When a candidate search keeps coming up thin, it is tempting to search harder. But the real problem may be the market definition: the title is too narrow, the best people describe themselves differently, or the location and compensation constraints do not fit together.

Strawberry can work across LinkedIn, company pages, public professional work, approved ATS history, and compensation or market sources to show how the talent pool is actually shaped.

The result is a map of the search space, not a disguised candidate shortlist.

Start with the hiring question

A useful map begins with the role, the hiring goal, and the uncertainty the team needs to resolve. That might be title language, target employers, adjacent backgrounds, geography, compensation, working pattern, or whether the market can support the timeline at all.

Want to try it?

Ask your Strawberry companion: “Map the talent market for this role, including titles, target employers, adjacent backgrounds, geography, compensation constraints, representative profiles, and supply risks.”

Skill

Map the talent market for a role

Map the search space and expose the tradeoffs before scaling sourcing.

See the market from more than one angle

The same capability can hide behind several titles, industries, and career paths. Strawberry can connect those signals into a practical map:

  • Title and seniority variants.
  • Target employers and adjacent company groups.
  • Relevant career paths and transferable backgrounds.
  • Geographies, working arrangements, and compensation evidence.
  • Useful source channels and the parts of the market they miss.
  • Representative profiles that make each segment concrete.

Representative people are examples of the market, not candidates the team has qualified or received permission to contact.

Calibrate the definition before going wide

When the terminology or constraints are uncertain, a small first view is enough to expose the problem. A few title groups, employer segments, and representative examples make it easier to correct the taxonomy before time and credits go into a larger map.

Once the shape feels right, your companion can deepen the relevant segments and show the tradeoffs of widening a title, geography, employer group, adjacent background, or compensation range.

Be honest about what the sources can show

LinkedIn, public websites, internal records, and compensation sources each reveal a different slice of the market. A useful map shows which titles, employers, channels, and geographies were covered, and where the evidence is thin or stale.

Observed profile counts are not automatically the size of the market. Keep source counts, directional estimates, and genuine unknowns distinct rather than presenting false precision.

Turn the talent map into a candidate search

The team decides which market definition and search levers to accept. Only then should the work move into sourcing, with its own candidate fields, scale, sources, and review point.

Skill

Source and review candidates for an open role

Build a small, evidence-backed candidate set from the accepted market definition.

A market map does not authorize candidate outreach, ATS changes, or public sharing of representative profiles. Those remain separate steps.

How to use AI for candidate sourcingTurn an accepted talent-market definition into a calibrated shortlist. How to create a better job description with AIClarify the role before testing the talent market.
Official Strawberry skill
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name
map-a-talent-market
description
Map the feasible talent market for a role before sourcing. Use when a hiring team needs title variants, target employers, adjacent backgrounds, source channels, geography or compensation tradeoffs, representative profiles, supply risks, or controlled search levers. Produces a market map, not a candidate shortlist.

Map a Talent Market

Make the hiring market legible before spending heavily on sourcing. Representative people are evidence about the market, not a shortlist or an assessment of their suitability or interest.

1. Define the decision

Confirm the role, hiring goal, current hypothesis, geography, working pattern, compensation constraints, timing, and the decision the map should support. Reuse the accepted job description, internal role profile, scorecard, prior searches, ATS patterns, and team examples when available.

Separate fixed constraints from search hypotheses. Flag combinations that may sharply limit supply, but do not claim infeasibility without evidence.

2. Propose scope and evidence

Before broad research, confirm:

  • title and seniority hypotheses;
  • employer, sector, function, and adjacent-background hypotheses;
  • geographies and working arrangements;
  • public, connected, and internal sources;
  • approximate breadth, depth, and cost;
  • deliverable fields and destination; and
  • the first review point.

Start with a bounded sample when terminology or constraints are uncertain. Never begin a broad or expensive market scan solely because another workflow detected weak pipeline coverage.

3. Map the market

Research title variants, target and adjacent employers, source channels, career paths, geography, compensation evidence where available, representative profiles, and supply risks. Build a taxonomy that explains the segments and relationships rather than collecting names indiscriminately.

For representative profiles, record only relevant professional evidence and source links. Do not imply that a person is qualified, available, eligible, interested, contactable, or appropriate to approach. Avoid protected or irrelevant personal characteristics.

Treat estimates carefully. Do not claim an exact market size unless the sources and method support it. Distinguish observed counts, partial-source counts, directional estimates, and unknowns. Explain coverage gaps and source bias.

4. Deliver the talent-market map

Include:

  1. the decision and accepted constraints;
  2. a title and seniority taxonomy;
  3. target-employer and adjacent-background segments;
  4. source-channel and geography coverage;
  5. compensation evidence and limitations when relevant;
  6. representative profiles labeled as examples, not candidates;
  7. supply risks, uncertainty, and contradictory evidence; and
  8. controlled search levers with their likely tradeoffs.

Do not automatically turn the map into a shortlist, outreach campaign, or ATS change.

5. Continue from an accepted definition

When the user accepts the market definition, use strawberry/recruiting/source-candidates to calibrate and build a shortlist. Confirm the definition, scope, sources, scale, fields, and review point for that transition. Candidate outreach remains a later, separately approved state.

Offer to save the accepted taxonomy, sources, constraints, fields, and review point as a custom skill when the team will reuse the market definition. A Routine is appropriate only after the mapping method is stable and a useful refresh cadence exists.