How to hire top market research analysts online in 5 easy steps

Are you looking to hire a market research analyst, but not sure where to start? These employees are a crucial part of an organization’s overall marketing strategy, it’s important to hire the right one for your business. That puts a lot of pressure on you as a recruiter or hiring manager. 

So, how do you go about finding top market research analysts online? The best, fastest, and most effective way is to use our Market Research test as part of your strategy.

We’ll look at how skills testing for this role can be the key to hiring success later. First, we’ll focus on what market research analyst does, the skills they need, what the job entails, and the salary range. We’ll go through these step-by-step so you can use the information as a guide to help you move through the hiring maze.

What does a market research analyst do?

We’re not going to dive deeply into this topic, as it’s not necessary for the scope of this post (which is to help you find top research analysts), but a quick overview of the role will give you an intro into the world of market research if it’s not something you are familiar with already.

Market research analysts are sometimes referred to as market researchers. Their job is to help organizations develop and keep a competitive advantage. They do this by finding and delivering data-backed insights on a range of areas, including competitors, potential markets, and customer behavior.

Market research analysts take the information they find and transform it into insights that an organization can use to assist them in developing marketing campaigns and product launches. 

Market research brings many benefits for an organization, but it can lead to spectacular and costly failures if it’s not done correctly, or the information isn’t acted upon by the company. 

Take Kodak, for example. In the 1980s their market research indicated that digital photography was going to take over from film photography in popularity, and this research was spot on.

Kodak even developed a digital camera but mothballed the project after it realized this camera wasn’t going to help photography film or photo paper sales. The foundation of Kodak’s business model was traditional film photography, and they had invested a lot in photo paper and chemicals. 

Because of this, they decided to ignore the results of the market research to try and save money. The rest, as they say, is history.

Of course, market research is much more complex than this quick snippet implies, so before starting the hiring process, you need to fully understand the role and its responsibilities so you can draw up an accurate job description.

1. Market research analyst role and responsibilities

Let’s kick off by taking a look at the day-to-day job and responsibilities of a research analyst to help you with that job description.

As always, responsibilities can vary according to the employer, but a basic list of expectations should include:

• Monitoring and forecasting sales trends

• Measuring the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and sales strategies

• Doing research to determine the likelihood of a service or product’s success

• Communicating with marketing and sales departments to agree on promotional objectives

• Creating and sending out surveys and opinion polls to collect data

• Evaluating the results of these surveys and polls

• Conducting research on competitors and evaluating the success of their strategies

• Offering advice on how to design, promote and package products

• Assessing customer preferences

• Using software to create and evaluate consumer data

2. Requirements and technical skills for market research analysts

Now we come to the technical skills and job requirements. Market research analysts need previous experience, and a wide range of technical skills as well as soft skills to succeed in the role:

• Proven market research analysis experience

• Ability to interpret large amounts of data

• Ability to work on several tasks simultaneously

• Extensive knowledge of statistical packages (SPSS, SAS, or similar), databases, and MS Office or Google Drive

• Ability to use search engines, web analytics, and business research tools 

• Familiarity with CRM programs

• Good knowledge of different data collection methods, such as polls, focus groups, and surveys.

• Working knowledge of data warehousing, data modeling, and data mining

• Although not always necessary, some companies do require market researchers to know a programming language such as R or SQL.

Many market research analyst jobs require a bachelor’s degree in marketing, statistics, or a related field, and two or three years of experience. However, senior-level roles may require a master’s degree.

While certification isn’t compulsory, having a recognized marketing analyst certificate can be a useful asset for a candidate to have. The International Institute of Marketing Research and Analytics (IIMRA) offers the Certified Market Research Analysis (CMRA) designation to analysts with at least three years of education in a marketing degree program.

We would suggest, however, that you don’t overlook experienced marketing analysts who lack formal degrees or qualifications in the field, as long as they can demonstrate their competence with a skills test and have excellent, verifiable references.

3. Other essential skills for market research analysts

That’s a long list of technical skills, but don’t make the mistake of overlooking the crucial professional soft skills your market analyst will need. If you’re wondering how to evaluate soft skills, we have you covered. You can create a full pre-employment assessment of up to five tests of your choice, and we have a range of technical and soft skills tests in our test library.

We’ll show you how easy it is to create a strong candidate assessment later, but for now, let’s continue with our list of other essential skills for a research analyst and how to assess them:

Great communication skills

When looking for a market research analyst, it’s important for candidates to show that they can communicate effectively with other team members. Good communication skills help analysts devise effective marketing strategies, provide feedback on the progress of campaigns, and work well with other departments. 

A great way to evaluate these skills is to use our Communication test as part of a full pre-employment assessment alongside the Market Research test. 

Reading comprehension

Market research analysts need to read and understand many documents and a variety of data types. A great way to test for skills in this area is to give candidates a Reading Comprehension test to evaluate how they process written information and draw conclusions from it. 

You could also create custom questions for candidates in all our skills tests to make the results more meaningful. For reading comprehension, you could add a text of your choosing as a custom question and evaluate how well the candidate understands it.  

