We recently wrapped up a video series on creating a professional looking market research resume from scratch. There are of course many different styles, and everyone will have different content based on their experience, but the below three examples are yours to review and use for free. If you have any questions or comments about building or using the templates, feel free to email or give us a call. Also included below are links to the 4 videos that were produced while creating the templates. We suggest that if you are going to use these or and other MS Word templates, that you watch the videos to see exactly how the templates were creates, and then you will have the ability to customize them from there. You should be able to either click on the links below and download them. If not, try right clicking on the links and “save as” to wherever you like on your computer.

Here is the video series that created the templates from scratch. Enjoy!

1: Market Research Resume: Document Setup
2: Market Research Resume: Preparing Your Content
3: Market Research Resume: Customized Formatting
4: Market Research Resume: Applying Formatting And Useful Tips

#1: —Template-Basic
The first template covers the basics of what to include and when to include it. The formatting is simple and it’s content and placement are the focus of this template.

#2: —Template-Simple-From-Video
This is the template that was produced from the video series. Since we only had so much time, the resume created is effective, but fairly simple. For those of you with lots of experience and content, it is recommended you start with the advanced template below.

#3: —Advanced-Template2-Lines-Added-Linkedin-References-Included
This is a pretty complete resume for the advanced user with lots of content and experience. It deals with multiple positions at the same company, where to include descriptions for more obscure companies or industries, and includes line breaks and some advanced matting.

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This is the first in a series of videos on how to produce a really great looking market research resume, analytical marketing type resume. So, what I thought would do is start with my LinkedIn profile. If you have worked with a PDF file before, you know they are notoriously bad for cutting and pasting and rendering into other document formats and having them look good, so I thought an interesting challenge would be to take the PDF file that you can generate off your LinkedIn profile and then go ahead and take it, open it, do a select all and copy, and then go over to a Word document and paste it. And then make this look like a really good-looking resume…

1: Document Setup
2: Preparing Your Content
3: Customized matting
4: Applying matting & Useful Tips

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This is video number two on how to produce a really great looking market research resume, interactive analytics, web analytic type resume. So we took my LinkedIn profile and create a PDF off of that, which you can and is a thing you can do for free, and then we cut-and-pasted that content into a Word document that we set up for a really good-looking resume. So now what we’re going to do is…

1: Document Setup
2: Preparing Your Content
3: Customized matting
4: Applying matting & Useful Tips

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This is video number three on how to create a really great looking market research resume, and this is going to focus on formatting and creating a format from scratch. Now that we’ve setup our document and cut and pasted into our a document as unformatted text, we are ready to go. The first thing we are going to do is go ahead and modify the normal font…

1: Document Setup
2: Preparing Your Content
3: Customized matting
4: Applying matting & Useful Tips

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This is video number four on how to create a really professional good-looking market research resume, web analytics, or marketing analytics type resume from scratch. We’re coming down the homestretch, we’ve done a lot of work and now we’re going to start applying all the formatting that we’ve done and you’ll see, this is where the rubber hits the road in and it’s pretty cool once we start digging in…

1: Document Setup
2: Preparing Your Content
3: Customized matting
4: Applying matting & Useful Tips

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The approach applies to so many aspects of business, including the employment relationship.  Marketing analytics professionals looking for new market research jobs or web analytics jobs frequently ask me why things go wrong between companies and employees, and how such things can be avoided or prevented.  While it’s an oversimplification, things can often be boiled down to desires…desires of the company, desires of the employee, and the desires of each that intersect with the other.

When starting a new position, mutual desires are critical.  The company wants certain things from the employee (most of which can be found in “responsibilities” and “requirements” of job specifications) and the employee wants the right location, pay, responsibility, upward mobility, etc.   In the best of circumstances, both get the majority of what they want, with room for fulfilling the rest over time (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Starting a New Position

As things progress in a new employment relationship (which can be a new position within the same company or a new position within a completely different company) the goal of both is to attain the closest alignment possible (Figure 2).   If that can be attained, then generally speaking, the company gets a good employee and the employee gets fairly compensated for their experience and various skill sets.

