Tips for attracting diverse talent to customer insights

Enhancing consumer insights: The need for greater inclusion of underrepresented groups

Editor’s note: Brett Townsend, SVP of strategy at Quester. Tim Hoskins is the president of Quester. The two are co-authors of the upcoming book “Insights on the Brink.”

When kids, teenagers and even university students try to glimpse at their future, they see any number of professions ... other than consumer insights. However, one of the things to love about this industry is the diversity of backgrounds of everyone who fell into it. We have people who majored and worked in just about everything you can imagine – English, evolutionary psychology, economics, music, sociology, teachers, broadcasters, product developers, marketers, scientists and in general business, just to name a few.

We think the main reason is that our industry developed a diversity problem is that more people are purposely getting into the consumer insights industry. Most of us who took the meandering path to end up here are over 40 years old. We meet more people each year under the age of 40 who have made consumer insights their destination, either through a graduate degree or seeking out insights roles. Because of that, there is now a large talent pool of educated and experienced insights pros from which to fill open positions.

The unintended consequence of this is that we are no longer looking for the diversity of backgrounds that caused a great advance in our industry over the past 20 years. Now that this island of misfit toys has come together, we’ve closed ranks and only hire people who are also in the industry. We are focusing on the wrong skill set for insights roles. 

In a three-month analysis of posted insights positions, we found the same pattern: required experience in consumer insights, and phrases like “deep understanding of methodologies” and “experience managing market research projects,” which severely limits the field of impactful candidates. This is limiting, close-minded and exclusionary to many people – especially to underrepresented races and ethnic minorities; individuals who could bring vast experience and expertise into our profession.

If we are to truly influence our companies and clients, we need to broaden our horizons as to the types of people we hire for insights positions.

1. The consumer insights industry needs great influencers and people with the gift of persuasion.

Influencers can bridge the gaps we currently have when dealing with the daily issues of building cross-functional relationships; coworkers and stakeholders disagreeing with our insights; when introducing new ideas; and when our vision for the company isn’t immediately clear. 

Influencers are people who can build trust in others, are patient, know how to tell a story from different perspectives and illustrate how consumer insights can positively affect other parts of the company. 

Cross-functional work also requires people with strong soft skills, such as critical thinking, empathy and having a growth mind-set. In fact, author Simon Sinek argues that soft skills are required “human” skills everyone should develop. 

2. We need to recruit more charismatic personalities. 

We need great presenters, people who aren’t afraid to speak up and speak out. Gone are the days where we sit quietly in the room and only speak when spoken to. We need people who are willing to go against popular opinion, and that sometimes creates uncomfortable situations – which really is the catalyst for change, especially insights leaders. The charismatic personalities need to be on all parts of the team. Insights leaders must not simply do the bidding of senior leaders.

3. The consumer insights industry needs people who have worked in other parts of business outside of insights.

When we circle the wagons and only hire those with a certain number of years of industry experience, a particular degree or have certain methodological expertise, we increase our chances of working in a vacuum. 

We can be honest about the work we do without minimizing it – in most cases, it’s not rocket science. Many aspects of our job can be taught. What can’t be taught as easily are experiences, business acumen and diverse perspectives.

People from product development, sales and general marketing roles can help us be better in all aspects of our work, from suggesting the best projects to work on, understanding the type of data/insights that are needed, putting together a presentation that hits on the most relevant points and delivering that presentation in a way that resonates with the end users. 

4. Consumer insights needs more people from different races and ethnicities. 

Without question, we need more diversity. For decades, the industry was dominated by white males, as were most industries until the late twentieth century. Over the past 20 years, we have seen a very welcome influx of women entering the industry, and broadening our abilities. But we must recognize that we are currently lacking in the inclusion of underrepresented minorities.

Curious insights professionals can gain meaningful insights into any group of consumers, but there is no substitute for the experience and perspective of actually being a person of color and what that can mean for how effective our industry can be. Through programs like the Insights Association’s IDEAtors or by recruiting from HBCUs, Hispanic-Serving Institutions and other university campuses and introducing students to consumer insights will result is a new pipeline of previously untapped talent.

Given that our industry’s main purpose is to solve problems, and with the ever-decreasing time and resources we’re given to solve them, getting back to the wonderful diversity our industry is known for will be one of the ways we continue our necessary evolution.