Using Market Mapping to Influence Executive Hiring Decisions
A goal of many Executive Talent Acquisition teams is to be seen as a true strategic partner to the business - not just an operational resource. The challenge to that is that few internal stakeholders understand the differences between hiring at leadership and executive levels vs hiring at more junior positions. They don’t understand the different methods and approaches used for executive recruitment, or how small talent pools can be when seeking a blend of specific skills and experiences within a compensation band.
That’s where market mapping in recruitment becomes a game-changer. When done right, it shifts executive search from reactive to strategic. It gives your executive talent acquisition team the credibility and insight to shape hiring decisions before they’re made—not just respond to them.
At MapX, we’ve helped in-house Exec TA teams build and scale this capability. And we’ve seen first-hand how candidate mapping, talent intelligence and market insight can elevate the role of TA within the business. This post is your practical guide to doing the same.
Why Market Mapping Matters Now More Than Ever
Against a backdrop of macro uncertainty and with most businesses having slimmed down their operational resources, hiring needs to be both accurate and efficient. Neither you or the business can afford lengthy hiring processes trying to find candidates that don’t exist or continually finding candidates that fit the brief but the hiring manager keeps rejecting.
Market mapping changes the game by providing:
Clarity on what's realistic – before the brief is set in stone
Faster calibration – aligning stakeholders on what matters most to them
Credibility with hiring leaders – you’re bringing data and insights they don’t have to the table
Proactive succession planning – benchmarking internal vs external options
It also helps Exec TA teams make a strong case for why they should be involved in talent strategy at leadership levels as your market knowledge are invaluable for forming talent strategy.
What Market Mapping Actually Involves
Let’s break it down. A well-executed market mapping project typically includes:
A clear definition of the role or profile – even if it’s hypothetical or future-facing
An external scan of relevant talent – covering key sectors, competitors and adjacent roles
Insights into availability and movement – who’s on the market, who’s on the rise, who’s unlikely to move
Location and mobility data – especially for hybrid or remote leadership roles
Diversity analysis – helping shape more inclusive shortlists
Compensation benchmarks – where possible, to help shape realistic offers
And it’s not just about raw data. It’s about storytelling. The best market maps influence how the business thinks—not just inform it.
When to Use Market Mapping
Market mapping is most powerful when it’s used early. Here are the moments that matter:
1. Before a brief is written
Use candidate insights to inform the profile, not respond to it. You can help the business shape more realistic, future-fit roles.
2. To challenge assumptions
If the business wants "someone just like X," market data can reveal how many people like that actually exists.
3. To open up alternative options
Mapping often surfaces internal talent or adjacent profiles that the business hasn’t considered.
4. As part of succession planning
Keep your organisation future-ready by continuously mapping the talent landscape around key leadership roles.
Making It Work: Advice from the Front Line
At MapX, we’ve helped clients embed market mapping into their talent and succession planning and executive hiring workflows. Here’s what we’ve learned:
Start with one high-impact role
Pick a role where the business is hiring for something new to them. It could be a new role in a new area or a combined remit which they haven’t traditionally had before. Use mapping to show how you can deliver insight and direction that helps them both answer the questions they had and challenges some of the preconceptions they might have had about the role. Perhaps they felt that a certain skill or experience was in abundance when actually it isn’t? Or that diversity would be higher than it is? Or that the only relevant profiles would be from your sector? Less familiar roles are a great place to start as the hiring manager is likely to be more open to early feedback.
Shift the hiring manager mindset from directive to reflective
It’s essential even for a mapping to have a structured breakdown of the key technical criteria being requested for the role. When asked about a role, it’s common for hiring managers to include or sometimes focus on personal characteristics such as style, energy or behaviours. But it’s the technical parameters we’re after at this point. Most commonly:
Role title
Location
Size of remit (team size, P&L, budget company size)
Industry experience
Role specific experiences/skills
Diversity expectations
Ask leaders what they think the role requires, map the market and then group candidates into different cohorts (people with similar attributes or themes) and then bring them the meeting to test assumptions. Data and examples of profiles for discussion help shift the hiring manager from a directive mindset into a reflective mindset, opening up that ability to discuss more objectively the requirements and agree the plan going forwards.
Package your insights properly
A spreadsheet of names isn’t enough. Create a summary that tells a story:
What’s the shape of the market?
Where are the talent hotspots?
What does the competitive landscape look like?
What are the trade-offs between parts of the criteria?
Build your own database
Every market mapping project adds to your internal knowledge base. Over time, you’ll develop rich, reusable candidate mapping data such as target company lists and documents that saves time on future searches.
Common Pitfalls (and How to Avoid Them)
Let’s be honest—market mapping can go wrong. Here are a few traps to sidestep:
Trying to map the whole market without calibrating profiles against the brief – Use feedback on real life examples to check the hiring manager is consistent in what they say they want and do it early
Making the brief too broad – If there’s not enough detail then the pool will be large and less relevant
Making the brief too specific – If there are more than 6 key criteria for the role, they probably need to be slimmed down or prioritised
Overcommiting on timeline - Hiring managers often want insights as fast as possible but give yourself enough time to do a thorough job
The MapX Way: Built for Action
We built MapX because we saw how often executive hiring decisions were made with limited insight. Our platform helps internal teams run recruitment mapping, track leadership succession planning, and source executive talent using up-to-date, real-world data.
We’ve partnered with businesses to reduce their external search spend, improve succession planning strategy, and transform their talent function from reactive to proactive—all through better market insight.
And here’s the truth: it’s not about the tech. It’s about mindset. We just give you the tools to deliver on it, faster.
What You Can Do This Month
If you want to embed market mapping into your executive hiring strategy, here’s where to start:
Choose a strategic role that may come up in the next 6–12 months.
Create a basic map: ~10 interesting profiles for discussion, data on total market size, diversity, number of candidates with specific experience points, basic availability signals.
Share your findings with the hiring leader—and ask for feedback.
Depending on feedback, begin tracking those candidates over time or expand into adjacent areas
Agree how to transition through to hire. And once the hire is made use this as a case study example with other leaders.
Final Thought: Influence Comes from Insight
Executive talent acquisition isn’t just about finding candidates—it’s about shaping decisions. Market mapping gives you the insight to do just that. It moves your team up the value chain, positions you as a partner (not just a recruiter), and ensures the business hires better leaders, faster.
👉 Want to build a live, searchable, and strategic talent map for your executive roles?
Let’s talk. At MapX, we help executive TA teams turn insight into influence—and insight into hires.