One of the many benefits of being a member of the American Marketing Association and/or Creative Marketing Unlimited is having a job right out of college. This week we were able to talk to Alex Glembin, a recent graduate of UW-Whitewater and a former member of AMA/CMU.
Tell us more about what you do at your job. Elaborate on the market research part.
I think it might be easier to combine this and describing they typical week. Also, it would be easier to describe the process instead of the typical week as we have multiple projects going on at one time and depending where we are at in the projects, the week will vary. The process starts with collecting the sample and creating the survey.The sample is collected from the records that the client has. We go through multiple checks to make sure that the surveys are designed the way the client wants them to be designed. After they are finalized, we send the surveys to programmers who put it into the program and send it back to us. We then do what is called survey testing in which we go through the programmed surveys and test them. We are looking to make sure that the surveys follow the correct logic and different paths are being assigned correctly so the people who are supposed to take the surveys are taking them and those we don't want taking the surveys are getting terminated. After survey testing, we then go through fielding. This is when all of the surveys are being collected. We go through multiple data sets (prelim, raw, final) to ensure that data is coming back correctly and respondents are being asked what they are supposed to. If anything within a particular record looks to be off, we will do further examination (listening to their interview, comparing against other records, etc.) All of this data checking is done through SPSS so it is important to have a good understanding of SPSS if you are considering market research as a career. After all of the data checking, we will go through what is called populating the report. This is when we enter all of our findings into the report. We will double check these findings by comparing SPSS outputs to WinCross (a program that produces outputs similar to SPSS) in order double check numbers and make sure everything matches. After the report is checked we will make any additional formatting changes and then deliver it to the client.
Why do you think it is important to conduct research?
I think it is important to conduct research because it allows for the companies to gain a better understanding of consumer behavior. The research gives the companies a better understanding of what customers want and what they expect and what the competition is doing. If companies know what the consumer wants and expects it allows them to better tailor their products and services to consumer's wants and needs. This creates better products and services and happier consumers.
How has your past experience with market research helped you with where you are at now?
Past experiences with market research, especially in AMA, CMU, and WISC really helped me in the interview process to get this job. I was able to tell them about the different experiences I had. With each organization being different from each other, I was able to learn different ways to conduct research. There are many different processes and ways of conducting research and I feel like learning different ways through different organizations really helped.
Describe a typical week for a market research position.
Like I said above, each week is different depending on the project we are working on and where we are at in the project.
What are the challenges of working in market research?
One of the biggest challenges for me, personally, is patience. I really learned I have to be patient and follow the process, because if you don't follow the process and you skip one thing, one missed detail could throw the whole project off and you might have to refield data. There is a process, and it is created for a reason and that is something I have learned. Also, you have to be patient with all of the double checking. There are a lot of numbers and different things to look at which takes a lot of time to check. It is important that all of the numbers are correct. If you say the satisfaction rating is 91% when it is really 92%. A difference that small could be the difference between a client meeting their goals and a client not meeting their goals and getting fined for not reaching a certain rating.
What is the best part about your job?
To me, the best part is discovering new trends and looking at historical patterns seeing what has changed from year-to-year. I like investigating why something has changed from year-to-year, what was different and what changed in consumer perceptions.
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