What is GCC Hiring and How Does It Work? 

A few years ago, the words Global Capability Center usually brought to mind a large offshore office handling support work for a multinational company. 

That picture is now badly outdated. 

A modern GCC in India may build software products, run cybersecurity operations, support drug discovery, develop AI models, manage financial risk or own an entire global business process. 

Naturally, the way these centers hire has changed too. 

GCC hiring often has to bring together global business needs, scarce skills, local talent-market realities and hiring at considerable scale. And that market is getting very large. 

According to the Nasscom-Zinnov India GCC Landscape Report, India now has 2,117 GCCs operating across 3,728 units, employing around 2.36 million professionals and generating $98.4 billion in revenue. The number of GCCs has grown 32% since FY2021.  

So, what exactly is a GCC, what does GCC hiring involve, and why is it becoming such an important part of enterprise recruitment in India? 

What is a GCC? 

A Global Capability Center, or GCC, is a dedicated center established by a multinational company to perform work for its own global organization. 

You may also come across older terms such as Global In-house Center or GIC. 

The easiest way to understand a GCC is to compare it with outsourcing. 

An IT services company usually works for several external clients. A GCC, on the other hand, is dedicated to one parent enterprise or corporate group. Its employees may work with teams in the US, Europe, India, APAC and other regions, but they are building capabilities for the same global organization. 

Today, that work can include software engineering, product development, AI and machine learning, finance, HR, analytics, cybersecurity, research and development, customer operations, legal services and much more. 

What is GCC Hiring? 

GCC hiring simply refers to the process of recruiting talent for these global capability centers.

For example, a company based in the US may set up a GCC in India to hire teams for technology, finance, HR, analytics, cybersecurity, customer operations, research, and other functions. 

How Does the GCC Hiring Process Work? 

GCC hiring typically follows a planned, multi-stage process that combines workforce planning, specialized talent sourcing, structured evaluation, and large-scale onboarding. 

Unlike conventional recruitment, the hiring strategy is closely tied to the capabilities the parent organization wants to build in the GCC.  

A newly established center may need to create entire technology, finance, operations, or product teams, while a mature GCC may focus more heavily on niche capabilities such as AI, cybersecurity, data engineering, R&D, and product ownership.  

1. Workforce Planning and Leadership Hiring 

Before large-scale recruitment begins, the organization defines the functions, skills, team structure, and hiring volumes required for the GCC. 

For a new center, one of the early priorities is often appointing the country head, GCC leader, and key functional leaders who will help establish the local organization and lead the initial workforce ramp-up.  These leaders typically work with the global organization and talent acquisition teams to translate the GCC’s mandate into specific roles, skills, seniority levels, and hiring plans. 

2. Talent Sourcing and Recruitment at Scale 

Once the workforce plan is defined, hiring expands across the required functions. 

GCCs may combine: 

• Direct sourcing and employee referrals 
• Professional networks and talent platforms 
• Recruitment agencies and executive search for specialized roles 
• Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) or GCC setup partners 
• Campus and early-career hiring for roles that require larger talent pipelines 

The sourcing strategy can differ significantly by position. High-volume roles often come with their own recruitment challenges, requiring scalable processes for sourcing, screening and evaluation – while niche technology and leadership positions often require more targeted talent searches. 

This distinction is becoming increasingly important as GCCs prioritize capability over headcount. EY’s GCC Pulse Survey found that 63% of surveyed GCCs were focusing on niche-skill hiring, with deep domain expertise, AI/ML, and data capabilities among their talent priorities.  

3. Screening, Assessments and Interviews 

Candidates then move through screening and evaluation based on the requirements of the role. 

Depending on the function, this can include: 

• Skills and resume screening 
• Technical or functional assessments 
• Recruiter interviews 
• Technical or domain interviews 
• Hiring manager and leadership discussions 
• Behavioral and culture-alignment interviews 

When application volumes are high, automated candidate shortlisting can also help recruitment teams identify relevant profiles without manually reviewing every application. 

For specialized roles, the emphasis increasingly goes beyond years of experience or job titles. This makes skills-based hiring particularly relevant for GCCs building specialized technology and domain capabilities.  

To screen and shortlist the right candidates faster with AI-powered resume screening, click here! 

