international production work for decades. The range of quality is correspondingly wide, so screening matters more here than anywhere else.
- Motion design
- Video editing
- 3D and VFX
- Graphic design
- Illustration
Language, hours, contracts and getting paid.
- English is a working language throughout the professional creative industry.
- Four and a half to five and a half hours ahead of London depending on the season, so the shared window is the UK morning and early afternoon.
- Payoneer, Wise and direct transfer are all common and well understood.
- Most agencies engage people here as independent contractors on a monthly retainer, which does not require a local entity. The contractor invoices you and handles their own tax locally.
The boards people in India actually use.
Job hunting is local. The global boards you already know have almost no audience here, and the sites that do are not in English and mostly will not take a posting from a company without a local presence.
Curated technology hiring platform with lower applicant noise.
Entry-level and junior talent, useful for production support roles.
The largest job platform in India by a wide margin.
What catches foreign agencies out.
Volume of applications is the problem, not scarcity. A listing without a portfolio requirement will bury you.
Portfolios sometimes include studio work the individual contributed to rather than led. Ask what specifically they did.
The largest boards are built for volume recruitment, which shapes how creative listings perform on them.
Or skip all of it and post once.
Everything above is doable on your own. It takes a local number, a local entity on some boards, a translated description and somebody to read applications in English. Elsewhere does that part for you. You write the role once in English, pick your markets, and upload examples of the work you want. We translate it, post it to the local boards, pay the posting fees, and score every applicant’s portfolio against your references before you see them.
- One job description in English, plus examples of the work you are looking for.
- Translation into English, posting to the local boards, and the fees they charge.
- Applicants ranked by how closely their portfolio matches the work you uploaded.
Do I need a local entity to hire someone in India?
Not to engage a contractor. Most agencies engage people here as independent contractors on a monthly retainer, which does not require a local entity. The contractor invoices you and handles their own tax locally. Employing someone on a local payroll is a different question and does normally require an entity or an employer of record.
What language should I write the job description in?
English is a working language throughout the professional creative industry. Elsewhere translates your English description into the local language automatically, so you write it once.
Which job boards should I post on in India?
The boards that matter locally are Instahyre, Internshala, Naukri. Elsewhere posts to them for you and covers the posting fees.
How much overlap will I get with my working day?
Four and a half to five and a half hours ahead of London depending on the season, so the shared window is the UK morning and early afternoon.
How do I pay someone in India?
Payoneer, Wise and direct transfer are all common and well understood.