Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Job Hunting - Web Analytics 2.what?



I recently got laid off from my job and was thrust back into the search for new employment. While this is stressful it was also an awesome opportunity to learn what others are doing in the field.

Naturally I want to stick with Web Analytics so I started looking on all the big job sites, i.e. Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice, Indeed, etc... What I found was pretty discouraging. There were a few web analytics jobs out there but not many. A lot of them were Business Analysts, Marketing Analyst, or Reporting Analyst positions which only had web analytics as a small subset of their job descriptions.

For the ones I did find it was an interesting interview process to say the least. You keep reading on blogs and in books about Web Analytics 2.0 and providing actionable, customer centric insight but few companies are there yet (at least not in Dallas or Fort Worth, granted, not exactly the analytics hub of the country). A lot of them have just started with Google Analytics or some are hiring because they just got a big tool like Omniture and they don't know what to do with it. When I would bring up things like competitive intelligence or voice of customer (VOC) analysis I would often be greeted with blank stares or a long pause and then I would get something like "I think we have a Customer Insight group in the marketing department that handles that."

I guess my point is this... From an employee perspective I was hoping to find a company that was involved in all of the Web Analytics 2.0 stuff so that I could go in and suck it up like a dry sponge but all the people I have talked to (and there have been many) either A) have not ventured beyond click stream analysis or B) don't know that there is anything beyond click stream analysis, or C) I guess there could be companies doing everything and just are not hiring an analyst right now :)

At first I was hugely disappointed in my findings then I began to think of the enormous opportunities out there. These people only have the tiniest insight into what true web analytics can provide for their business and for someone willing to lead them down that path I have no doubt that glories and riches await. Instead of going into a company and trying to leach knowledge off of someone that has already done the heavy lifting we have the opportunity to go in and be the hero. Time to turn academic theory and knowledge into customer satisfaction and profit!