Notice-Period Buyout

A notice-period buyout is an arrangement to shorten or waive the notice a candidate would otherwise have to serve before leaving their current employer, in exchange for a payment. The new employer typically funds it — either reimbursing the candidate for buying out their own notice, or paying an amount to the current employer — so the candidate can start earlier than a full notice period would allow. In effect, it converts unproductive waiting time into a cost, letting the hiring company trade money for an earlier start.

Buyouts exist because notice periods in some markets are long enough to jeopardise a hire. When a candidate must serve sixty or ninety days, the gap between offer and joining is where risk concentrates: the candidate may receive a counteroffer, cool on the move, or be tempted by another opportunity. Shortening that window through a buyout reduces the exposure and gets a needed person into the seat sooner. The mechanics vary — some employers have formal buyout clauses that let an employee pay to leave early, while in other cases it is negotiated case by case — and the amount usually reflects the salary the candidate would have earned across the waived portion.

In India, where notice periods of two to three months are common at mid and senior levels, notice-period buyouts are a familiar part of closing a hire, especially for urgent or specialist roles where a long wait is unacceptable. For the hiring employer they are a lever to compress time-to-join and protect an offer through a vulnerable stretch; for the candidate they remove friction and can signal how much the new employer wants them. The considerations are cost, whether the current employer will accept a buyout at all, and the interplay with garden leave, which a buyout cannot always override.