4. Offer, Verification and Onboarding 

Once a candidate is selected, the process moves into offer approvals, compensation finalization, documentation, background verification, and onboarding. 

For GCCs hiring at scale, these stages need to be tightly coordinated. Delays in approvals, verification, or joining formalities can become significant bottlenecks when hundreds of employees are being recruited across multiple teams. 

The objective is therefore not simply to hire quickly. 

GCC Hiring vs Outsourcing vs Regular Recruitment – What’s the Difference? 

GCC hiring differs from both traditional recruitment and outsourcing because the goal is not simply to fill open positions or hand work over to an external provider.  

A Global Capability Center builds an in-house team that becomes part of the parent organization while operating from another location, often to access specialized talent, support global operations, and build long-term capabilities. 

This makes GCC recruitment more strategic and complex.  

Area	GCC Hiring	Outsourcing	Regular Recruitment
Employment model	Employees are hired into the company’s own GCC	Talent is employed or managed by a third-party provider	Employees are hired directly into existing company teams
Primary objective	Build long-term global capabilities and teams	Transfer specific work or processes to an external provider	Fill vacancies created by ongoing business needs
Hiring scale	Often involves large-scale or phased team building	Hiring is largely managed by the outsourcing partner	Usually based on individual or departmental vacancies
Talent requirements	Strong focus on specialized, digital and domain-specific skills	Skills depend on the services outsourced	Varies according to existing job requirements
Employer control	High control over hiring, culture, processes and employee experience	Lower direct control over talent and operations	High control over recruitment and employees
Recruitment complexity	High due to rapid scaling, global standards and multiple roles	Lower internal recruitment involvement	Typically follows established recruitment processes
Long-term focus	Building institutional knowledge and strategic capabilities	Delivering defined services or operational outcomes	Maintaining and growing existing teams

For organizations setting up or expanding a GCC, the recruitment model therefore needs to support more than routine hiring.  

It must handle high-volume recruitment, specialized talent pools and collaborative hiring across multiple stakeholders while maintaining structured workflows and consistent candidate experiences. 

Is GCC the Same as BPO? 

No. A GCC (Global Capability Center) and a BPO (Business Process Outsourcing company) can perform similar functions, but the ownership model is different. 

GCC	BPO
Owned and operated by the parent company	Independent third-party service provider
Works primarily for its own organization	Serves multiple client companies
Often handles strategic, technical, analytics, finance, HR, R&D, product and operations work	Traditionally focused on outsourced processes such as customer support, back-office operations, finance processing, etc.
Employees are typically employees of the parent company/GCC entity	Employees work for the BPO provider
Example: a global bank setting up its own technology and operations center in India	Companies such as Genpact or Concentrix providing services to other businesses

For example, if JPMorgan operates its own technology and operations center in India, that’s a GCC. If JPMorgan contracts another company to handle customer support or back-office processing, that’s BPO. 

Why is GCC Hiring Growing So Fast in India? 

India has firmly established itself as the world’s leading GCC hub. As mentioned before, the country is home to 2,117 Global Capability Centers employing 2.36 million professionals and generating $98.4 billion in revenue in 2026. 

But GCC growth is no longer only about adding more employees or moving support functions to India. Global companies are expanding their Indian centers into hubs for AI, engineering, cybersecurity, product development, analytics, and other high-value capabilities.  

GCCs that were once built primarily for delivery are now “increasingly holding global ownership.”  

This evolution is also changing the kind of talent GCCs need. Hiring continues, but employers are becoming more selective as AI reshapes roles and increases demand for specialized skills. As Puneet Chandok, President of Microsoft India and South Asia, told Reuters, “The biggest challenge is to get the right talent with the right AI skill.” 

Other GCC leaders are seeing the same pressure. Executives interviewed by Reuters highlighted growing demand for skills such as AI and cybersecurity, while Catalyst Brands India MD Nihar Nidhi said attracting talent is particularly difficult “if you’re looking at advanced capabilities.” 

This shift is also changing what “specialized talent” looks like. In a recent ETHRWorld analysis, Shireen Khan highlighted the growing demand for hybrid-skilled professionals who combine technical depth with domain knowledge, business judgement and the ability to translate technology into measurable outcomes. 

These priorities reflect broader enterprise hiring trends and AI adoption, as large organizations increasingly use AI to improve efficiency and support skills-focused recruitment. 

