A - I was teaching and became interested in the overall research process, information gathering, and areas like that. Custom-designed research is probably the most highly respected field in the industry. You don't walk in with a standard product and say, "Here it is, can you use it?" You say, "What do you need?" So I got into a firm known for their custom research.
- I actually was in a co-op program while I was in school. When I started full time with the same company, I was in the chain relations department.
- After graduation I began to work with a marketing research firm, basically number crunching. I was hand-tabulating data from surveys.
- I was working on a Ph.D. in economics when. I decided that I didn't really want to do that. I decided that the area of marketing research would be more exciting.
A -The people we are hiring right now usually have an M.B.A., and most of them have a concentration in marketing research. The start in what is called an executive training program and spend about six months in the field doing telephone interviewing. Then they become an assistant project director for about six more months. After about a year, they become a project director and are handling projects themselves.
- There are some people that come in and go right out and start selling, but they usually have quite a few years' experience. Since research is such a technical product, it takes quite a while to really learn what is going on. In anywhere from eight to twenty months I will be moving from project manager into a client services position. Lately we've been hiring mostly people with master's degrees, at least in the project director, analyst, and client service path.
- Entry-level positions would be in any of the four functionary positions-chain relations, field supervisor, distribution tracking, and product pick-up.
A - In a nutshell I answer questions and report to the client. Other departments of our company generate lilt! I interpret and communicate the data to the client in a way that answers the questions that prompted the research in the first place. Once everything else has gone through the various departments here, including the field department, which gathers the data, and the data processing department, which processes the data and puts them in tabular form, I ultimately deliver the report and field questions about it.
I get involved at the very beginning of a project in getting it off the ground. I oversee data collection, and I am involved at the end to make sure that everything went according to plan.
A project director's responsibilities are to oversee all the functions that get a report to a client and to make sure that the questionnaire is administered properly in the field, that the data processing people understood how the data analysis should be processed, and that the results are in the correct form.
- I very seldom make recommendations. When I write an analy sis, all I say is what each number means. Most of the time I send the results to a person involved with the firm that hired us, and they make the recommendations.
- Many clients don't want us to do any analysis. We probably do analysis on about 45 percent of our studies, sometimes because there is no need for analysis, or because the client is very large and has its own analytical staff.
- I usually dictate my reports on tape. I might run graphs on the computer if I think a graphical representation of the data would be appropriate. Most of my time is spent going through reams of data looking for answers to questions. I begin a report with a set of goals or questions that the client has presented and search through the data to answer those questions.
Q - What are the steps you go through for a typical project?
- I take care of all the nuts and bolts in running a research project. When we write up a questionnaire, we follow standard research practices. I don't "lead" the respondents, don't try to direct them in a certain, area, and don't try to lead them to a certain response. That can be a real danger, especially when trying to prove something to be true or untrue. Most clients are pretty objective, and it doesn't do them any good to get worthless information.
Once it goes into the field, I make sure everything runs smoothly, whatever that takes. Then I set up the computer runs. I don't actually go over and punch everything into the computer, but I make sure that the client's specifications are considered and that the cross tabulations are set up correctly. When the report is run through the computer, I check to see that all the numbers are coming out right, that responses that should have been recorded appear, that all the percentages are accurate, and that all the necessary tables are run. And then, if necessary, I write up the report and send it out.
- After the client contacts an account executive with a research request, the field project directors put together a questionnaire and in some cases program the questionnaire into the computer. Then the project goes to the field, supervised by the project director. The data go to the data processing department after being collected. I then put the data into a written report.
A -The average workweek is probably around forty-five hours, although it can go above that. It depends on the week. It's possible to spend sixty hours here, depending on what major problems come up and depending on how many studies need to go out in the course of a week. It's feast or famine. Last Thursday and Friday we didn't have a lot to do; today three studies came in, and I've got fourteen hours of work to do.
Q - We know a little about custom research. What's involved in sales research?
- When we are awarded the job, the account executive issues a job order giving all the specifications of the job. As director of field operations, it comes over to me, and there are a few main groups that I work with.