Figure 2: The Near-term and Ongoing Goal for a New Position

When things start to get out of alignment, the Venn diagram starts to look like a Death Star, which is an appropriately ominous sign of things to come.  Whether it is the employee that is not getting what they want (Figure 3), or the company not getting what they want (Figure 4), each of these circumstances typically leads to changes in the relationship…with the party not getting what they want much more likely to initiate change.  And if neither is getting what they want after a period of time (Figure 5), then the relationship is likely to change or end very quickly.

Figure 3: Death Star #1 - Most Common Incongruence in Desires

Figure 4: Death Star #2 - Company Wants More

Figure 5: Death Star #3 - Imminent Separation

When things start to get out of alignment, there are many alternatives and outcomes, the impacts of which  can be subtle or abrupt.  Generally speaking, the sooner the misalignment is recognized and addressed, the better the outcomes.  Changing jobs and hiring/training new employees can be disruptive, time consuming and costly, but  total separation is sometimes the best option.

Then again, sometimes it pays to try and work things out.  There are too many variables and circumstances to cover here, but please allow me to oversimplify one more time.    For companies: communicate clearly and be as specific as possible regarding expectations.  Action plans or performance improvement plans really do work and are highly recommended.    For employees: the single biggest piece of advice I can give to marketing analytics professionals looking for that next great market research job or web analytics job is to proactively manage your career and not focus exclusively on your current job to the point that you lose perspective.  With technical professions such as ours, it’s easy to focus too much on the task at hand and not so much on strategically managing your career.  Take yourself through the process detailed in “Resume and Job Search Strategy 101” because that will help you think trough and define wants and needs.  Once that is accomplished, you will be in a position to more accurately assess your situation, which inevitably leads to better decision making for the near and long-term.

Editor’s note: Cameron Cramer is president of Marketing Intelligence Professionals (MIProfs), an Atlanta market research executive recruiting company. He can be reached at 404-254-0441 or at cam@miprofs.com. This article appeared in the October 25, 2011, edition of Quirk’s e-newsletter.

Finding a great market research job requires a combination of skill, experience, planning and luck. Fortunately, there is a lot you can do to improve your chances of landing a really wonderful position. Based on conversations with thousands of market research candidates and hiring managers, here are the top 10 things you can do to find a job that’s right for you.

1. Stay objective

Just as with market research, objectivity is critical to the job search process and is perhaps the most important thing you can do when job-searching and career-planning. The process begins when you, in earnest, mull over and truly understand your past experience, skills and qualities you offer as an employee. Try to see yourself from a hiring manager’s perspective and be aware of why someone should hire you over another candidate. Everyone has different experiences and assets that make them unique. It’s up to you to demonstrate them. Enumerating and accentuating your strengths throughout the search, interview and job offer process is always a good idea.

2. Compare and position

Comparing and positioning yourself against other potential candidates is an extension of the first step. It’s rare for a hiring manager not to have at least a few finalists to compare and choose from so be aware of how you measure up. There are lots of great tools available for comparing and exploring skill sets and compensation within the industry. Quirk’s has done vendor and corporate market research salary surveys that are good guideposts regarding average salaries based on certain criteria. There are other resources out there as well but if you want an accurate comparison, whatever source you use, please make sure you understand the salary survey methodology; who is represented in the survey; and what their relevant experience is.

3. Build your story

Everyone loves a great story with great real-life examples. Stories show past successes and also how you think, how you speak, how you dealt with past situations and how you’ll likely deal with them in the future. Building a great story, with lots of interesting chapters, will give you engaging things to include in your résumé and help with the interview process. Stories about overcoming challenges that were technical, interpersonal or related to learning new things are the best kinds of stories for market researchers to tell. Don’t make the mistake of believing your story is readily apparent in your résumé or implicit in your listed experiences. It’s not. If two candidates are relatively equal, the one with the better story wins.

4. Build your résumé

Resumes are as unique as the people they represent and yours says a lot about you. There is a wealth of information available on the topic so here are my top three tips. First, be aware of exactly what you are saying and how it will be interpreted by the reader. Make every word count. Second, to echo a point above, far too many researchers assume their qualifications are obvious within various descriptions and titles so be absolutely sure the reader knows exactly why and how you are qualified. Third, your résumé should be reviewed by at least two other people any time changes are made. With good reason, being detail orientated is listed in virtually every market research job posting you will see; that’s what your résumé should reflect.

