Market Intelligence

Find out whether the role is fillable, before you spend three months finding out the hard way.

Some hires are genuinely hard. Not because the brief is unreasonable, but because the people who could do the job are few, settled, and not reading job adverts.

Most firms discover that slowly. Two rounds of adverts, a handful of near misses, and a growing suspicion that the person you described might not exist at the salary you have in mind. By then you have spent partner time, advertising budget and three months of an unfilled seat.

A market intelligence report answers the question first. How many people could genuinely do this job, where they sit, what they are actually paid, how many would realistically move, and whether the role as written is fillable at all.

What you get, and what you do not

This is a research and analysis engagement. You receive a written report and a walkthrough call.

You do not receive a list of names and contact details. That is deliberate. The people in your market have not applied for anything and have not agreed to have their details passed to a firm they have never spoken to, and ProTalent does not sell candidate data. If you decide to hire off the back of the report, the approaches come from us.

What you are paying for is the interpretation. Anyone can compile job titles. Knowing which firms are quietly losing people, what a client manager at a ten-partner independent actually earns rather than what the advert claims, and why someone turned a firm down two years ago is the part that takes twenty-one years to learn.

What the report covers

Pool size. How many people in your defined market could credibly do the job, and how that number changes if you widen the radius, drop a level, or open up on hybrid.

Where they sit. A firm by firm breakdown of the market, with commentary on which firms are growing, which are losing people, and which are effectively closed to approaches.

Salary and package reality. What people at that level are actually accepting, benchmarked directly against what you are currently offering.

Movability. Of the people who exist, how many are realistically in play, and what would move them.

The honest answer. Whether the role is fillable as written. If it is not, what needs to change, in order of impact. Salary, level, location, hybrid position, or the shape of the role itself.

A walkthrough call. To talk the findings through with you and whoever else needs to be in the room.

Where it earns its place

• A senior or technical role you suspect will be difficult, and you would rather know at the start than three months in.
• A role that has already stalled, where you need to know whether the problem is the market or the offer.
• Succession planning, where the hire is eighteen months away but the thinking starts now.
• A new office, a new service line, or growth into an area you have never recruited in.
• Budget setting, where you need to know what a level actually costs before you commit to it.
• Confidential situations, where nothing can be advertised and nobody can know you are looking.

Nobody in the market is told that your firm is looking. No vacancy is published and no approach is made on your behalf unless you separately instruct us to run a search.

The two levels

Every report is scoped and quoted before any work starts, so you know the cost on day one. There is no percentage of salary attached and no placement fee built in.

Fees are the same wherever the market sits. A report on Newcastle costs what a report on Brighton costs.

If you decide to hire

You are under no obligation to do anything with the report. Plenty of firms use it to decide not to hire, or to rewrite the role before they advertise it.

If you do want to move, and you instruct us on a retained search within three months, the full report fee is credited against the engagement stage of the retainer. The groundwork is already done, so the search starts knowing exactly who to call.

Frequently asked

Is this a talent map?
It is the analysis half of one. A traditional talent map hands over names and contact details. This gives you everything you need to make the hiring decision, without passing on the personal data of people who have not agreed to it. If you want the individuals approached, that is a search, and we would rather do it properly than hand you a list.

Why not just give us the names?
Because we tell every candidate that no CV goes anywhere without their agreement, and that holds whether or not they get the job. Selling their details to a firm they have never spoken to would make that a lie. It is also the reason candidates talk to us honestly, which is what makes the report worth having in the first place.

Where do you cover?
Anywhere in the UK. Mapping a market in Shrewsbury takes the same work as mapping one in Lewes, and costs the same. What differs is the local memory. In the South East we can often tell you why a particular firm struggles to keep people, because we have had that conversation. Further afield the research and the conversations are the same, and the report says which parts are evidenced and which are inference.

Will anyone know we are looking?
No. Where conversations take place, they are exploratory and your firm is not named.

How current does it stay?
Accurate the day it lands, and slowly less so after that. For firms planning ahead rather than filling one seat, we refresh annually at 60% of the original fee.

What if the report says the role is not fillable?
Then it has done its job and saved you a quarter. Usually the answer is not that the person does not exist, but that something needs to move. The report will say which, and by roughly how much.

How it works

1. A short call. Fifteen minutes to understand the role and agree what the report should cover. Free, and if a report is not the right answer we will say so.

2. A written scope and fee. Sent the same day. The scope names the discipline, the level band, the geographic boundary and the firm types included, so there is no ambiguity about what you are buying.

3. Payment, then work begins. Payable in full on acceptance.

4. Report and walkthrough. Two to three weeks depending on the level. The report comes over two working days before the call, so you have read it before we talk.

Not sure whether the role you are about to advertise is actually fillable?

That is a fifteen minute conversation, and it is free. If a report is the right answer I will say so. If it is not, I will tell you that too.

Tell us the role, roughly where it sits, and what has happened so far. We will come back to you within one working day.

Lydia Sinclair FREC, Founder
lydia@protalent.co · 01273 491 852

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