#004: As an Analyst, When Is It Time to Move On?

The following is a straight-up machine translation. It has not been human-reviewed or human-corrected. We apologize on behalf of the machines for any text that winds up being incorrect, nonsensical, or offensive. We have asked the machine to do better, but it simply responds with, “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

[00:00:25] Hello. Welcome to the digital analytics power hour.

[00:00:28] This is Episode 4. I’m Michael Hublin Director of Analytics at search discovery in Atlanta Georgia on the show today. We’ve got our other two hosts is Jim Kane. He is the CEO of napkin and Babbage systems. Hey Jim and you and of course Tim Wilson a partner at web analytics demystified and all around good guy. Hello Neighbor. Sounds like a good guy thing to say.

[00:00:59] It was going to cost me a good guy.

[00:01:00] Yeah. No respect at all. So guys today we’re tackling kind of an interesting topic. It’s a little bit subjective but it really has to do something that’s kind of really important to our industry which is how an analyst decides whether to stay in the position they’re at or to seek a new employee or go to the next job. You know one of the things that is true about our industry is there’s unprecedented career mobility.

[00:01:29] It’s very easy to find a new position to go find a new job and to take a new position. A lot of times that comes with an increase in pay and potentially an increase in title and responsibility. So what we’re going to do today is we’re going to try to break that down and look at that decision making process a little bit. You know one thing that can happen in a conversation like this is that some of the things we talk about could be perceived as generic or any business person could kind of apply some of these principles but we know this about web analytics and digital analytics is that the people in this space are very special and I don’t mean that in a. Okay. And if Adam came in and Jim Kane sort of way. How

[00:02:09] am I always to do it. All right.

[00:02:17] So you know as we look out at that and look at web analytics professionals in the market today we’re a very unique bunch and we are you know pretty specialized. And as such we have a sort of a unique set of considerations when thinking about how to approach this decision making process. So first off let’s set the stage Tim Wilson get us kicked off and start talking about when that decision making process starts ticking for someone.

[00:02:47] Are the kinds of things that are probably going on in their work environment and their job that might get somewhere to that point and then what are some positive and or negative indicators about how that decision making process maybe should line up for someone to actually put that well and that it’s like there’s a there are positive sparks and there are negative sparks and you know the positive sparks are ready for the next thing I’m getting bored.

[00:03:17] I need to be pushed more. I’m ready. I’m really truly ready to take the next step. Those are all kind of I’m feeling myself good to complacency and I know that I’m going to make me want to beat my head against the wall the negative Sparks I think are more the companies my my company just doesn’t get it. I make recommendations and they don’t go anywhere. It’s a down economy. And I didn’t get a big pay raise but I still should have. And I think there’s kind of an important level of introspection to say and I’m moving on for a reason where it’s actually going to me move me forward to be in a in a better spot.

[00:03:59] And man I’m hearing myself sound like the generic platitude because there are so many frustrations that can happen for analysts and kind of deciding when are you going to take those frustrations where they are and use them the kind of power yourself forward. I’m going to educate people more I’m going to find ways to do better analysis versus when you of throw your hands up and say hopefully it’s better at the next place. But I don’t really know why it would be me and I’ll stop there because I feel like that’s kind of going nowhere.

[00:04:31] No that’s that Dharti.

[00:04:33] So let’s let’s let Jim play a little bit of devil’s advocate on some of that Tim be flat because he always contradicts me and says I’m wrong no matter what I say the sky is blue with him you couldn’t be more wrong. The fate of Okkur sir.

[00:04:54] Yeah I don’t have the same. I don’t have any anecdotes I don’t have the same level of experience you guys do. I wanted to be a so much I had to start my own company. You know I mean I like this work but I have never been able to do it for anybody else until six years ago when I started napping.

[00:05:09] So how did that actually go.

