It was just 7 years ago when I first heard of this thing called Web Analytics. I had no idea what it was, but a recruiter found me on a career website and believed I had the qualifications necessary. Okay great, I was in graduate school and in the market for a new job….and yikes, I definitely had some homework to do in order to prep for this interview!
What I could find definitely made Web Analytics sound interesting. It was an industry that supported online businesses and involved both creative marketing and geeky data reporting. My personal Ying and Yang, as I like to call it these days; I was drawn to the fact that it seemed to be both a left-brained and right-brained career track.
On my interview day I met John Payne, who at the time was the Director of the DFW Coremetrics office. My first impression of John was amazing – he was passionate, energetic, and I loved his philosophy on hiring. He explained to me that Web Analytics had been around for a while, but was still up and coming and was sure to grow immensely as companies with an online presence realized the value it could provide. He was quite aware that few people had heard of it, very few people had job experience with it, and at the time, no one had studied it in school (at least not in our neck of the woods). John had been working in the industry for quite some time because he came from IBM where they had developed SurfAid, a log based Analytics tool that is no longer on the market. Through these years he had learned that it was going to be next to impossible to find job candidates with experience in the Web Analytics industry. So, he had developed both interview strategies and, in my opinion, a sixth sense for hiring candidates with the aptitude and enthusiasm needed to succeed. Luckily for me, I fit his bill, and landed myself in the industry I continue to call home today.
Four years later, I found myself in John’s shoes, and took what I learned from him to heart. I needed to hire several people to build a Digital Analytics team (the freshly evolved name for our industry), but there was a definite lack of experienced candidates on the market. So, like any good Padawan (yes, that’s a geeky Star Wars reference, thank you very much), I entered the ranks of management and called upon the lessons my mentor had bestowed upon me. Based on my success in building a successful, highly intelligent, passionate, and collaborative analytics team, I can only hope to pass along some of the techniques I applied.
- For entry level analytics roles, I prefer to hire fresh graduates or those with less than 5 years of work experience.I find that these fresh minds adapt to the digital analytics mindset and duel-brained requirements best.
- The degrees that I tend to look for are Marketing, Business, or Information Technology.
- When you ask them what they love about Digital Analytics (and yes, this question or some variation of it is a MUST), they should mention their love of reporting, analyzing data, or looking for trends and anomalies in data. If they don’t express a passion for this sort of thing, they are probably not analysts at heart.
- They should possess the skills necessary to understand the technical aspects of Digital Analytics (tagging, big data, data mining, Excel, etc.), a solid business acumen, as well as strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Regardless of whether they are going to fill a primarily technical or marketing analytics role, the ability to think outside the box and come up with creative solutions is imperative for anyone working in our field. Task-oriented individuals tend to stagnate in their role and have a very hard time providing the insights we strive to deliver.
- Don’t hire carbon copies. Diversity is the key to building a successful team. If you hone in on only certain talents you will limit your team to only those talents. Build a team composed of people who work well with others, but also possess a range of talents and strengths/weaknesses.
- Cross-train, cross-train, cross-train. Poet John Donne said “No man is an island” and this is so very true. Every Digital Analyst has their strengths, weaknesses, areas they love to focus on, and areas they prefer to avoid. It takes more than one analyst to successfully accomplish the goals of a Digital Analytics team. Cross-training, sharing responsibilities, and picking one another’s brain so to speak, are critical and ensure a fresh set of eyes and perspective can be obtained.
- Take the time to be a mentor to your team members. I consider myself a fairly successful Digital Analyst because I had strong mentors along the way; people who saw my strengths and helped me learn to utilize them, as well as acknowledge my weaknesses and both work on them, as well as learn when to seek help from others.The best thing you can do as a manager is help support your team members because when they know they have your support, they will be there to support you. This is a mutually beneficial relationship that will only make everyone’s work life easier and more successful.
I hope that these tips are useful and help illustrate some of the techniques I try to carry on from my own professional mentors. Entering the realm of management adds new challenges to one’s day to day, yet it can be very personally rewarding and enriching. There is nothing I take more pride in than seeing my team succeed and watching them grow and develop. And I would personally like to thank John Payne, now retired, for being, perhaps without realizing it, the source of inspiration for me in my professional leadership endeavors.
Rebecca Visconti
Senior Digital Analyst
LinkedIn profile: www.linkedin.com/pub/rebecca-visconti/7/356/aa9/
Company Website: http://www.verticalnerve.com/
Twitter: @randrewscm