IQ Workforce Blog

We have had the privilege of partnering with the Web Analytics Demystified team on several fronts over the past couple of years. First we sponsored their job board for web analytics positions… then we became global sponsors of Web Analytics Wednesdays.

Nobody has done more for the web analytics community than Eric Peterson. Eric founded the Yahoo! web analytics group, he co-founded Web Analytics Wednesdays, has penned may of the most widely-read books and white papers on web analytics, he co-sponsors the industry’s best event (the X Change Conference), he volunteers his time to speak at seemingly every conference, and most recently his team launched the Analysis Exchange – potentially a real game changer for the industry.

Eric has always said that web analytics is all about process and people. Web Analytics Demystified has always helped organizations with process.

Through a partnership with IQ Workforce that was announced yesterday, they have the capability to help their clients identify the people that they need to compete and succeed on web analytics.

Working together, Web Analytics Demystified and IQ Workforce will help companies define their web analytics roles, organize their teams and select the very best talent in the marketplace.

The service will be offered to Demystified clients at a fixed price and will operate largely outside the limitations of the company’s HR organization.

Read the press release about this partnership.

Read about Web Analytics Demystified’s Staffing and Resource Allocation offering (powered by IQ Workforce)

Posted in: Web & Marketing Analytics by Corry Prohens
No Comments »

Here is the situation… Your Web Analytics Manager position has been open for two months and Suzie in HR is not sending the candidates that you need.  Apparently these people don’t respond to ads on Monster and Linkedin.

You call Suzie and say, “Suzie, this is not working. Why don’t you call some recruiting firms for help.  There are not a lot of these candidates on the market… it looks like we are going to have to pay a recruiting fee.”

There are two paths that Suzie can take.  Path #1 is the right path (leads to success).  Path #2 is wrong and stupid and the moral of this story will ultimately be that Suzie needs to stop taking Path #2.

Here is how Path #2 usually plays out:  Suzie calls a bunch of the search firms that litter her inbox with spam and a handful that she has worked with in the past.  She decides that she will cast a wide net and has faith in her superior resume screening ability to find the right candidates from all of these firms.

Here is what happens:  Suzie casts her net wide by engaging 5 recruiting firms with various areas of expertise… some of them even understand the position.

Within 2 or 3 days candidates start telling the recruiters from these 5 firms that they already spoke to another recruiting firm about this position.  The 5 firms realize that they are chasing their tails and everyone stops.

Now the market has been littered with half-started conversations and nobody is working on the search… except maybe 1 or 2 firms that are desperate for jobs and will work on anything…

A few weeks go by and Suzie doesn’t have the candidates that she needs.  So what does she do?  Sign up 5 more search firms!  More search firms = more resumes right?!?

If Suzie had gone straight to Path #1 all of this could have been avoided.

Path #1 involves Suzie and/or the hiring manager RESEARCHING the best recruiting firm in the country for this niche.  They should have INVESTED time into PARTNERING with this firm to give them all of the information and support that they need to be successful.  The hiring manager should have offered herself for quick, ongoing feedback and discussion.

What Suzie does not realize is that there might only be a handful (often 5-10) of candidates in her local market that fit 75% of the qualifications for her job.  Why would you sign up 5 firms to find 5-10 people?

The best recruiting firm in the country will allocate appropriate resources, leverage their network and find the 2-3 candidates with the right skills, experience, motivation and fit factors. If these candidates don’t exist, they will give valuable feedback on how to rethink the qualifications.  Everyone kicks a goal.

Posted in: Web & Marketing Analytics by Corry Prohens
2 Comments »

Until recently, the only credentialing / certification that was available to web analytics professionals was through the vendors and was obviously product-specific.

The Web Analytics Association has been working on a community-wide certification program for a while.  A few weeks ago they launched the Web Analyst Certification Program.  The program is broken down into three components / areas of expertise:

1.  Site Optimization:

• Persona development
• Visitor activity analysis
• On-Site Search
• Navigation and Site Analysis
• Content Analysis
• Site technology
• Optimizing for Conversion
• Tracking visitor behavior and value over time

2.  Marketing Campaign Measurement:

• Measuring beyond click-through
• Set-Up and Maintenance of PPC Campaigns
• Measuring email campaign effectiveness
• Setting up Application Tools
• Display advertising
• Understanding what can be tracked and measured
• Tracking brand, buzz ad PR
• Online / Offline qualitative data

3.  Creating and Managing the Analytical Business Culture:

• For some reason these criteria are not outlined on the WAA site

You can see that the WAA is looking for BROAD knowledge of measurement across the whole digital space.  Within Marketing Campaign Measurement, for example, it is difficult to find analytics professionals with expertise in any 2 or 3 of these, much less all.

Apparently this will not be a quick and easy certification stamp.  There are probably only a couple hundred people in the world that can sit down and nail any of these tests without considerable study and preparation.

If you think you are one of them… or you are interested in starting the process and working toward certification, the WAA will be administering the test at the eMetrics Summit in San Jose next month.

From an employer’s standpoint, it is comforting to know that if a WAA Certified Web Analyst shows up in your office for a consulting engagement or a new job, they know their stuff.  You are not even eligible for certification until you have three years of work experience in web measurement.

IF the WAA is successful with this program and IF certification becomes recognized by the community as the standard for excellence, it will undoubtedly elevate the entire field.  Practitioners will be forced to understand analytics across the digital spectrum… not just in one or two disciplines.  Your chances for delivering insightful analysis skyrocket when you understand digital measurement across channels… not just how to operate a handful of tools.

