Question:
As promised, I have cobbled together a position/project description for the elusive contract market research professional I am seeking. If I have not been specific enough, please let me know. I am also looking for your input as to what the market rate is for this type of work. As I mentioned, I anticipate that the project is a minimum of 3-4 months in duration and for the right person, it could very well lead to a permanent role.
Answer:
That is one of the most well written descriptions someone has shared with me. Great flow. It’s likely because you come from the marketing end of the business. Can I get one quick clarification though.
In the requirements section, you mention the following as the second and third bullets:
- Excellent knowledge of primary research methodologies/tools, secondary research sources, and structure/maintenance of repository for competitor and market data and information.
- Must have a minimum of four years of experience managing quantitative and qualitative market research projects.
Primary market research and competitive intelligence skill sets tend to be highly divergent in today’s market. Primary specialists do basic competitive intelligence tasks, for example enumerating all of the brands/products/companies to include in a survey instrument. They may even become specialists in a particular vertical and become more informed about it from a competitive intelligence perspective. While they certainly have the capability to learn and execute competitive intelligence, they are not properly trained on the tools and techniques of the trade. In addition, primary market research folks like to focus on custom primary pretty exclusively, so they never develop them on purpose.
Competitive Intelligence professionals will have some level of familiarity with rudimentary primary market research surveys, but that’s usually the extent of it. They tend to be weak on setting up anything beyond very basic short surveys with frequency reporting (what percent of respondents answered X). They tend not to be skilled at creating longer or more complex questionnaires with analysis plans and outcomes in mind. That skill set generally takes years of dedicated custom primary experience to develop, and most competitive intelligence professionals spend very little time on anything beyond very basic custom primary.
The question to answer is exactly how much custom primary quantitative and qualitative experience is needed? The answer, in addition to the interpersonal skills we talked about, are the significant screening filters for this position and will dictate the eventual success of finding the right person to fill it
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