TalentLayer is a spec and fit system for founders making a senior product hire. Not another search firm. A decision protocol built around evidence.
For founders who treat the wrong product hire as a runway risk. Pricing as % of CTC →
Not abstract risk. It shows up in runway, roadmap velocity, and the next board conversation.
Every serious candidate takes hours you do not have. The role stays open because you cannot run search and run the company at the same time.
Without a hiring thesis you hire for polish and pedigree. The scorecard becomes a list of nice-to-haves no single person can satisfy.
Someone left. Engineering is covering product. The board is asking. You are one panic offer away from an 18-month problem.
Not “they seem sharp.” Scored fit against your stage, your founder, and your constraints — before the first interview.
Does this person thrive at your stage? A 0→1 operator dropped into a 40-engineer org will drown. A process builder in a 12-person startup will suffocate. We score the match between their pattern and your actual constraints.
Have they shipped the right things at this stage — not just shipped at scale? We look for evidence of prioritisation under constraint, not feature volume or brand-name logos.
Will they work with you under pressure — not just impress in a panel? We test for how they handle founder involvement, board noise, and disagreement without politics.
Do expectations match your band and equity story? We surface mismatches before you invest interview cycles — and before offer stage becomes a surprise.
Three steps. No shortlist until the decisions, constraints, and success criteria are locked.
Structured intake with founders and key stakeholders. We name the decisions this hire will own and the constraints they will operate inside.
A Product Leadership Spec: scope, 12–18 month success criteria, evidence we will require, and risks we will test for.
Exercises, scoring rubrics, and a reference framework. Every interviewer knows what they are weighting before the first call.
Working artifacts your team can use. Not slide decks and CV dumps.
Scope, decision rights, constraints, and success criteria for the first 12–18 months.
One page per candidate. Four scored dimensions, evidence, risks, and a clear recommendation.
Structured, attributable references from people who have seen the candidate do the job.
Exercises, questions, and scoring rubrics tailored to your Spec — not a generic pack.
Structured check-ins at 30 / 60 / 90 days. Early signals, not post-mortems.
Offer framing, compensation realism, and negotiation support through signed acceptance.
We track the hire against the Spec over the first year. We only publish results when we have enough real data — never invented metrics.
Candidates get a real (sanitized) brief from your company. They produce a short work sample: prioritisation, trade-offs, stakeholder communication. Every interviewer scores against the same rubric.
After start date we run structured check-ins with the new leader and key stakeholders. Misalignment surfaces while it is still cheap to fix.
Four steps. Partners own the hard calls. Typical timeline: 6–12 weeks to accepted offer on a retained mandate.
Structured intake with founders and stakeholders. We produce a Product Leadership Spec that names the decisions this hire will own.
We map the market and score every credible candidate on the four dimensions that matter at your stage. You receive Fit Cards — not CV piles.
Deep references become a Reference Dossier. We design the interview process and hand you the Interview Kit. Partners debrief every round.
Offer design and negotiation support. After start, the 90-day loop keeps early misalignment from becoming an expensive failure.
No opaque retainers dressed up as partnership. Fee scales with the role you are filling.
End-to-end: Spec, Fit Cards, dossiers, interview design, partner involvement through close and the 90-day loop.
Same evidence layer — Spec, Fit Cards, Dossier — without full retained close support. Useful when you have internal capacity.
A Head of Product at Series A is a different hire than a CPO at Series C. Tying fee to CTC keeps incentives aligned: we care about the right person at a realistic package, not filling a seat at any cost.
One page per candidate. Four scored dimensions with evidence, risks, and a clear recommendation. Built to be read in five minutes and debated in ten. No CV theatre.
On retained mandates, 6–12 weeks from signed brief to signed offer is typical. Speed comes from locking the Spec and evaluation before interviews start. The 90-day loop after hire is included on retained.
Primary markets are UK and EU. We occasionally take US mandates when the company has a strong European presence and the role sits in our product-leadership lane. We will say no if we cannot add value.
The 90-day loop exists to catch misalignment early. On retained engagements, if the hire leaves within six months we run a replacement search at no additional fee, subject to the engagement terms.
Traditional search hands you CVs and confidence. We hand you scored Fit Cards, attributable reference dossiers, and an Interview Kit with rubrics — then stay through 90 days. Fee is 10–12% of CTC versus the usual 25–35% retained band.
Tell us what you are trying to solve. This is the start of the Spec — not a sales form that disappears into a CRM.
Advance to final round. Strong stage match and shipping record. Chemistry score is acceptable with a clear operating cadence agreed in offer discussions.