This is an edited version of an article entitled “Writing Better Marketing Descriptions Part 1 (of 2): Describing Job Tasks,” by Karla Ahern and Kit Nordmark, marketing research and consumer insights recruiting specialists at Burtch Works. The original article appeared in the Burtch Works blog.

As experts in marketing research and insights recruiting, clients often ask us for guidance when it comes to job descriptions and how to best communicate a role on paper. Whether you’re a part of a large Fortune 50 company with a long-established research group or a startup organization building out a team, writing the perfect description for an open role can be an intimidating task.

Every company and team is different, and a job description should be tailored for each position to both describe the role at hand, as well as the backgrounds and experience required for the position. This post isn’t meant to serve as an all-encompassing directive, but we want to share some examples to get you thinking and provide a springboard to help you to craft a job description that reflects your specific needs within your organization.

What to include in marketing research job descriptions – an overview:

Before getting into specifics and bulleted content, think about the role holistically and the exact position you’re trying to fill within the organization. At the highest level, any job description should cover:

1. Position scope and responsibilities

What will this person do day-to-day? Monthly? Annually? Will this person be hands-on leading research? Assisting as part of a project team? Or working with vendors to manage research? Make sure to include details so the reader gets an idea of what the role will entail.

2. Skills, requirements, backgrounds needed

What expertise will this person need on day one vs. what can they potentially learn on the job? Use specifics and be clear around what’s absolutely necessary to succeed in the role and what may be more of a nice-to-have skill. Try not to fall victim to including skills and tools that are popular but won’t actually be needed in the role. Qualified candidates may be dissuaded from applying if they see skills such as predictive modeling or R listed on the job description when in reality these will be handled by the analytics team.

3. Position within the organization

Where does this role fall within the broader organization? Is it part of the marketing team within a client-side organization? Will it be working on a specific portfolio of products or brands? Or on the supplier-side, will it be dedicated to a specific practice or client vertical?

4. Detailed bullet points adapted to the specific role

These professionals are often innately curious and researchers at heart, so they appreciate detailed information! Make sure to include distinction based on seniority or position level if necessary (i.e. if it’s a research analyst or associate manager, clarify whether the position will be assisting in research projects or in a support role vs. leading initiatives and managing client relationships). It also may be helpful to list the size of the team and to whom the position will be reporting.

Now that you’re ready to tackle a job description, let’s get into the specific content you may want to consider. This post will help you think about tasks and responsibilities you can incorporate to ensure your job description describes the specific role and what the position will entail.

How to Describe Marketing Research Job Tasks

Overall tasks and responsibilities

In a nutshell, research and insights professionals work to understand business questions and needs, and then leverage research to provide actionable insights. Some examples include:

  • Utilize a variety of information and data sources, plus internal resources, to develop insights, providing a competitive advantage for the organization
  • Develop clear, actionable recommendations that guide business strategy and drive growth and/or new product development
  • Create actionable insights to inform strategy and accelerate informed data-driven decision-making through research, consumer trend tracking, and competitive/market intelligence
  • Develop the connection between a business issue/opportunity, key hypotheses and research objectives/methodologies

Designing compelling research

Whether it’s a client- or supplier-side position, most will be fairly hands-on (depending on seniority) with creating research plans or strategies to address internal or external clients’ needs. Some examples include:

  • Develop and lead holistic, comprehensive research plans; ensure projects are designed to ask the right research questions and address important business issues
  • [Client-side] Understand internal business units’ objectives and translate into RFP to bid out to vendor partners
  • [Supplier-side] Understand client objectives and create research proposals to outline recommended research plan design, specific methodologies, schedule and budget
  • [Supplier-side; some client-side] Create survey questionnaires or discussion guides, development of sampling strategy, analysis/tabulation plans and quality control to assess accuracy and completeness

Managing research projects

Most research positions have some project management responsibilities, and it generally varies by seniority. Some examples include:

  • Lead research related to primary/secondary sources of marketplace trend data
  • Manage the design and execution of a mix of primary market research projects; effectively share results to facilitate data-driven decision making
  • Coordinate full life cycle research, ensuring quality, timeliness, scheduling/oversight of field operations, survey programming/fielding, data processing and reporting

Examples of research methodologies, techniques, and tools

Most positions in the field will be working on specific types of research to gather insights. It will vary by company and position, and some general buckets include:

  • Quantitative: A&U, innovation, concept testing, product development, drivers/barriers segmentation, brand positioning, brand health/equity tracking, advertising/communications testing, copy testing, effectiveness/measurement, VOC, customer experience, pricing and promotions work, etc.
  • Qualitative: Focus groups, IDIs, in-context research, ethnography, online qual, etc.
  • Communities: Bulletin board research, online diaries, quick-turnaround quantitative, etc.
  • Syndicated and/or Category Management: Nielsen, IRI, POS data, panel data, NPD, category/competitive assessments, etc.
  • UX: Usability testing, user experience research, etc.
  • Tools: Qualtrics, Survey Monkey, Sawtooth, Tableau, Advanced Excel (VLOOKUP, Pivot Tables, etc.), SPSS; max-diff, discrete choice, conjoint, regression, multi-variate testing, Van Westendorp, etc.

The article will continue to outline marketing job tasks in Part 2.