Contact Us

Frequently Asked questions

What is Talent Pools’s approach to executive search?

We focus on human-centered executive search, enhanced by technology. Our talent pools allow us to proactively source and engage top leadership candidates, ensuring you have access to the best talent when you need it. We also leverage tools like video interviewing, AI notetakers and data capture to improve the process without losing the personal touch.

We use a suite of AI tools to streamline our clients and candidates' processes and make hiring smarter and faster! But the human focus is at the heart of what we do - that’s what truly drives our success (and it’s what our clients and candidates love the most!).

Timelines can vary based on the complexity of the role and your specific requirements. However, our talent pools allow us to significantly reduce time-to-hire by maintaining a pipeline of pre-screened candidates. On average, executive placements can take 6-12 weeks.

Yes, we build diverse talent pools and are committed to helping our clients increase diversity within their leadership teams. We focus on sourcing underrepresented talent to create more inclusive leadership structures.

We primarily serve ResTech, MarTech, Insights, Go-To-Market and Growth/Innovation Strategy Consulting sectors, with a particular focus on AI-led insight platforms. However, we are experienced in executive search for leadership roles across various industries.

Absolutely. We work with clients to build long-term leadership pipelines, ensuring you have successors ready for critical roles as your organisation evolves.

Confidentiality is a priority at every stage of the search process. Whether you’re searching for a replacement or hiring for a sensitive role, we ensure that all candidate interactions and discussions remain discreet.

Executive Search: This is a fully retained service for senior or C-suite, very senior and niche positions, where Talent Pools partners exclusively with the client to manage the entire recruitment process from start to finish. It involves in-depth market mapping, targeted headhunting, extensive candidate assessments, and full project management. Executive Search is ideal for organisations seeking a white-glove approach for critical leadership roles, ensuring that every aspect of the process is handled with the utmost care and thoroughness.


Engaged Search: This is a hybrid model that balances the depth of Executive Search with the agility of project-based recruitment. It begins with an upfront engagement fee, which secures a focused search and demonstrates a mutual commitment. Engaged Search is typically used for mid to senior-level roles where a tailored, high-quality process is essential, but clients prefer a more cost-effective alternative to fully retained Executive Search.


Both solutions ensure access to passive and hidden talent pools, but the choice depends on the level of complexity, seniority, and strategic importance of the role. If you’re unsure which is right for your needs, we’re happy to guide you through the decision.

We believe in delivering the best outcomes for our clients, which is why we work on a retained or subscription basis instead of a no-win-no-fee model. This ensures that every search is fully resourced, prioritised, and tailored to your unique needs without the compromises often associated with contingent recruitment. By partnering with Talent Pools, you’ll benefit from a dedicated, strategic approach that focuses on quality, long-term success, and access to the hidden talent pool often overlooked in traditional processes.

Using multiple agencies may seem like a faster solution, but it often works against you. Recruitment agencies operating on a contingent basis prioritise speed over quality, competing to submit candidates as quickly as possible. This approach leaves the majority of the talent pool – the hidden, passive candidates who aren’t actively applying for jobs – untapped. Instead, you’re likely to see the same active candidates recycled across agencies.

For retained searches (Engaged and Executive Search), we typically deliver a carefully curated shortlist of qualified, interested and assessed (QIA) candidates within 2-4 weeks, with the full process taking 6-8 weeks. This timeline allows us to conduct a thorough market mapping, engage passive talent, and ensure we identify the best fit for your business. Our focus is on delivering a strategic, high-quality hire that drives long-term value, rather than rushing the process.

We’re proud to have a 95% repeat business rate, a clear vote of confidence from our clients! Our Net Promoter Score (NPS) is an exceptional 98% - for context, even one of the most loved MAMMA companies score currently sits at 67%. These numbers reflect the trust and satisfaction we consistently deliver through our bespoke search services.

