Mumbai, March 19 -- Headhunters for top corporate roles are facing a problem once limited to the lower ranks: Candidate dropouts, where a person finishes the recruitment process and accepts a job offer, only to back out later.

Dropouts are rising since companies scout for CXOs from a wide range of sectors, resulting in the same candidates receiving multiple offers, executives from top recruitment firms said. In turn, these recruiters are pushing companies to wrap up the hiring process quickly and even keep tabs on the candidate.

"It has become quite normal to have one out of four finalist candidates dropping out at the last moment. It is now a standard practice for us to check with the candidates for any parallel conversation that they ...