[00:05:11] Did you did you leave the sales job to start napkin No I was I was doing analysis to close deals. So I learned how to do it but as a sales person as part of the solution. And I really enjoyed it and I realized actually that that dovetails nicely into the topic. I sat there about seven years ago and I realize there are tons of companies selling off terabytes of data and they have great questions and no one to answer them. So I actually started napkin to fill the void left by the hole in the marketplace for talent. So call that into and get 20 percent off your first purchase. But what’s interesting is that you know five six years ago there was there were guys like us you know people who had came out of the server room in the sales department or the marketing group. There was a small core of experienced people and there was a smaller pool of jobs that could do good advice right now and you look for web analytics or business analysts say 40000 jobs. I mean there’s way more demand and there is supply. And I think your anecdotes aren’t particularly relevant to a lot of the listeners either because you can be a 22 year old with Yeah I’ll look at Google Analytics once and get 80 grand you know I mean you don’t need a whole lot of experience to put Web analyst on your business card and have the recruiter start calling organizations you know who’s going to call you out on it because they don’t know better.

[00:06:35] And the last point I’d make is that you know especially in Ottawa which has a large tech quarter but mostly developed it know like Nortel and companies like that that don’t exist anymore.

[00:06:48] But you know I’ve seen hardcore recruitment drives on certain types of technologists. So for example Shopify is based in Ottawa and you can literally say I looked at Ruby on Rails once in grade 8 and they’ll hire you. Recruiters will call your mom’s house and take you. I’ve never seen as aggressive a recruitment drive for a non technologist role as I have seen around business analyst and web analysts in particular. Every analyst I know gets a call a week from a recruiter and you know if you’re 23 and if you’re starting your career it’s kind of dangerous.

[00:07:24] Gascony well and I think that’s actually one of the things that is really important about this conversation which is it’s so easy to run away from something problematic in your current position by just taking one of those phone calls or returning one of those emails. It is not hard. And you know frankly once a week is lean that means candidates not doing so great. I guess I just think that it’s more than that and the the other thing about it is what I’ve noticed over time is that it allows us to develop a nasty habit which is to not fix what’s wrong in ourselves and always look for the ideal opportunity in the new location. And because of that mobility we we basically don’t mature as professionals or we have the risk of not maturing as professionals. And I think that’s something that like it should be very concerning to all of us to enable and practicing analytics today. That should be a very concerning thing like am I giving myself the opportunity to really become a true expert in this space or really somebody who really has the bona fides to do this very very well at a very high level.

[00:08:46] It is funny because there are a couple people in there both way younger than I am here in common. They’ve both been doing analytics for multiple years. And one of them has taken sort of multiple jobs and has moved every you know probably you know nine months to three years. And that person is good friends with somebody who has moved once in I think five or six years. And I know because I’ve talked to both of them about it. They kind of both point fingers at each other and the one says you’re going to get labeled as a job hopper when the other one says you’re not really moving and challenging yourself you’re settling into complacency and the fact is I think they they both have you know totally legitimate points I don’t think analysts get labeled is as job hoppers.

[00:09:39] I mean they may they maybe like your job harder but shit I’ve got to fill. I got three analysts I got to hire you know I got to take a risk I did it somebody in the seat maybe this will be the place you stick around. Right. And to me there’s there’s that sort of spectrum as well and it’s everybody’s got to it’s going to be situational based on the role. Like if you’re at an agency you’re probably getting more new scenarios thrown at you and a much more rapid pace because you know you get a new client and they have a totally different world. You’re probably going to be you know a little more challenging. And when it will be there will be kind of new things coming along. Sure. More often.

[00:10:21] But then there’s the opposite side of that coin which so rarely happens in the agency setting which is the depth of analysis and the ability to actually see results flow all the way through the business cycle which is what an analyst practitioner inside of a company is getting the opportunity to execute against.

[00:10:37] So I don’t think that’s where that’s where inside inside the company that can go two ways you can say I’m getting more senior and deeper and I’m getting into deeper analyses which is fantastic.