📩 To get access to the full Enterprise Hiring Trends and AI Adoption report, click here. 

For talent acquisition teams, the challenge is therefore shifting from simply hiring at scale to identifying scarce skills quickly, competing for high-quality talent, and building hiring processes that can support continuously evolving workforce requirements. 

As GCC mandates become more complex, traditional hiring approaches may struggle to keep pace.

What Roles Do GCCs Hire For? 

There is no single “GCC job.” 

The hiring mix depends on the industry and the mandate of the center. 

A financial-services GCC may need risk analysts, quantitative specialists, cybersecurity professionals and software engineers. A pharmaceutical GCC may hire scientists, data analysts, AI specialists, medical-affairs professionals and commercial teams. An automotive GCC could require embedded engineers, software developers, data scientists and product specialists. 

For example, Sanofi announced in February 2026 that it planned to expand its India GCC workforce to more than 4,500 employees. Its hiring plans included roles in R&D, artificial intelligence, data innovation, analytics, medical affairs and corporate functions. 

So, while technology remains important, GCC hiring is increasingly multidisciplinary. 

“The talent requirement therefore moves from ‘Can you do the task?’ to ‘Can you understand the problem, build the solution and explain its business impact?’” 
— Shireen Khan, ETHRWorld 

How Can Recruitment Technology Support GCC Hiring? 

Once hiring reaches hundreds or thousands of applications, spreadsheets and disconnected hiring tools become difficult to sustain. 

This makes a structured ATS implementation for enterprise teams particularly important when GCC recruitment spans multiple functions, locations and hiring stakeholders. 

Here’s how different recruitment tech can support complex GCC hiring. 

Centralize Hiring Across GCC Teams 

An Applicant Tracking System, like Zappyhire, can bring candidate data, job requisitions, interview feedback, and hiring activity into one place, making it easier to manage recruitment across multiple GCC teams and locations. 

Automate High-Volume Recruitment Workflows 

A recruitment automation platform can automate repetitive tasks such as candidate screening, interview scheduling, communication, and follow-ups, helping GCC recruitment teams handle growing hiring volumes without adding manual work. 

Build a More Scalable Talent Acquisition Process 

As GCCs grow across functions, teams, and locations, talent acquisition software helps create consistent recruitment workflows while supporting varied roles, approval structures, and hiring needs. Improve Candidate Screening With AI. 

AI-powered candidate pre-screening  can help recruiters identify relevant candidates faster by evaluating skills, experience, and job requirements, reducing the time spent manually reviewing large applicant pools. 

Connect Recruitment with Existing HR Systems 

Recruitment technology can integrate hiring workflows with HRMS, assessment, background verification, communication, and other enterprise systems, reducing disconnected processes and duplicate data entry. 

Track GCC Hiring with Recruitment Analytics 

Recruitment dashboards and predictive hiring features give GCC leaders better visibility into hiring pipelines, recruiter performance, bottlenecks, and time-to-hire, helping teams make more data-driven workforce decisions. 

FAQ 

How is GCC hiring different from IT services hiring? 

An IT services company typically delivers work for multiple external clients. A GCC primarily builds capabilities for its own parent enterprise. As a result, GCC roles may involve deeper product ownership, domain knowledge and direct collaboration with global business teams. 

Suggested Article – IT vs Non-IT Recruitment: Key Differences and Best Practices 

What skills are most in demand in GCCs? 

Demand varies by sector, but AI, machine learning, data engineering, cloud, cybersecurity, product engineering, analytics and domain-specialist capabilities are increasingly important. Reuters reported particularly strong demand for niche AI and cybersecurity talent in 2026. 

Which cities have the most GCC jobs in India? 

Bengaluru is the largest GCC market, while Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi NCR are also major hubs. Cities including Coimbatore, Kochi, Jaipur and other emerging locations are gaining interest as companies expand beyond Tier-1 markets. 

Is GCC hiring increasing in India? 

Yes. India reached 2,117 GCCs and an estimated 2.36 million GCC professionals in FY26. More than 100 GCCs were newly established or expanded during the year.  

Can AI automate GCC recruitment? 

AI can automate parts of GCC recruitment, including candidate matching, resume screening, communication and scheduling. However, hiring decisions should still use structured assessments and appropriate human oversight, particularly for complex or business-critical roles.