Roles we recruit
Seven practices, 27 functions. Start at the practice when you cannot yet name the title; go straight to the function when you can.
Browse all 229 roles Brief us on a seatFlat 15% of first-year base · shortlist in 10 working days
Five seats sit under market research and insights: the people who run your research, not respondents for a study. We split them by the question each one answers, from market size to why customers leave, screen for research that changed a decision, and charge a flat 15% only once your hire starts.
Most research briefs ask for an analyst and describe a market question, a competitor question or a customer question. We start with the decision the research has to support.
From question to decision, and the seat that owns each stage
Moves: segment priorities the plan is built on
1 seat
Market sizing, segment analysis, survey design and the secondary research that tells leadership where demand is and how big it is.
Brief us when a plan, a board paper or an expansion decision rests on market numbers nobody has checked.
Hire a Market Research AnalystMoves: win rate against named competitors
1 seat
The competitor picture: pricing, positioning, product moves, win and loss patterns, and the battlecards sales uses in live deals.
Brief us when you lose to the same competitors and sales has no current answer to their pitch.
Moves: buying criteria sales and marketing actually use
1 seat
How your buyers choose: buying committees, criteria, triggers and the language they use, from interviews and win and loss data.
Brief us when personas exist on slides but nobody has spoken to a recent buyer.
Moves: feedback closed into product and service fixes
1 seat
The feedback program: surveys, reviews, interviews and the loop that turns what customers say into fixes product and service teams ship.
Brief us when feedback is collected in five places and never reaches the people who could act on it.
Moves: research that changes roadmap and messaging decisions
1 seat
The research program as a whole: priorities, methods, panels and vendors, and the studies product and marketing rely on.
Brief us when research happens project by project, and nobody owns what gets studied or how.
Measured on
Research interviews reward method fluency: sample sizes, question design, the names of frameworks. We screen for what a business needs from research: a decision it changed, a sound method under time pressure and findings explained to people who will never read the deck.
We ask for one study and what the business did differently because of it: a segment entered, a message changed, a feature cut. Reports nobody acted on are where we dig.
We set a research question with a two-week deadline and ask how they would answer it: sources, sample, what they would skip and why.
For insights and voice of customer seats we ask how they recruit B2B interviewees, run the conversation and keep their own bias out of it.
Candidates summarize one finding for a sales team in a page, and we check with a former manager whether their work was used.
Not sure which seat you need? Tell us the decision coming up and what you do not know yet, and we will tell you which of the five owns it.
Public US benchmarks, read October 2026. Research pay is mostly base salary. The BLS band covers market research analysts together with marketing specialists in every industry; the Salary.com rows are specific titles.
Each bar runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile, the middle half of reported pay.
Base salaryWages including commission (BLS)Average total pay, base plus variable
Market Research Analyst
BLS, all industries, with Built In total
$58,350 to $108,310$91,292 average total
Competitive Intelligence Analyst
Salary.com base benchmark
$105,634 to $127,789 base
Customer Insights Manager
Salary.com base benchmark
$112,960 to $135,581 base
Market Research Manager
Salary.com base benchmark
$113,329 to $137,174 base
Market Research Analyst: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, annual wage at the 25th and 75th percentiles (SOC 13-1161, market research analysts and marketing specialists), all industries, with Built In average total compensation (self-reported), reviewed October 2, 2026. Competitive Intelligence Analyst, Customer Insights Manager and Market Research Manager: Salary.com base salary, 25th to 75th percentile, United States, as of October 1, 2026. Public aggregates, not ZaphyrRecruit placement data.
The clock starts when the brief is signed and stops when three to five calibrated candidates are in front of you. Most of that time is spent talking to people, not searching for them.
Day 1
Forty-five minutes with whoever the hire reports to. We leave with the number the seat owns, the range you can pay and the two or three things that genuinely disqualify.
Days 2 to 7
We build the list from people doing the job now, approach them directly and screen every name against the brief before it reaches you.
Days 8 to 10
Three to five people, each with a page: what they have run, why they fit this seat, pay expectations, notice period and where they are weak.
After the shortlist
Interviews run at your pace. We handle scheduling, references and the counter-offer conversation, and nothing is payable until your hire starts.
Three clients, quoted as they wrote to us about searches we ran for them. We publish no names or logos without permission.
A market research analyst studies the market and its buyers; a competitive intelligence analyst studies the companies you compete with. Market research answers where demand is and how big it is. Competitive intelligence answers why you win or lose against named rivals, and arms sales with it. Smaller teams combine them; the split comes when sales needs battlecards kept current.
No. We hire the people who run research for your company, as permanent employees. In market research, recruitment often means finding respondents for a study, which fieldwork and panel firms do. If you need interviewees or a panel, a fieldwork vendor is the right call. If you need someone to design and run the research, brief us.
A flat 15% of the hire’s first-year base salary, payable only once they start. On an $85,000 base that is $12,750, and the same 15% applies to research managers. There is no retainer, no exclusivity and nothing to pay if the search does not produce a hire. If a placement leaves inside the guarantee period, we rerun the search at no further fee.
The BLS puts the middle half of market research analysts and marketing specialists between $58,350 and $108,310 a year (May 2025, all industries), and Built In reports $91,292 average total compensation for market research analysts (October 2026). Salary.com puts competitive intelligence analysts at $105,634 to $127,789 base and market research managers at $113,329 to $137,174.
When important decisions keep getting made on opinion because nobody has time to find out. Common triggers are a new segment or market entry, a pricing change, rising churn with no agreed reason, or product marketing spending its week on research instead of positioning. A first hire should be a generalist who can run interviews and surveys alike.
Put it next to the decisions it serves most. Customer and usability research usually sits with product, market and buyer research with product marketing, and competitive intelligence close to sales. A single research leader can serve all three once there are several researchers, as long as each team knows how to request a study.
Ten working days from a signed brief to a shortlist of three to five calibrated candidates. The method exercise and reference checks sit inside that window, so your own interviews can focus on your market and your team. Interviews and the offer then run at your pace. Most candidates then need two to four weeks before they can start.
Tell us the decisions coming up, what you already know and who will use the research. We reply within one business day with which of the five seats it is and what it pays.
Most of our research searches are filled from people we already know, the week an employer briefs us. Set up a job alert for marketing and strategy roles, or send your CV and we will come to you when a seat opens.
Market Research sits in our Revenue Leadership practice, next to strategy and enablement. Product marketing and analytics turn its findings into messages and numbers, so they are here too.