[00:10:48] But there’s also the I’m now the I’m the reporting Mikey and I produce this weekly report and these monthly reports and this quarterly report and I’m pigeonholed into into what I’m doing and I’m not saying it’s by no means a it is one or the other agency or at highest it happens on the agency side too right really smart people get stuck producing the same report for two years for the same client because that’s how they’re staffed. Yep yep. Oh absolutely. But I know a lot of times I compare it to this concept of breadth versus depth. You know on the agency side you’re going to see a large breadth of things you’re going to experience a lot of different looks right like what you said and I feel like on the practitioner side if you’re able to exit if you’re able to work in a really any kind of decent analytics department you’re going to get depth of knowledge about the specifics of that business and you’ll have an opportunity to contribute to that business in a meaningful way. There is a lot of reasons why and actually the reasons why you might move on from either one of those positions I think actually might be little different. Right. Because the why I might leave an agency might be a little different than why I might leave an industry job.

[00:12:01] So what we’re trying to tease that apart a little bit and have a look at is somebody who I left I left an agency job after three years at an agency job and I joined the agency experienced and I got a baptism by fire from when it came to tools and platforms and and industry verticals and I had the opportunity to say Oh yeah I’m going to come in and talk to these people about how to do analytics right. And what I didn’t realize was kind of how how much repeated and painful and laborious education that you know here’s here’s what it really would be to do analytics right. And that’s not a knock on the agency and it’s not entirely a knock on the clients. But after three years I had gotten to the point where I am now repeating the same conversations I have made a difference but I am exhausted and it is time for me to move on to kind of the next the next challenge. So

[00:13:12] but the point that you’re making that I think is a valid one. I mean when you’re when you’re starting with even Hyōgikai that I made a valid point.

[00:13:20] I think he was talking about me.

[00:13:21] I don’t know if I was looking at a mirror.

[00:13:28] When you start a new career period like you could be a line cook or a mechanic or working in a bartender or a bartender or bartender you have to do a lot of shitty work repeatedly for a while before you learn the fundamentals and you’ve earned the right to do more interesting things.

[00:13:47] But it worked. It’s not it’s not shitty work when you’re doing it the first time somebody says Tell me how many visits.

[00:13:53] How many page views this page got. That’s my shitty work. The first second third or even tenth time because it’s kind of the magic of going into this tool and I’ve answered this question but I’m not cut you off because I was thinking in my mind that you’re going to at some point it does become shitty work and maybe that’s a that’s a trigger.

[00:14:12] That you need to stick around long enough for you go. I can do this in the dark with both hands tied behind my back. So either how do I have all this into something more interesting because I’m evolving or or how do I increase kind of my scope internally like my first week on the job. This report took the entire week. Now it takes me 14 minutes. So what else can you know. And then that’s the thing I worry about with people who are job hoppers in this particular industry because you know you don’t you don’t learn how to dig dig trenches and then all of a sudden you get a job where you get to architect the building. And you know I’ve worked with and I get to go out on a limb and say that you guys have worked with practitioners before who have a senior role.

[00:14:54] They talk great and they don’t know shit from shinola because they’ve never had to do hard work well before and I think that you know a lot of people who do a lot of job hopping in 10 years from now are getting hit a really hard barrier in their career where people go. That person with aggressively overpromoted and they don’t have the chops to back it up.

[00:15:16] And that’s kind of going back to kind of what I said originally which is you know are you at risk of doing that. You know I think as I’m listening I’m hearing I’m hearing something and I’m kind of pulling it into a thought which is I need to as an analyst coming in I need to kind of learn the ropes I need to learn the skills I need to develop the skill set. And a lot of the basically the fulcrum of how to decide whether or not now is the time for me to kind of go off and do the next thing is whether or not I think I’m ready for what’s the next kind of level of or step in my evolution as a as an analyst and whether or not my company feels the same way as giving me those opportunities. Right. That’s so fundamental and I think a lot of that comes back down to trust. So often there’s a disagreement about what I’m ready to do versus what my company is telling me they think I’m ready to accomplish. Right. And so obviously my response that as well OK fine I’m going to go here and prove you wrong because I’m I know I’m ready. And for a lot people that works out great other people it doesn’t work out so great. The point be is there’s a level of trust like OK you know what I know you’re looking out for me as an employee and as an analyst I know that you’re putting a half in front of me that I believe in.