5. Update your profiles

Once you’ve put together a great résumé you are proud of, make sure to update all of your public profiles as needed. Confidentiality is often important, especially if you are currently employed, so please use judgment and discretion when making updates because you never know who will see them. Once made public, information is hard to control.

6. Target your approach

In market research, sending out tons of résumés is generally not the best approach for finding a great job. Instead, recommendations from family/friends, colleagues and recruiters (internal or external) yield better results. After that, it’s answering targeted ads you are highly qualified for, somewhat qualified for, overqualified for and finally, answering ads you are remotely qualified for. Focusing your energy on the approaches that have highest likelihood of success will save you time and improve your chances.

7. Actively network

Connect with old colleagues and friends and create new and relevant relationships whenever possible. Subtly let others know you are contemplating change and you’ll be surprised where the conversation goes and what may develop. Join relevant associations, surf relevant chat groups and industry boards and attend events as well as trade shows. We all know that market research is a time-consuming profession but try to make the time to network with colleagues. It’s well worth the energy more often than not.

8. Keep learning

Continuing your education via formal training, degree programs or events and trade shows will add to your personal value and continue to set you apart. It’s also a great networking opportunity and a chance to chat with like-minded people who are trying to learn, grow and perhaps make a change as well. Quirk’s has a comprehensive listing of all the educational programs and events that are offered within the industry. It’s highly recommended that you take advantage of them whenever possible.

9. Automate your search

There are far too many job boards, job aggregators, online communities, networking sites and industry associations to list here. Pretty much all of them give you the opportunity to log in, create a profile and set up automatic e-mails for positions posted with relevant content in your area or industry. Set up the notifications so you’ll be the first to know about new opportunities. It’s always better to submit application materials earlier than later.

10. Don’t take anything personally

The process of searching for work is time-consuming, tiring, dejecting and distracting. Focus on your goal and don’t take rejection or bad news personally. That way, when you get in front of the right person and land an interview, you’ll be confident, energetic and ready to go.

Landing the Market Research Job You Really Want

Without a doubt, the time and energy put into the recommendations above will increase your chances of success in landing a great market research job. As marketing researchers, we continually advocate for doing the legwork (research) up front, thereby enabling products to launch successfully right out of the gate. Follow the same advice for your personal marketing.

In recruiting terms, you might call that “getting put in the yes pile” for
further consideration. Active candidates always ask how to get positively
considered in the hiring decision making process. Interestingly enough, it’s the
basic question every sales and ing professional must ask themselves each
day, and it’s a good way for you to think about things. Objectivity is key, and
while sales and ing professionals are very effective at objectifying and
positioning products/services, it’s harder to do with people…yourself in
particular. At the end of the day, your product is “insert your name here,” and
the question is “what’s the best way to and sell you?”

The fundamentals remain true and pretty much everyone knows them, so let’s
start with the 4 P’s of ing (product, price, position and
promotion).

Product

As with ing any product or service, definition, differentiation and
value proposition should be your focus. As you may have surmised, it’s far more
difficult for anyone to completely and effectively objectify themselves without
the help of friends and colleagues, so get assistance if you can. Whenever I
talk to and profile candidates, the first thing I try to do is figure out how
someone positions in the current talent . Everyone has a different mix of
experiences, education, skills and talents that makes them unique. As a career
ing intelligence professional that now spends so much time profiling
candidates, it’s something I’ve become highly proficient at. Things I explore
include…

• Education (educational experience
• Job training
• Past titles (applied experience)
• Past companies
• Career progression
• Technical capabilities
• Interpersonal capabilities
• Management capabilities
• The interesting things you have done
• The positive change you have personally affected
• Other impacts you have made
• Current/past compensation
• Etc.

Looking back, I have become far more capable at profiling based upon the
criteria listed above. But while I’m much better at it now, it was still
something I could do several years back, just not as fast or comprehensively.
Things that go a long way toward helping profile yourself includes talking to
friends and colleagues inside and outside of your core area of focus; networking
with industry colleagues you don’t know; reading trade magazines; reading salary
surveys; attending industry events; browsing blogs and relevant online content;
reviewing your employee reviews; understanding exactly why formal
recognitions/significant pay raises were received; and so on. One of the biggest
error/omissions I see on s is when someone takes their accomplishments for
granted or assumes accomplishments are inherent when they are not. Avoid that
mistake by fully thinking through your personal history and profiling yourself
so that you know how you position and what your strengths and weaknesses are. It
will help in building your , but more importantly, it will help you
interview better when the time comes.

