About Pluckd
Because hiring in this field shouldn’t feel like explaining your job to a stranger.
OUR MISSION
Better hires for the people who turn data into decisions.
We work exclusively in marketing, research, insights, strategy, analytics, and data science. For now. Our clients include corporate insights and analytics teams, research agencies and vendors, marketing agencies, consulting firms, product and engineering groups, and AI-native start-ups.
Clients come to us for the specialty. They stay because we’re easy to work with, we adapt to what they actually need, and we find the best people.
We’re not chasing a placement fee. We’re building relationships that outlast any one search. The goal is simple: the best people in the best roles. Everything else is just how we get there.
Honest recruiting. Imagine that.
OUR STORY
How Pluckd got started
We’ve spent years recruiting in insights and analytics, and the best part has always been the people. We get to work with some of the most talented, curious, brilliant people in any industry. People who ask better questions, find answers others miss, and change how companies make decisions. Spending our days with them is genuinely inspiring.
The work they do keeps evolving, and so do the teams they’re part of. New roles, new methods, new ways of hiring. We wanted the freedom to evolve with them: to try new ways of helping clients, to work more flexibly, and to put relationships ahead of transactions. The best way to do that was to build something of our own.
So we started Pluckd, named for the best part of the job: finding someone great and picking them for the role they were meant for. We already speak the language. We tell clients what we’re doing and why. We keep candidates informed at every stage, including when the answer is no. We adapt to what each search actually needs. And we go above and beyond every chance we get, because the people in this field deserve that.
Good people, good teams, and an honest conversation in between.
Meet the founders
CEO & Co-founder
Lindsey got into recruiting the way most people do: sideways. A psychology degree and an early talent acquisition role led her to Smith Hanley Associates, where she spent more than a decade placing people in market research, insights, and analytics.
She’s direct, a little nosy (in the professional sense), and genuinely interested in what makes people good at what they do. The psychology degree still shows up in the work. She wants to know why someone left their last job, what their manager would really say about them, and what kind of team brings out their best. Clients get the same treatment. She’ll ask the questions that don’t make it into the job description, and she’ll tell you plainly when a role needs rethinking before it needs filling. She co-founded Pluckd to do this work the way she always thought it should be done.
Favorite color: Green
Coffee order: Black iced coffee (AM), brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso (PM)
Drink order: Skinny margarita
Cats or dogs: Dogs
Favorite book: The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Favorite Nic Cage movie: Face/Off
Favorite HBO series: Girls
Least favorite celebrity: Jesse Eisenberg
Family: Two beautiful girls and one rock star husband
Years in recruiting: 15
COO & Co-founder
Daniel came to recruiting from life insurance, a job where people have to trust you quickly with things that matter. He joined Lindsey in 2020, right before the pandemic made everything harder. They built through it anyway. Since then, he’s placed people with niche research firms and Fortune 500 insights teams, and plenty in between.
He’s the one clients and candidates tend to open up to first. Daniel is the calm in the chaos and the voice of reason. He reads people well, asks the question underneath the question, and works just as hard for the candidate as for the client. Candidates get honest feedback. Clients get honest advice, including when what they want and what they need aren’t quite the same. When things get tense near the finish line, he’s the one who keeps the conversation steady and everyone talking. He co-founded Pluckd because he wanted to build something where the relationship matters more than the transaction.
Favorite color: Blue
Coffee order: Black iced coffee with caramel
Drink order: Gin & tonic
Cats or dogs: Dogs
Favorite book: Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
Favorite Nic Cage movie: National Treasure
Favorite HBO series: Band of Brothers
Least favorite celebrity: Mark Wahlberg
Family: Two boisterous boys and one enchanting wife
Years in recruiting: 7
How we work
A proven approach, with room to adjust.
OUR MISSION
Industries and specialties
Industries
Roles we place
Research & Insights
- Consumer Insights
- Shopper Insights
- VOC/Voice of Customer
- Advertising Research
- Messaging & Communication
- New Product Development & Innovation
- Patient & Physician (HCP) Research
- Reputation
- Qualitative Moderation
- Quantitative
- Competitive Intelligence
- Market Intelligence
- Sensory Research
- Social Listening
- Litigation Research
- Survey Research
- Category Management
- Market Access Insights
- Commercial Insights
- Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR)
- Real-World Evidence (RWE)
- Launch Excellence
- Payer Research
- Packaging
- Behavioral Science
UX & Design
- UX Research / User Experience Research
- CX / Customer Experience
- Usability Testing
- Usability Engineering
- UX Strategy
- Human Centered Design
- Human Factors
- Interaction
- Prototyping / Wireframing
- UX Information Architect
- Accessibility Design
- Mobile UX Design
- Service Designer
- UX Design
- UX Writing
Marketing & Operations
- Marketing Strategy
- Commercial Strategy
- Online Communities & Panels
- Business Development & Sales
- Field Management
- Account Management
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
- Project Management
- Vendor Management
- Call Center Management
- Content Manager
- Marketing Manager
- Panel & Sample Recruiting
- Bidding
- Survey Programming
- Quality Assurance
Data Science
- Commercial Analyst
- Data Science
- Advanced Analytics
- Predictive Analytics
- Machine Learning (ML)
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Statistical Modeling
- Decision Science
- Applied Statistics
- Quantitative Analytics
- Data Analytics
- Business Analytics
- Operations Research
- Computational Science
Sales & Customer Success
- Business Development
- Client Development
- Client Services
- Account Management
- Customer Success
- Solutions Consulting
- Commercial / Go-to-Market (GTM)
- Partnerships
- Engagement Manager
- Proposal Writer
- Chief Revenue Officer / Chief Commercial Officer
AI & Engineering
- LLM Engineer
- Generative AI Engineer / GenAI Scientist
- Applied Scientist, LLMs
- NLP Scientist / NLP Engineer
- Machine Learning Engineer, LLMs
- AI Research Scientist
- AI Engineer
- Model Evaluation Scientist / AI Evaluation Lead
- AI Agent Engineer
- Conversational AI Engineer
- Head of Generative AI / Director of AI
OUR COMMUNITY
Connected across the insights & analytics industry
Where you’ll find us, besides on the phone.