With our retained search model, the likelihood of a role going unfilled is extremely low. We invest significant time in understanding your requirements, mapping the market, and engaging passive talent to ensure we find the right match. Our process is designed to deliver results, but in rare cases where hiring conditions or expectations shift, we’ll work with you to recalibrate and adapt the search strategy to achieve a successful outcome.

Thankfully, the investment we make upfront and our thorough assessment process means this rarely happens. However, we understand that hiring isn’t an exact science, and sometimes things don’t work out. If your new hire leaves within the first three months, we’ll attempt to replace them at no additional cost to ensure you’re supported in finding the right fit.

Working with other recruiters:

Our partnership solutions are designed to ensure you get the most from working with us exclusively on specific roles. We, of course, do not prevent you from working with other recruiters in other areas and will always be realistic about which problems we can solve and the roles we will take on to address these for you. If you have roles you’d like to consider other recruiters for, please let us know.

Someone applies directly:

That’s fantastic! Known or referred candidates are often ideal, as their references tend to be more reliable. Our process ensures that all candidates - whether sourced by us, internal, or referred - are assessed consistently and fairly to identify the best fit for your needs. If a referred or internal candidate is selected and hired, our placement fee will be discounted to reflect that we didn’t source the candidate ourselves. This approach encourages referrals and supports a collaborative effort while maintaining the integrity and thoroughness of our search process.

Talent Mapping pinpoints the individuals who meet your specific needs. It’s a strategic approach where we identify and profile candidates based on skills, experience, and cultural alignment - giving you a clear picture of who fits your organisation. A typical talent map can include anywhere from 30 to 150 individuals, depending on the brief. The size will vary based on the seniority, specialism, and how niche the role is. We’ll guide you on the right scope to ensure meaningful and actionable insights. Whether you’re seeking AI specialists, data scientists, or other niche or leadership talent, we collaborate with you to define the right data points, ensuring the mapping supports your hiring objectives and future growth.

Market Mapping gives you a comprehensive overview of the talent landscape in your sector. We identify key industry players, emerging trends, and competitor movements to inform your growth strategy. Whether you’re entering new markets or launching innovative platforms, our detailed insights highlight where opportunities and gaps exist. We agree with you upfront on how many data points to include, ensuring the results are tailored to your strategic goals. Talent Mapping will help you:

➤ Stay ahead of hiring trends and understand which skills are most in demand
➤ Benchmark against competitors’ hiring activity and reward strategies
➤ Position your brand more effectively to attract and retain top-tier talent
➤ Shape proactive hiring plans before roles are live
➤ Identify potential risks in talent availability or salary inflation
➤Allocate internal resources more efficiently by targeting where talent is most accessible

In short, it’s not just about who’s out there – it’s about making smarter, faster, and more confident hiring decisions.

At Talent Pools, we offer four core insight solutions designed to give you a competitive edge when it comes to bespoke strategic intelligence:


➤ Market Mapping Gain a comprehensive overview of the talent landscape in your sector. We identify key industry players, emerging trends, and competitor movements to inform your growth strategy. Whether you're entering new markets or launching innovative platforms, our detailed insights highlight where opportunities and gaps exist. We agree on the number and type of data points you'd like us to include, ensuring results are fully aligned with your strategic objectives.

➤ Talent Mapping Pinpoint the individuals who meet your specific needs. We profile candidates based on skills, experience, and cultural alignment - giving you a clear picture of who fits your organisation without any commitment to hire immediately. Talent Mapping is ideal if you're not ready to hire just yet but want to explore the market.


➤ Talent Pipelining Build a future-ready pipeline of qualified candidates. We proactively identify and engage top talent, ensuring you're prepared to move quickly as business needs evolve. This service is particularly valuable for organisations anticipating growth or expansion. We'll agree on key data points to monitor and maintain an active, engaged talent pool.

➤ Salary Benchmarking

Stay competitive in a shifting market. We benchmark salaries using up-to-date market data to help you attract and retain high-calibre talent. Working closely with you, we define the scope and depth of insight needed - ensuring your compensation packages align with candidate expectations and industry norms.

