Should You Take That Consulting Role? Here's Why or Why Not

As many companies are keeping a tight rein on headcount costs, I’m seeing an uptick in available consulting positions. An increasing number of the marketing analytics positions we’ve been working on have been with consulting firms. Although outsourcing to control headcount is not a new trend, the increase means that there could be more opportunities available to someone who is open to the possibility of a consulting role.

In our recent Burtch Works Study: Marketing Research Professionals and Burtch Works Study: Big Data Professionals we discovered that consulting pays well for both groups, and I am interested to see how the current trend affects salary and demographics over the coming years.

For someone whose lifestyle can accommodate a heavy travel schedule there are certainly advantages to taking a consulting position; since your clients may be in a wide variety of industries it is a great way to gain exposure to different industries. It is also a great opportunity to build a network beyond your colleagues. As you gain exposure with high level corporate professionals keep in mind that these connections will benefit you throughout your career.

There are several things to consider however, before pursuing a consulting position. There will almost always be heavy travel involved, with a typical schedule of Monday through Thursday traveling and Friday working in the local office. So if you have a young family or your lifestyle cannot accommodate a rigorous travel schedule, then it might not be the best choice for you.

In addition, as you take on a more senior role you will be expected to drive business and revenue, and contribute to the growth of the business, at which point business development skills will be crucial for success.

For quantitative and marketing research professionals alike the increase in consulting positions could present a lot of opportunities, but it’s always important to consider and balance your lifestyle goals with your career goals before committing to anything.

Regardless of your career goals however, you should position yourself in a way where you are the asset – your knowledge, your skills, and your unique perspective. I always advise my candidates to make sure that you are a value-add to your organization; by doing so you ensure that you will always be marketable, whether your goal is a promotion or a job change.

Flash Survey Results for Analytics Professionals!

As you probably already know, I’m always interested in gathering information from and about the analytic community. Our salary study for Big Data professionals is the biggest project we’ve taken on within this mission, but recently we conducted a very brief “flash survey” of our connections regarding a topic that I’m hearing about more and more: individuals’ experiences with being contacted by recruiters via LinkedIn. As a recruiter, I use the site quite a bit, and our staff has participated in a number of training sessions made available by LinkedIn. In these sessions, it’s frequently quoted that an overwhelming 95% of LinkedIn members say they are open to receiving messages from recruiters on LinkedIn.

In this brief survey, I asked our quantitative network three simple questions:

1. How often are you contacted about job opportunities through LinkedIn?

2. How frequently do you respond?

3. Are you actively considering a job change?

We received a great amount of feedback from this quick poll, and in the end we analyzed the responses of 481 analytics professionals. Using information from our database, we were able to categorize these responses further based on geographic region, and career level, using the same hierarchy of levels that we used in the Burtch Works Study. As a reminder, here is how we define job levels and regions: 

Individual Contributors (IC) are professionals without people management responsibility.

• Level 1: responsible for learning the job and being hands-on with analytics (typically 1-3 years’ experience)
• Level 2: hands-on with data, working with more advanced problems/models (typically 4-8 years’ experience)
• Level 3: considered an analytics Subject Matter Expert (typically 9+ years’ experience

Managers(MG) are professionals whose responsibilities include people management.

• Level 1: tactical, leading a small group within a function (typically 1-3 reports)
• Level 2: leads a function and executes strategy (typically 4-9 reports)
• Level 3: member of senior management who determines strategy (typically 10+ reports)

    We uncovered a couple interesting findings, so let’s take a look at what the data revealed.

   #1: How often are you contacted about job opportunities through LinkedIn? 

Key Insights

• More than 25% of analytics professionals are contacted at least weekly, with an additional 63% reporting that they are reached out to at least monthly.
• The most senior level candidates (MG, level 3) reported being contacted most frequently, with 60% saying they are reached out to at least weekly.
• Overall, managers are reached out to more than individual contributors with an average of 42% of managers reached out to at least weekly, compared to only 21% for individual contributors. We have two hypotheses for why this may be: 

o   Many organizations look to put key leaders in place prior to hiring the core staff that will be doing a lot of the analytics. It may be that managers are being targeted now, and as those positions fill, the emphasis will trickle down to the individual contributors.

o   Job titles for management are much more consistent (i.e. Manager, Director, VP) than those of individual contributors, who notoriously have a multitude of titles (e.g. Analyst, Specialist, Scientist, Statistician, Consultant). This means sourcing by titles is more challenging at the individual contributor level.

• Not surprisingly, analytics people on the West coast are contacted most frequently, with 93% of west coasters approached at least monthly.
• People in the Northeast and Midwest were approached in similar amounts – roughly 89% are contacted at least monthly.

#2: How frequently do you respond?

 Key Insights

• More than 50% of quantitative professionals report responding to recruiters’ message on LinkedIn almost all of the time or always.
• Tactical 50% of quantitative professionals report responding to recruiters’ message on LinkedIn almost all of the time or always.
• Individual contributors and managers, however, have very similar response rates overall.
• West Coasters are the most likely to get back to their suitors on LinkedIn: 64% reply almost all of the time or always.
• People living in the Mountain region are least likely to respond, with only 38% replying almost always and 53% replying half of the time.
• Quants in the Northeast were fairly likely to respond (53% almost all of the time or always, 40% at least half the time), showing similar response rates as Midwesterners.

