Ready to find your market research analyst?

After reviewing thousands of open market research analyst roles, we’ve identified the most common responsibilities outlined in market research analyst job descriptions:

  • Monitor and forecast marketing and sales trends; measure effectiveness of strategies and programs
  • Work well with all levels of management, internal staff, clients and vendors
  • Devise and evaluate methods for collecting data, such as surveys, questionnaires and opinion polls
  • Gather data about consumers, competitors and market conditions
  • Convert complex data and findings into understandable tables, graphs and written reports
  • Prepare reports and present results to clients and management

While these are specific responsibilities or requirements, what’s missing are the skills required to successfully execute them, which is especially important for entry-level hires who don’t have the professional track record and where GPA or major doesn’t demonstrate them. To help, we’ve worked with human capital leaders and marketing executives to map the underlying skills to the typical responsibilities below:

RESPONSIBILITY

SKILLS
Monitor and forecast marketing and sales trends; measure effectiveness of strategies and programs Attention to detail Critical thinking
Work well with all levels of management, internal staff, clients and vendors Team player Ability to relate
Devise and evaluate methods for collecting data, such as surveys, questionnaires and opinion polls Problem solving Creativity
Gather data about consumers, competitors and market conditions Research Organization
Convert complex data and findings into understandable tables, graphs and written reports Grit/Drive Analytical thinking

Many of these skills can’t be measured from a GPA, aren’t captured on a college student or recent grad’s resume, and can’t be assessed through an interview process, especially those Core Skills that often make the difference. In reality, the only way to evaluate these skills is when you see these candidates in action. Micro-Internships are a perfect, easy, low-risk and low investment way for employers to see candidates demonstrate these skills first hand.

Building upon this, we have crafted and tested a handful of Micro-Internships that not only provide hiring manager with immediate value, but also will help you uncover these skills:

Sample Projects 

We would like you to analyze a set of customer service data (provided by us) qualitatively and quantitatively. Identify trends, positive and/or negative, patterns, outliers, etc., and use tables, graphs, etc. to tell us the “story” of the data and highlight the key takeaways.

We would like you to gather feedback on one of our products (info to be provided by us) by way of a 10 question survey. This will involve creating the survey, identifying ways to gather responses, and execution. Provide rationale behind the specific questions and the distribution plan. Provide a summary of the results with key takeaways.

We would like you to research ten key competitive products in a specific market. For each, highlight the key similarities and difference (real and as marketed) and outline the social media efforts associated with each, including key messaging, features highlighted, pre-announcements, etc. In addition to the outbound efforts driven by the company, please capture the insights (positive and negative) provided by customers and highlight any key trends.

In order to help you pick the best candidate, you can also ask a question or two to screen the applicants - while not required, this is a great way to quickly learn about the candidates so you can select the best career launcher for your project. Here are the following we would recommend:

  • Why do you want to work on this project?
  • How would you approach this project?
  • Tell me about a time you had to research something to make a decision.
  • Are you available to accept an internship or full time role? Please only apply if you are interested in the full-time role or internship following this initial project.

While there may not be any “right” answer, these types of questions allow a Career Launcher to stand out by conveying an insightful perspective or passion for the role.

Assessing The Career Launcher

As highlighted above, these assignments are a great way for you to assess if a Career Launcher has the Core Skills that are required to be successful in this role. To help, we included a things to look for in what the Career Launcher provides. 

Download the full assessment here.

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Win. Win.

The benefits are invaluable. As a result of the Micro-internship you will get:

  • Completion of valuable work that wasn't the best of time for you or others at your company
  • Identify and connect with candidates to move through your interview process for an internship or full-time opportunity
  • Save time (and money) on wasted interviews of individuals who are not the right fit
  • Aid in working towards your company’s diversity and employee retention initiatives

Of course this is not just limited to marketing roles. You can see some additional examples tied to other roles or departments here.

Get Started!