How does Talent Pools work with candidates?

At Talent Pools we take a human-centered approach to search. We work closely with you to understand your career goals and leadership potential, matching you with opportunities that align with your expertise and aspirations. We also use technology like video interviews to make the process efficient, but our focus is always on building personal relationships.

You’ll have a personalised experience with regular updates. We begin by understanding your career goals through an initial consultation. After that, we match you with relevant opportunities and arrange interviews with our clients, supporting you throughout the process, from preparing for interviews to negotiating offers.

While we specialise in industries like ResTech, MarTech, Market Research, Innovation & Growth Strategy, and Cultural Insights and many of our clients are either established insight businesses, strategy consultancies or AI-led Insights platforms, we will also conduct executive searches across other industries, subject to availability.

Please submit your CV/Resume joanna@talentpools.ai; alternatively book a call in via the Contact form on our website.

We apply a full, executive search process which incorporates a detailed briefing call with the relevant stakeholders, enables us to map the addressable market, compile a bespoke candidate briefing pack along with tailored outreach, before engaging with target candidates and conducting in-depth screening interviews. This tends to include behavioural profiling, psychometric testing and formal referencing.

You will be invited to join an initial 30 minute screening video call with Joanna Byerley to convey a high level overview of the company and the scope of opportunity, whilst she gathers basic details around your current situation.

Assuming both sides are in agreement about moving forward, you will be invited to join a 45 minute deep-dive (Competency Based Interview) call which goes into finer details about the wider opportunity and in which you will be asked a series of competency based questions – the answers from which will be recorded, summarised and shared with the interview panel prior to shortlisting.

We conduct initial video interviews to give clients a deeper understanding of your personality, communication style, and potential fit for the role - helping them see beyond your CV before formal interviews begin. Additionally, we manage all Competency-Based Interviews (the second stage of the executive search process) and share key highlights with clients, streamlining and accelerating their selection process.

No, not when we approach you about a career opportunity. Qualified candidates are then added to the talent pool, kept updated on a regular basis, and guided through the process toward a conclusion. TP will always act as the candidate’s counsel throughout the process, taking care of any required negotiation between the parties along the way.

If you are looking for career coaching or career consulting with Joanna Byerley, this service is outside the scope of Talent Pools. Joanna operates on a third platform, offering her career coaching services there: https://www.fiverr.com/joannabyerley. Some of the services she provides include: assisting professionals in overcoming redundancy by offering mindset coaching, job search strategies, LinkedIn profile advice, and tailored action plans to enhance their prospects in the job market.

If you’re not selected, we keep your profile in our talent pool for future opportunities. We’ll continue to share roles that align with your skills and experience and provide feedback to help you grow. You can also follow us on LinkedIn for the latest career tips and leadership opportunities.

Our Promise to You
At Talent Pools, we value every professional we engage with. Our Candidate Promise Charter outlines the principles we stand by to ensure your experience is positive, transparent, and respectful.

➤ Clear Communication: Stay informed at every stage with honest updates and timely feedback.
➤ Respect for Your Time: We match you with roles that align with your skills and aspirations, saving you time and effort.
➤ Actionable Feedback: Whether you succeed or not, we’ll share insights to help you grow.
➤ Confidentiality: Your data and career goals are always handled with the utmost care and discretion.
➤ Advocacy for You: We champion your strengths to forward-thinking organisations that align with your values.

At Talent Pools, you’re more than a candidate - you’re a valued partner in the hiring process!

Subscribe to our newsletter for more updates from Talent Pools – including thought leadership content, shareable guides, videos and more.

Sign Up to Talent Pools Nexus

Subscribe on LinkedIn

Quick Links

Company

Stay connected

The search is over!

Executive Search Consultancy and Engaged Search Solutions. Fractional Talent Partner for Startups, Scaleups in ResTech, Insights and GMT Strategy.

© 2025 Talent Pools AI Ltd. All rights reserved.