#3: Are you actively considering a job change?

 Key Insights

• 69% of Quants are at least willing to entertain the idea of a job change, or are actively looking.
• Even though 30% of respondents aren’t considering a change, many respond to messages anyway given that only 7% said they never answer these messages.

Conclusions

Over the years, LinkedIn has not only become a powerful networking tool, but also a key recruiting tool. Professionals from almost every industry have flocked to the site, set up a boiled down (or not) version of their resume as their profile, and used it to connect with colleagues, research potential employers, read business news, and search and apply for jobs. I keep finding myself asking, though: is LinkedIn too much of a good thing?

Recruiting firms like ours have leveraged LinkedIn for years in order to target specific individuals for specific roles for our clients. Corporations are adopting the same technique, except (in my experience at least) without the amount of rigor necessary to zero in on the proper candidates. Corporations are hiring sourcing teams to scour LinkedIn for talent, resulting in mass messaging to members who may or may not be relevant for the role they have open.

As we found in our flash survey, the rapidly escalating demand for analytic talent means over 60% of you are being contacted at least monthly via LinkedIn. This is generally a wonderful trend for our profession, but my fear is that “recruiter fatigue” may set in. Some of you may adopt a ‘delete all’ policy, scrub your LinkedIn exposure or even remove your profile altogether. This would be an unfortunate consequence of your increased visibility, but I fear this is where we may be headed. My advice is to know what your goals are and prioritize your options accordingly.  And of course, to stay in touch with your favorite recruiter!

Math Education + Quantitative Job = Career Satisfaction

Few individuals in this world aspire to earn the title “geek”, but that may be soon to change given the Wall Street Journal’s listings of Best Jobs of 2011. As it turns out, analytically-minded individuals are thriving in their positions as Actuaries, Accountants, Statisticians, and Mathematicians. In fact, they very well may be the most satisfied working professionals out there.

The Jobs Rated report was developed to determine which careers offer the highest sense of gratification for the majority of workers in each profession. The ranking is determined by several criteria: work environment, physical demands, outlook, stress, and income. The best overall work situation in 2011 (meaning the highest ranking in the aforementioned categories) goes to the Software Engineer - not exactly in the statistical realm, but still reliant on a firm mathematical background. But scrolling down the list just a bit, it's important to note that Mathematician ranks number two, with an excellent hiring outlook. Actuary comes in a close third, followed by Statistician at number four. That's three of the top five rated careers belonging to math majors, each with excellent hiring outlooks.

A few years ago, I welcomed you to my dining room table for a little table talk. Back then, the conversation centered on the kids’ standing in the social hierarchy of our local high school, with my math geek son clinging to the bottom rungs of the social ladder. I was thrilled to be able to boost his self-esteem by quoting this article’s conclusions.

I’m equally thrilled to inform him once again (and you all as well!) that the mathematician’s ranking stands. Even more importantly, I’m happy to note following a career path in mathematics could very well lead to life-long fulfillment. When you find a career that offers opportunities to do what you love, work is not work. For those of you who have already chosen the quantitative path, your long-term prospects are looking good.

For more information, please click here: http://www.careercast.com/jobs-rated/10-best-jobs-2011

Snowstorms, Snowshoes and Anecdotal Evidence

Becky, snowshoe racing in Wisconsin.
Note the hat: it's Packer spirit wear;
she'll be cheering Greenbay during
Sunday's Superbowl.

Well, it’s here — the Snowstorm of the Century has hit Chicago. I’m not quite sure how significant that is in a century that’s only 11 years old, but we’ve definitely got accumulation, with some serious shoveling and treacherous driving conditions. My kids are thrilled to have a snow day — the first in our school district in decades.

Chicago averages about 38 inches of snow a year, but for three years running we’ve topped the 50-inch mark and it looks like we’re well on our way to a fourth. Lucky for me, I thought to bring my snowshoes home from our last visit to our farm house up in Wisconsin, where we have plenty of room to practice snowshoeing.

Recently, our family has taken up snowshoe racing on during weekends up north. Snowshoes were developed in Central Asia around 6,000 years ago, but they’re still pretty new to us. We’ve been having a lot of fun. In a race a couple of weeks ago, out of a field of 140, Jay came in first overall; Becky, Jackson and Doug also medaled. I managed to finish … without falling.

Statistically, of course, the results of a single race aren’t that important, except for bragging rights around the dinner table. Four years of above average snowfall don’t really mean much statistically, either. In our industry, these results would be called anecdotes.

There are a couple of famous quotes that make the rounds about anecdotal evidence. The first is attributed to Raymond Wolfinger, professor emeritus of American Politics at the University of California, Berkeley. In response to a student’s dismissal of a simple factual statement as a “mere anecdote”, Wolfinger responded: “The plural of anecdote is data.” In the second, the quote has been bastardized and more often represented as “The plural of anecdote is not data.”

But Wolfinger was right. Anecdotes are stories. Data collection is meaningless unless you understand the story it represents. As quantitative specialists, you are the interpreters of data — you tell the stories so the data make sense to your audience. That’s your job. Here at Burtch Works, we want to help you make sense of the marketplace. That’s our job. Please let us know if we can help.