When it comes to building/revising your , think of it as your personal
product factsheet, sell sheet, promotional material or billboard. It is the
outward representation of who you are and what you are selling, so make sure it
denotes exactly what you want. Make every word count. If a word or sentence does
not communicate the essence of who you are and what you can do for the hiring
manager/company, rethink whether it should be revised or deleted.

• Make it easy for the reader to understand your value proposition by using
  relevant and concise language.
• Make it easy on their eyes by using attractive fonts, spacing and
  formatting.
• Make it easy on their brains with linear progressions between positions
  throughout your …and if here are gaps in the progression, come up with
  interesting ways to fill them so the reader doesn’t do it for you.
• Take control of the one thing in the hiring process you have total control
  over and leave nothing to chance.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “you only get one chance to make a first
impression.” That’s obviously true, but sometimes you don’t even get that
chance. For example, your chance to make an impression can be completely
overlooked when your gets auto scanned for keywords it should have
contained and gets passed over. It can also happen when someone not as informed
about the nuances of your particular profession is asked for their first
impressions of a group of candidates, and then screens you out based on one or
two very specific criteria they were looking for but did not see in your .
I generally see three types of s in our industry, which is technical,
strategic or a hybrid of both. Technical s tend to be keyword rich, which
is great, but folks often struggle to keep the language active and flowing, so
be aware of that. Strategic s are higher-level focused and often have less
of the technical language, so be sure to work in those keywords wherever
appropriate while not breaking up the overall flow.

One thing to consider is that for many hiring managers, the process of
screening, interviewing and selecting candidates is not at the top of their list
of “things I really like to do.” There are exceptions of course, but most of the
hiring managers I know would rather spend their time focusing on their core job
function, whatever that may be. Everyone is pressed for time these days and no
one likes to have their time wasted, so take control and make it easy for the
reader to say yes by presenting yourself in your best light. If you need help,
get it. You’d be amazed how much friends/colleagues will want to help you,
provided that you ask.

Note: since I get so many questions about and analytics and s
(format, look, feel, content, etc.), I’ve decided to follow this up with another
piece, along with some sample templates. Please click here to be referred to that post, which includes templates in addition to videos covering how they were created and how to work with them.

Price:

Compensation is an interesting topic and is dependent on so many things. It’s
dependent on location, industry, technical experience, interpersonal experience
and all of the attributes in the list above. Some and analytics
professionals are fairly compensated, some are undercompensated and some are
well compensated relative to their colleagues. At the very least, you’ll need to
answer and justify the following things, so them and think it through
beforehand…

• How much do you need to get paid to be happy
• What is your current annual base compensation and bonus
• What is your historical compensation
• Specifically why you deserve to make “insert happiness figure here”

Place

Now that you’ve got that killer and you know how you position, where
will you yourself? What placement strategy will give you the highest
likelihood of success? Generally speaking, the best placement strategy in order
of highest likelihood to succeed is…

• Family/friend recommendation for position
• Colleague recommendation for a position
• Recruiter (internal/external) recommendation for a position
• Answering select targeted ads for positions you are highly qualified for
• Answering ads you are somewhat qualified for
• Answering ads you are overqualified for
• Answering ads you are remotely qualified for

Promotion

Lot’s of and analytics professionals struggle with promoting
themselves. Only the truest extroverts among us are genuinely comfortable with
it, and generally speaking, it’s not something the majority of us have
experience doing. Like everything else, it requires practice and time to do
well. Having gone through the process above, you should hopefully have a clearer
perception of who you are and what you’re worth, which is crucial to the
process. You should also be more prepared to give anyone your personal elevator
pitch…and follow it up with a killer via email. Confidentiality is
often very important, especially for those gainfully employed, so please be
careful when proceeding with any of the below.

