My Predictions for the 2014 Analytics Hiring Market

Thanks in part to the media coverage of Big Data, analytics has become inescapable. To those who have worked in and around this industry for years this information is nothing new - merely more visible. Every day I’m hearing about more and more businesses warming to the idea that there are actionable insights readily available in their data if they know how to use it.

It is an exciting time to be a statistician, data scientist, or analytics professional, and if you thought 2013 was big, 2014 promises to be even bigger. Without further ado, here are my top predictions for the analytics hiring market:

1.)  Real-time analytics becomes increasingly important to business intelligence – Industries like the gaming industry already give their customers incentives in real-time and retailers are quickly moving toward real-time couponing. Those of you with real-time data experience will be in high-demand for these growing roles.

2.) Data scientists will be embedded in analytics groups – In addition to analysts who can build complex models, there will be an increasing need for data scientists, who with their background in analytics and computer science can wrangle massive, unstructured data sets. Companies hoping to extract the full benefit from their data sets will need a combination of both groups.

3.) If you don’t have digital you will be a dinosaur! - If your skill set doesn’t already include digital analytics your career plan should be to get experience and soon. Without it your skills will become outdated and obsolete.

4.) Sentiment analysis will continue to erode traditional survey methods – Use of social media data and other “free sources” has the opportunity to overtake traditional survey methods, which will impact the marketing research talent landscape.

5.)  Corporations will bring on internal staff to replace high paid consultants- Consultants got the ball rolling, and now companies will seek to take on full time staff.

6.) However, this will not adversely affect the consulting industry – Demand is so high for analytics experts (and continuing to grow) that there will still be companies looking to small and large consulting firms. Despite some companies hiring full time staff, the consulting industry will continue to experience growth. Heavy travel schedules will continue to be the norm for these opportunities.

7.) The trend towards wearables and PEDs will create new positions- If the buzz from CES2014 is to be believed, the wearables trend is increasing. As with any new technology that creates massive amounts of data, analytics positions will be created in the industry to make sense of and capitalize on all that information.

8.) Startups’ grip on the hiring market will loosen- I have spoken with candidates who have worked with many failed startups, and I think that this year the tendency towards hopping from failed startup to failed startup will begin to shake out. Candidates who have been through the failed startup cycle will begin to realize that to build a career it will be important to learn from an established group.

9.) Graduates from the new analytics programs will begin to hit the job market - This is not so much a prediction as it is inevitable, and I am very interested to see how well these new programs have prepared their students to enter the quantitative workforce.

What trends do you think we will see in the analytics hiring market? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

 

 

Burtch Works' Most Popular Social Media Posts from 2013

2013 was a busy year for Burtch Works’ social media accounts, and I wanted to take the time to revisit some of our most popular links this year. 

Our top links include blog posts on topics from resume writing to data science wannabes, as well as links to our original research, including salary studies and a flash survey of our network. 

Here is our social media year in review:

1.) The consulting trend is really gathering steam but the opportunity is not for everyone, which I addressed in Should You Take That Consulting Role? Here's Why or Why Not.

2.) With networking being more important than ever and holiday parties around the corner these 18 easy conversation starters from Careerealism that I posted were perfectly timed.

3.) Apparently everyone is thinking about retooling their resume, because my latest blog post Need to Rewrite Your Resume? Four Tips Before You Submit is one of the most popular posts on our social media this year.

4.) Are you a real data scientist? Or just a Data Wannabe?

5.) McKinsey put out an informative infographic on Big Data and ROI Big Data Big Profits.

6.) Lou Adler once again published a great article on LinkedIn with 5 Things You Must Not Do In an Interview, and 5 Things You Must.

7.) The Burtch Works Study: Salaries of Big Data Professionals was released in July, and Silicon Angle ran a story about lucrative salaries for foreign-born analysts.

8.) Our Marketing Research Salary Study was released in October, both salary studies and their webinar presentations are available here.

9.) Back in April I addressed the lack of urgency to hire in Help Wanted But Hiring Slow.

10.) While catching up on TEDxTalks in September I watched Big Data, Small World by Dr Kirk Borne which is definitely worth your time. He also maintains a very active twitter presence and was voted the #1 influencer on Big Data by Onalytica.

11.) In a guest post on my blog at the beginning of November, Burtch Works’ entry-level recruiting specialists shared their advice in How to Get Your First Analytics Job.

12.) Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania analyzed social media Big Data to create word clouds showing commonalities by age, gender & personality. Fascinating stuff!

13.) Forbes published my article Five Ways Marketers Can Keep Quants From Quitting in December.

14.) We tallied results from our Flash Survey for analytics professionals about how many are approached via LinkedIn about new job opportunities and how often.

15.) What Design Thinking Can Teach Analytics Professionals was an attention-grabbing article from Data Informed.

With all the attention focused on Big Data, I expect next year to be even busier as more companies look beyond the buzzword and start seeing returns on their investments. The analytics hiring market will continue to heat up, so keep an eye out for my 2014 hiring predictions blog in the beginning of January. For more career advice, blog posts and industry news throughout the year be sure to follow Burtch Works on LinkedIn and Twitter. Happy Holidays everyone!

Market Research Changing with the Times

It should come as no surprise that Social Media is growing and becoming an ever larger force in marketing. As many of you might have seen in Tuesday’s front page article in the New York Times, the Social Media trend is just getting started. Almost every company has a Twitter and Facebook page and you can’t turn on the TV without being bombarded with commercials filled with hashtags and QR codes. While the sheer volume of followers is something many companies are pursuing, it’s what some companies are doing with this data that’s really impressive.

A quick visit to Frito Lay’s Facebook page is a testament to the impact Social Media has on market research. Flaunting an impressive 2.3 million ‘likes,’ Frito Lay is utilizing their Facebook following in a way that’s changing the how we collect data from consumers. The days of focus groups and surveys may be coming to an end, and in their place we see interactive and engaging methods targeting younger demographics and providing more information than traditional surveys do.

The evolution of Social Media is sure to continue and as market researchers, you must be ready and adapt to the change. Of course, what we are seeing in market research can hardly be explained in isolated instances and a few Facebook pages – there are plenty of important factors at play here. I invite you join me this Thursday, August 5^th at 11am CDT for a special webcast that explores these factors and where we are headed in the coming months and years.