[00:16:33] I’ll stay here to gain those capabilities on this time frame that you’re kind of putting in place. Honestly I feel like we lack a lot of patience in that capacity to do that and we lack a lot of trust and I’m not saying that that lack of trust isn’t merited. In fact in a lot of cases it probably is because a lot of companies have no idea how to develop an analyst. They have no idea how to give them that next level.

[00:16:59] How to keep it interesting so that six months as it turned into 18 months of the same boring routine can you kind of be an abstract what when you say give me so many things the easy one is people say I’m ready to manage and we can have a whole little discussion around that. The what other analyst. The Amedee for the next level. A lot of times the analyst doesn’t even really know exactly what the next level is not that boring crap I’m doing right now. That’s

[00:17:27] a fair question. So I mean just off the top of my head I can think of Hey presenting our analysis and findings in front of key stakeholders in the business right. You’re going to let me be the one up front giving the presentation. That’s a big responsibility. The weight of the analysis and recommendation is falling on your ability to communicate. So that’s a really big you know that’s a big step potentially for analysts getting that opportunity should be considered.

[00:17:52] I would consider that a big step forward in terms of responsibility that goes to your protecting that if if you do that prematurely and fall flat on your face you now have set yourself way back.

[00:18:04] You’re not going to get consensus because of trusts because of credibility once lost is almost never regained in the same organization. Yep because you as an analyst if the CMO knows that you’re kind of a dummy who doesn’t know what they’re talking about or doesn’t understand the business they’re never going to listen to you again. Well chances are the CMO won’t be there if only seven months they’re gone three years whatever it is. And honestly the tenure for an analyst isn’t that long either right. I’ve actually heard people say well I don’t want to leave you I want to have at least a year on my resume at this place before I move on. That’s 20 years ago. How unheard of would that be.

[00:18:44] You know that’s a quick little tangent right. So what happens when you do lay an egg and I look at an elected office that I’ve worked with who kind of did that.

[00:18:56] They basically didn’t necessarily have the communication skills like that specific example and maybe they weren’t right given the opportunity prematurely it just happened that they presented that happened.

[00:19:08] They rubbed senior people the wrong way. And.

[00:19:12] A year 18 months later they still even though they had professionally develop their skills and their chops dramatically and were actually much much better analysts had addressed that they still cannot overcome that. That credibility that’s the time to move on. I mean I think some level of self-awareness. You know I I did leave one job kind of years ago when I realized that whether or not the people I was working with the seniors were the senior people were aware of it I could kind of see that I sort of started down the path where they were going to get tired of me being cranky and pissy and I’d done it enough that I thought you know what it’s time to move on and get a fresh start and try to not be as cranky I mean I think what I’ve learned about myself is that I’m going to be cranky and pissy but I like to think in a you know adorable or grumpy way. But I think that’s actually a legitimate reason to move on. If he said you know what that person has it out for me for whatever reason and frankly it may be I mean ideally he can say it’s probably because I didn’t handle myself all that well on that one. Are those two occasions and I’ve made the effort to mend that relationship. I feel like analysts wind up in that boat a lot. They get frustrated. They know they’re saying the right things but they’re not saying what wants to be heard.

[00:20:38] And if that’s not managed well you can wind up being kind of a little bit of a pariah and you’re just not going to recover from that.

[00:20:46] Did you refer to yourself as adorable and you’re like I know this now you’re going to tell me I’m wrong.

[00:20:53] Absolutely.

[00:20:54] No RV for me to call you wrong that now.

[00:20:56] I’ve got my tombstone written right there in Howard’s lead Tim. I’ve never had the experience of falling flat in an analysis but didn’t blow be skinny. No. So I think there is a road to recovery right. And it has a lot to do with who’s around you and how the your boss and your department and your team can kind of pick some of that up because you you inherit credibility also from your group right. But if you’re the only show in town if you’re the single analyst and you basically know the CMO is not Cumi the time of day. I once had somebody talking to me about their job and they’re like my boss won’t even make eye contact with me. I was like Okay you need to move on quickly but you need to go now. Like I got to give you some names you’re going to call these numbers and they’re going to start helping you with your job search.