• Networking (personal/professional)
• Updating/posting your credentials as appropriate
• Blogs, Twitter, Facebook
• Public speaking
• Attending events and tradeshows

Many candidates I speak to say they’ve been given conflicting advice by
experts regarding content and approach. Such opinions are determined by personal
experience, style and past successes, so they are varied and highly
individualistic. When working with someone on how to best present themselves, I
always do my best to discern these and work in harmony with them, preferring to
tweak rather than overhaul. Sometimes overhauls are needed, but more often than
not, varying levels of tweaking is what’s required. Without a doubt, time and
energy put into the process above will be reflected in the final product. As
ing ers we continually advocate for doing the legwork ()
up front, enabling companies to launch successfully or position effectively
right out the gate. Follow the same advice for your personal ing. I
guarantee that if you do, you’ll significantly increase your chances of getting
put in the “yes” group.

Nonetheless, according to the same survey almost 3/4 of researchers are somewhat satisfied, satisfied or very satisfied with their current employment.  In a field
where the work is hard and the hours are long, that’s very nice to see.
As mentioned last time, the average market researcher with 11-15 years of
experience is making around six figures, and while money can’t buy happiness,
perhaps it can buy employee satisfaction.  There are lots of interesting
questions and data points within the survey around satisfaction, compensation,
hours worked and likelihood to look for a new job, but they are unfortunately
not combined in any meaningful way within the reporting.  Even so, I think
we’d all agree it’s a good bet that researchers who are paid comparatively well
and work less hours are more likely to be satisfied and less likely to look for
new jobs.  If that describes you, congratulations and keep doing what
you’re doing because it’s working.

But that’s the truly interesting thing, because I talk to lots of researchers who
fit the above criteria of satisfied and well paid, but are looking for greener
pastures anyway.  Conversely, I talk to lots of researchers who are
seemingly dissatisfied and underpaid, but want to keep things just as they
are.  As discussed last time, there are many different elements that
impact a person’s working life and career, and some have a much stronger if not
absolute affect on the decision making process than others.  It’s
often difficult to do, but the most important thing is to establish an
objective view of your current situation and of the job market for someone
with your assets, because that always leads to better assessments and
decision making in the short and long-term.

It’s one of the reasons I’m such a fan of this (even though it’s flawed) and
other salary surveys, because at the end of the day, the sole purpose of
any salary survey is to aid the reader in their decision making
process.  A properly executed survey provides you with a
tool to compare yourself objectively with colleagues and peers, which can
be invaluable.

The answer is multifaceted and comprised of work experience, technical and interpersonal skills. Each of the elements in the below list has a different compensation value associated with it…and every researcher will be stronger in some areas than others.

• Vertical industry
• Primary research
• Secondary research
• Analytic/statistical ability
• Competitive intelligence
• Syndicated
• Digital research
• Supplier vs. corporate
• Headcount managed
• Level of involvement in strategic decision making
• Dollar value of decisions impacted
• Sales ability (ideas, positions, products and services)
• Client management (internal/external)
• Etc.

Further complicating things, each element has sub segments, and the above list is not exhaustive. When looking to use any salary survey as a tool, the key is determining which title/position/description is most relevant to whatever/whoever you are comparing it to…and therein lies the difficulty. To get to that level of granularity in a salary survey, I can think of dozens of questions that would need to be added to any already long salary survey, and I know how much you like long surveys. It would likely require lots of sample for all the sub segments as well, making it an expensive and labor intensive undertaking.

With all that said, I’m a big fan of a recent salary survey Quirk’s Market Research Review published. It has its limitations, as do all similar industry surveys, but serves as an excellent benchmark for the average Joe looking for points of comparison. Some of my favorite results come from crossing 2011 compensation by years of experience, the results of which are just below. Regardless of the track you take or your areas of expertise, it’s a very good guidepost for long-term expectations and shows a nice progressive march toward six figures. In the first decade, corporate researchers apparently make $10K more per year than their supplier contemporaries. According to the corporate survey results, nearly 2/3rds of corporate researchers have a Master’s Degree or higher (which is impressive), and perhaps that’s the reason? Education level was not reported in the supplier salary article, so it’s impossible to know without seeing those results.

• 1-2 Years: Supplier Base – $46K / Corporate Base $57K
• 3-5 Years: Supplier Base – $56K / Corporate Base $68K
• 6-10 Years: Supplier Base – $75K / Corporate Base $85K
• 11-15 Years: Supplier Base – $96K / Corporate Base $101K
• 16-25 Years: Supplier Base – $114K / Corporate Base $117K

I’ll talk about additional data points from an insiders perspective over the upcoming months via my blog and monthly email updates.