FAQ
Questions, answered
How do your fees work?
It depends on how we’re working together.
For contingency search, you only pay if you hire someone we introduce. No retainer, no upfront cost. Our fee is a percentage of the new hire’s first-year salary, and we’ll go over the details before the search starts so there are no surprises.
For consulting, we scope the work with you first, then quote a flat fee for the project. You’ll know the cost before we begin.
Not sure which fits? Tell us what you need and we’ll figure it out together.
How long does a typical search take?
Most searches take somewhere between six and twelve weeks from kickoff to accepted offer. Senior or highly specialized roles can take longer. Roles with a clear brief and a responsive interview team often move faster.
You’ll usually see your first screened and interested candidates within one to two weeks. After that, timing depends a lot on how quickly interviews get scheduled and feedback comes back. That’s the part that tends to slow searches down, and it’s the part we work hardest to keep moving.
We’ll give you a realistic timeline at the start and keep you posted if anything changes.
What kinds of companies do you work with?
Anyone hiring in market research, insights, analytics, or data science.
That includes:
- Research agencies and vendors
- Marketing agencies
- Corporate insights and analytics teams
- Product and engineering teams
- AI-native start-ups
We’ve worked with everyone from niche research firms to Fortune 500
companies. Size matters less than fit. If you’re hiring people who work
with data and customers, we’re probably a good match.
We work across the U.S. and into Europe and Canada.
Does it cost anything to work with you as a candidate?
No. Never. Our fees are paid by the companies we recruit for, so working with us costs you nothing.
If anyone ever asks you to pay to be considered for a role, that’s a red flag, and it isn’t us.
Do you place remote and hybrid roles?
Yes. We place remote, hybrid, and in-office roles. Whatever the setup, we’ll tell you up front what’s expected, including how often you’d need to be in the office and whether that’s likely to change.
That last part matters. “Hybrid” can mean anything from once a quarter to four days a week, and we’d rather you know before the first interview than after the offer.
Can you help if we’re not sure exactly what role we need?
Sometimes a team knows it needs help but not what kind. Is it a senior researcher or an analytics lead? One hire or two? Should the role sit in insights, marketing, or product? We’ll talk through what’s actually going on, what the work requires, and what the market looks like for that kind of person. With our consulting structure, we’ll help you shape the role and write a job description that attracts the right people.
Do you handle confidential searches?
Yes. Sometimes a role can’t be public yet: you’re replacing someone who’s still there, building a team nobody knows about, or just prefer to keep hiring quiet.
In those cases, we keep your company name out of it until the right moment. Job postings are blinded, early conversations with candidates focus on the role rather than the employer, and we only share your name once someone is serious and the fit looks real. We’re also happy to sign an NDA if you need one.
Candidates get the same discretion. We never share a résumé without permission.
What levels do you recruit for?
Mostly mid-level through executive. That covers experienced individual contributors, managers, directors, VPs, and heads of insights or analytics.
Our sweet spot is the senior specialist and leadership roles that are hardest to fill, where knowing the field makes the biggest difference. If you’re hiring for something more junior, reach out anyway. We’ll tell you honestly whether we’re the right fit.
How do I get on your radar if there’s no open role that fits?
Reach out anyway. Send us your résumé and a few lines about what you’re looking for: the kind of role, the level, where you want to work, and anything that’s a dealbreaker.
A lot of our searches never get posted publicly, so the people we already know are often the first ones we call. We’ll keep your details on file and get in touch when something comes up that actually fits, not just anything with a similar title.
And if you’re not actively looking but want to know what’s out there, that’s fine too. Some of our best conversations start that way.
Do you help with interview prep?
Yes, for any role we’re representing you for. Before each interview, we’ll walk you through who you’re meeting, how the process works, and anything we’ve learned about what the team is really looking for.
Afterward, we’ll get you feedback from the hiring team. Honest feedback, including the parts that are harder to hear, because that’s what actually helps.
We don’t offer general interview coaching outside of our searches, but if you’re working with us on a role, we’ll make sure you walk in prepared.