Analytical skills

As the name of the job suggests, market research analysts spend a lot of time analyzing data and statistics in order to improve marketing strategies. We have two tests on this subject, the Exploratory Data Analysis test, and the Working With Data test. Each one covers data analysis and the Working With Data test also assesses what the candidates know about handling data correctly. Choose the test that best suits the specific needs of the role you’re hiring for.

Time management and organizational skills

The market research role involves monitoring several campaigns at once, as well as working with different departments and people. In order to organize their work and time effectively, candidates need a strong grasp of these two important soft skills.

Our Time Management test evaluates how well candidates can prioritize, plan, execute, and reflect on tasks and projects. 

Problem solving

With such a lot of data and information to deal with on a daily basis, a market researcher must be skilled at solving problems. Our Problem Solving test helps you to identify candidates who use analytical skills to evaluate and respond to complex situations.

Research skills

Market research analysts gather statistical data and collect responses about people’s beliefs, opinions, and experiences. This requires strong research and even interviewing skills if some of this data is to be collected from customer interviews or focus groups. 

Another useful skill for market researchers is known as “coding”. This has nothing to do with computer programming but instead refers to the process of taking open-ended comments from surveys and categorizing them to allow for data analysis.

Research can cover several areas, including:

• Primary and secondary customer research

• Investigating new and existing markets

• Research on competing brands

• Discovering how your customers feel about advertising at all phases of a marketing campaign

4. Market research analyst salary range

Now that you know the technical and soft skills market research analysts should have, you need to find out the typical salary range for the role so you can go ahead and complete your job advertisement.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLE) the median annual wage for market research analysts was $63,920 in May 2021. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $37,570, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $128,320, so there is quite a wide range on the salary scale. 

However, it’s worth noting that there is also a difference in the median annual wage depending on what industry the market research analyst works in:

• Management of companies and enterprises: $79,640

• Publishing (but not internet publishing): $79,450

• Finance and insurance: $76,650

• Wholesale trade: $64,090

• Management, scientific, and technical consulting services: $62,650

5. Use our Market Research test as part of an extensive skills assessment

Before you write the job description for a market research analyst and advertise it, consider the best and quickest way to screen your candidates before the interviews.

You’ll no doubt be inundated with CVs and resumes (the average job posting receives around 250 resumes). But, if your heart sinks at the thought of trawling through all the inaccuracies, “alternative facts”, and dry lists of past grades and achievements that are the hallmarks of the CV, then there is a more accurate, fairer, and quicker way to sort those who can from those who can’t.

It’s called a pre-employment skills assessment, and to paraphrase the Heineken larger marketing slogan from the 1980s British ad campaign – it refreshes the areas that mere CVs cannot reach. (Big apologies here to Terry Lovelock, the ad copywriter who created the original, highly successful slogan in 1973).

Skills testing is a modern and data-driven approach to hiring. It doesn’t rely on the information that candidates choose to reveal in their CVs (and who is going to downplay their skills on a resume? They are going to big themselves up in order to get that job). 

Our skills tests are written by subject-matter experts and evaluate the candidates’ actual level of technical and soft skills. Based on the test results, you decide which of the top-scoring candidates you want to invite to the interview: it’s simple, accurate, and fast. No need to risk the eye strain and tension headaches that often come on when dealing with the CV pile.

Anyhow, as we mentioned earlier, our skills assessments consist of up to five different tests of your choosing. They are taken in one sitting, and you receive the results in an easy-to-understand format that ranks your candidates by how well they did in the tests.

As you are hiring for a market researcher, you will want your main test to be our Market Research test. Candidates who perform well on this test have demonstrated knowledge and practical experience in marketing research. They know how to:

• Define the problem and the objectives

• Design and conduct the research

• Have technical knowledge of quantitative and qualitative methodologies

• Prepare and present data

Below are a couple of sample questions from the Market Research test to show you the candidate test environment:

Test screenshots here

If you’re not sure what other tests to combine with the Market Research test, we have a useful guide to the test types, questions, and features we have in order to hire the best talent with skills assessments.

We would suggest testing for the soft or technical skills tests mentioned above, or consider using a personality or cognitive ability test. Take a look at our extensive test library (200+ tests and counting), where you can browse tests or search for a specific term or role. 

We have a job role search result for a market research analyst, which brings up all the tests relevant to the role when you enter the search term (there are currently 19 tests directly related to the market research analyst role):

Screenshot here

Whichever tests you choose to add to your customizable assessment, you’ll be well on your way to finding your next market research analyst.

Hire the best market research analysts with TestGorilla

It can be difficult to hire a top market research analyst unless you have a great deal of knowledge about the role, so we really hope you found our guide to hiring top market researchers online useful. 

We also hope we gave you fresh insight on pre-employment skills assessments and how they can help you hire faster and with much less effort on your part.

We’d love to take the next step of your hiring journey with you. Sign up for your free plan now to get started on building your first assessment. There’s no time limit on this plan – it’s free forever, and is a great way to get started with TestGorilla.

If you want more information or to see how our products work first-hand, book a free 30-minute live demo with our sales team, who will be pleased to answer any questions you may have. If you’re ready to dive right in, head over to our pricing page and check out our range of plans to suit all businesses.