If the program gets traction it would be a dream come true for organizations that are not toward the top of the food chain on Stephane Hamel’s Web Analytics Maturity Model (the vast majority of the companies in the world) and want to hire top-notch talent to help elevate their business.  It would be a dream come true for HR people around the world, and it would be an awesome differentiator for consulting companies and independent consultants.

All of these things are good for our business, and good for the community, so we are rooting hard for this program to take root.

Posted in: Web & Marketing Analytics by Corry Prohens
2 Comments »

Companies that are good at recruiting talent have huge competitive advantage in the marketplace.  Companies that that recruit poorly damage their brands.  With so much at stake it is amazing how few companies invest the time and resources into doing it properly.

If you have a team to build or rebuild, or if you just want to improve the level of talent in your organization, we have put together the cheat sheet below.  These thirteen simple steps will enable you to lower recruiting costs, improve your time-to-hire on tough positions, improve the fit factors of your hires and protect (even enhance) your brand.

1. Set priorities on each job.  Separate the skills and experience that you WANT from the skills and experience that you NEED.
2. Invest a few minutes into figuring out the right motivation and fit factors for your candidates (not just skills and experience).
3. Invest a few minutes into figuring out the best process:  eliminate steps that add little or no value.
4. Invest a few minutes into figuring out who the decision makers are and who the influencers are.  At the end of the process allow the influencers to influence and the decision makers to decide.
5. Figure out your geographic scope.  These skills are hard to find… especially when you bundle them with the right motivation and fit factors.  Decide whether you are open to relocating the right people to you.
6. Figure out whether you are open to remote workers.
7. Create compensation ranges that reflect the market value of the skills and experience that you are trying to attract.  Consult with an expert in the field to help establish these ranges.
8. Be careful not to damage your brand. Remember that when you recruit talent you are opening the kimono to the outside world and showing how your company functions. Be sure to provide timely and relevant feedback to everyone you interview.
9. Have objective criteria for qualification.  Divide the responsibility for this among the interviewers:  Make each interviewer is responsible for delving into a specific area of qualification.  Ask them write their own interview questions in advance of the interview.  “I liked him,” or, “I thought he was good,” are not the responses that you want.  “He rated 7 out of 10 in my area” is what you want.
10. Focus on the job that needs to be done… not the one that comes after that job.  It is hard enough to fill one role.
11. Consider a contractor/freelancer.  If you find yourself “buying a skill” or just hiring someone to perform a very specific set of tasks that will change in 6-12 months or go away altogether, consider bringing in an expert in that function to kill it and move on.  It is easier, cheaper and more effective.  Everyone kicks a goal.
12. Don’t ask too much of HR. HR is brilliant for general recruiting. They are great at running ads, searching resumes, screening candidates and managing the whole process.  When it comes to specialty, niche recruiting they often want to defend all of this turf.  Not a good idea.  Good people get passed over, communication and feedback gets bottle-necked, the process gets slowed and your chances for success plummet.  Amazing but true:  We fill 86% of our positions when we interact primarily with hiring managers.  We fill 17% when we interact with HR.
13. Work with an expert.  Not 10 experts.  When the position(s) are urgent it is tempting to engage as many candidate sources as possible.  Bad idea.  You reach a point of diminishing returns very quickly when you engage multiple search firms.  There is no way that you can have real partnerships with more than two… provide adequate background info, relevant and timely feedback, etc.  The better firms will quickly lose interest.  One partner is ideal.  If you absolutely must, engage two.  Any more than that and you are hurting yourself.

There is nothing here that is hard to do or hard to understand.  It is not about having an elaborate, cutting-edge strategy.  It is about executing.  This is the blocking and tackling of recruiting.  If you do these well you will be part of an elite minority and you will have a chance to cream your competition.

Posted in: Web & Marketing Analytics by Corry Prohens
No Comments »

An elevator pitch is a 30-60 second sound bite that explains who you are and what you do.  Per the name, you are supposed to be able to deliver it before the elevator doors open at the lobby. You are supposed to use plain and simple language so that anyone, in any context, can understand what you are saying. It is your verbal essence.  Isn’t that a shampoo brand?

For me it would be, “Hi, I’m Corry Prohens.  I recruit web analytics and digital media people for positions all over the world.  I place contractors and full-time analytics talent.  We are the top recruiting firm in the world for our little niche.”

That is what I boil down to.  That’s what I do every day.  Sure, I do other stuff too, but there is no room for everything in your elevator pitch.  Just your verbal essence (cue the hair model).

This week we are asking people to record their elevator pitch for the video tab on our Facebook page.

For one thing it is a great exercise – you should be able to nail this one when you are a cocktail party, a conference or literally in an elevator.

It is also a great way to market your services.  Our Facebook page is growing like crazy and it is great place to get your pitch on record for a very relevant audience.  Presentation skills are paramount in almost all disciplines of digital analytics.  If you can’t succinctly tell your own story how can you be expected to develop an intelligible story out of a bunch of clickstream or search data?

Finally, it is just about the easiest way that you can earn a $25 gift card to Amazon.  Yes, we are issuing $25 a pop for each video elevator pitch that is uploaded.

After your elevator pitch if you want to go on to give MORE info about yourself… even a complete video resume, please feel free.

I know it takes some nerve to record your (I won’t say verbal essence again) self and post it out there for everyone to see.  I hate the way I look on that thing.  I need makeup and lighting people, damn it!  I can’t work under these conditions!    I look ridiculous in that welcome video, but it’s out there and I prefer to image that when people get done making fun of me, at least they will remember who I am and what I do.

So go on and post your video.  It will do you good on at least three fronts.

Posted in: Web & Marketing Analytics by Corry Prohens
No Comments »