You know your company. Does the market?
Most hiring plans rest on what a company believes about itself. Research tests those beliefs against how the people you want to hire see you, before a search has to find out the hard way.
The gap nobody measures.
Your leadership team knows the science, the plan and the ambition. A candidate sees much less: a name they may not recognize, a few profiles, and whatever their network says.
The distance between those two views is the perception gap. It stays hidden until it shows up as unreturned messages, a thin shortlist, or a finalist who takes the better-known offer.
- The people you most want to reach stay silent.
- Your pay range came from someone's last company, and nobody has tested it in this market.
- Your leaders describe the ideal hire in different ways.
- You can name your competitors for customers, but not your competitors for talent.
- You cannot say why a finalist chose someone else.
Assumptions worth testing.
| WHAT TEAMS ASSUME | WHAT WE TEST |
|---|---|
| “Our science sells itself.” | Whether candidates in your target roles understand what is different, and could explain it to a colleague. |
| “We pay at market.” | Which market. We look at the companies your candidates work for today, across base, variable pay and equity. |
| “People will want to get in early.” | What an early move asks them to give up, and what they would need to see first. |
| “Our competitor is the other device company.” | Who you lose talent to, which may be a larger employer outside your category. |
| “We just need more candidates.” | Whether the pool can support the brief, or the brief needs to change. |
A study of employer image across 24 organizations in six industries found that job content and innovativeness were the strongest points of difference between employers (Van Hoye et al., 2022). Our interpretation: what sets you apart may be narrower and more specific than your leadership team assumes. The study is not specific to life sciences, so we test it in your market.
How the work runs
- 01FrameWe agree on the roles and the decisions the research has to inform, and capture what your leaders believe today.From you: hiring priorities and time with key leaders.
- 02InvestigateWe study the talent market, rival employers and published evidence, drawing on MedSearch's market relationships.From you: any past candidate feedback and declined-offer reasons.
- 03DecideWe walk your leaders through what we found in a working session. Each finding is labeled as data, evidence or our judgment.From you: the people who can make the call.
What you can decide afterward.
- Which role to hire first, and when
- Whether your compensation can compete, and where
- Where to look, and whom to leave alone
- What your story has to overcome
Questions about Research.
- We already buy a compensation survey. Why would we need this?
- A survey is a good starting point. It shows what companies report paying. We look at the specific companies your candidates work for, and at what it would take for those people to move.
- Can we do this before we have an open role?
- Yes, and that is often the best time. The findings can shape the role, the sequence of hires and the budget before anything is fixed.
- Will our findings be published?
- No. Your findings are for your team. Our published insights draw on third-party studies.