What Is the Lens by Practicus? Talent Market Mapping Explained
Most senior hiring starts with a brief and hope. The brief describes the person you’d like and the hope is that they exist, that they’re affordable and that they’d consider a move.
Often that hope goes untested until a leadership search is already underway, and by then the brief is set, the package is agreed and your name may be circulating.
Before we engage a single candidate, The Lens by Practicus builds a clear picture of the market around your opportunity, so a Search starts from evidence rather than assumption.
What is The Lens?
The Lens is a confidential, in-depth view of the talent market for one specific role. It combines talent market research, talent mapping and salary benchmarking with sector expertise and technology.
It shows you who genuinely matches your brief, what they earn, where they sit in the market and whether they’d consider moving, so you can challenge your brief and make a more informed decision before going to market.
If you’ve come across the term’s talent mapping or market mapping in recruitment, this is related, with one difference. A list of names and job titles tells you very little. The Lens is built to show who realistically fits the criteria that matter to you, and how likely the appointment is to succeed.
It works for any role, from the C-suite to specialist executive positions.
What Goes into a Lens?
Every report draws on public market intelligence, more than 22 years of historical CRM data and live conversations with our network. It delivers that in three layers.
- Market insights. Current, real-time intelligence from proactive conversations, recent research and our network, showing what is happening in the talent market now.
- Candidate insights. A curated, anonymised snapshot of scored candidates aligned to your brief, giving an early view of available talent and likely market response.
- Strategic output. The value of the role alongside a precise view of the skills, behaviours and experience needed to succeed, grounded in live market reality.
Desk research alone can’t tell you who would take a call. Network knowledge alone can be out of date. The report relies on all of it together.
What Does It Tell You?
A live Lens covers:
- Salary benchmarking: whether your package is competitive, based on what people earn. This is where The Lens works as executive salary benchmarking: you see real pay, not assumptions.
- Talent availability: how many people genuinely meet your criteria, and where they work today, as opposed to how many hold the right job title.
- Hiring demand: how much competition there is for the same profile.
- Candidate motivations: who is open to a move, why, and what it would take.
- Geographic talent hotspots: where the right people are concentrated.
- Diversity and representation: how the available talent pool looks, so you can plan an inclusive search.
- Competitor activity: which organisations are hiring the same profile, and what they are offering.
- Strategic hiring recommendations: our honest view on whether the appointment is realistic, and what will decide it.
That last point matters. Sometimes you need to revise the brief, package or timeline. It is much better to learn that before a Search than during one.
When Does the Lens Help Most?
Clients tend to use it in four situations:
- When a Search needs to stay confidential. Your name never reaches the market, and in most cases, we can read people’s position without presenting a role. That makes it a practical route into confidential executive search.
- When you’re hiring a role for the first time. If you’ve never recruited at this seniority before, you have no internal benchmark for who is out there or what they cost.
- When you want to benchmark internal talent against the market. It shows how your people compare with what’s available externally.
- When you need to show a board what’s out there. The report is board-ready, so it supports a conversation about whether, and how, to proceed.
Why Test the Brief Before Going to Market?
A Search that starts with the right criteria and a realistic view of the market moves faster and is more likely to land. Testing early lets you:
- sharpen criteria that were too narrow, too broad or simply unrealistic
- check the package against what the market actually pays
- see who the competing employers are and what they offer
- decide with evidence whether to go ahead, adjust or wait
It also reflects how we approach every Search:
- Understand first. A Lens builds a deep understanding of the role and the market before anyone is approached.
- Challenge constructively. It gives you honest advice, including where your assumptions don’t hold.
- Connect authentically. Technology helps identify opportunity, and relationships help engage the right leaders.
- Support beyond appointment. If you go ahead, we stay involved from briefing through to onboarding.
How Does The Lens Work?
The process is short:
- We agree the brief and six criteria with you.
- We research and speak to our network.
- You receive a board-ready report within 5 working days.
A live Lens costs a fee. If you go ahead with a Search with us within 12 months, that fee is deducted from our Engagement Fee, so the insight isn’t an extra cost if you proceed.
See What It Looks Like
A sample report is available so you can see the structure and level of insight. The figures and candidate profiles are illustrative, but the format represents what you would receive.