[00:21:53] You know what I think is interesting is the way back in episode 1 we were talking about personal development and things that you can be working on the kinds of skills that we are talking about and the types of assets that you should learn how to produce to be a really good analyst are things that you wouldn’t be able to do or pull off in the wrong organization. And so like if you’re working in a company where you don’t have access we use this phrase a lot at the office called Access to power. If you’re working in a company and you’re and I hear this a lot from from kind of single personality in enterprises. So how do people ask you for work. Will people just fire me e-mails regardless of where they sit on the org chart. Anybody can ask you a question and it’s equally weighted. Yes. Do I do any of those people have a title above manager. No. Okay that’s a problem. You know you’re not going to be able to talk in that that first. I guess we did about you know executive reporting and storytelling and supporting decisions and then you know sophisticated things if you’re in an organization where anyone can go Hey how many people bounced on my e-mails landing page. And it’s important that needed yesterday you either need to learn how to change the culture or you need to find a new culture. If you make a list of things where I want to be someone who can do this I ought to be a data scientist in five years or the CMO in ten years.

[00:23:17] And you’re not in an organization that will support you in terms of developing those things. Find one from where you fit in. You know I do go back to my original point that if if you’re if you’re just doing the hustle for money then you’ve got a pretty decent job that someone will give you an extra 10k and manager in your title it’s going to bite you in the ass at some point.

[00:23:39] But I mean it’s pretty hard to overlook the fact that actually the change in salary couldn’t some I.T. workforce numbers you know is typically you know between 18 and 24 percent you know across all levels. And you know that’s hard to ignore when a lot of times especially on the industry side there isn’t necessarily the right level or market level compensation happening or and I’ll be honest if you like this was something that rattled through my head a lot in my earlier years of my career which was I saw people accelerating their title their salaries and those kinds of things faster than I was. And I worried I worried that I was going to be labeled as some person who was Oh yeah they’re OK but they don’t have what it takes to kind of do this next level right. Breaking through. Like maybe that manager level title or something like that is legitimately a big concern for people they really know.

[00:24:37] It’s something they want to prove to themselves that they can go out and get right. And so it’s difficult to say to somebody well give it five to seven years. That’s the legitimate amount of time he need you’d like learn your craft get skills and really kind of become that person. It’s hard to have that conversation but at the same time I do agree with you that you know done poorly it can absolutely come back and hurt you.

[00:25:04] I want to switch gears really quick and I want to talk about the mission of an analyst in any organization because I think this goes to the key to the heart of the discussion to a certain extent. There’s a lot of phrases out there that describe kind of like hey I’m a digital analytics person. I consider myself you know I remember John Lovett saying consider myself a change agent. I want to hear you guys talk about a little bit about that. Like what does it look like an analyst place in an organization what do they exist to accomplish there. Because this goes back to like fulfilling the mission. Right.

[00:25:38] What you’re there to do because it depends on the organization right. Every there is the high level. I’m here to be a change agent. I’m here to help the business make better decisions and move forward. But the nature of the organization. You know if you’re Dell they’ve got crap loads of analysts and kind of your role within that is a much much kind of titer you may be in a place where you’re like I am trying to help ensure this area of this aspect of the Web site is performing is as great as possible. If you go to a smaller company or maybe a similar company you can say no no no. I’m here to really affect change and get the organization to think about data differently. I mean I’m in I’m in consulting because of the latter. Right that’s what drives me is because I feel like there are so many organizations doing things wrong that I want to help them think about analytics differently. But in my career I’ve had I’ve been in organizations where I have had managers and I will say almost every time when I would if I say mentor it was always a really good manager who who got it or got some stuff that I didn’t get and I wasn’t tasked directly with being a change agent. I was kind of in the mode of learning from them. What does that mean.

[00:27:06] How do we actually put the layer of the right questions how do we ask the question not only to make sure that it’s a worthwhile question. Answer but we’re also helping them. The people were asking the question of think smarter. I’m not sure exactly how that gets us. I don’t know how that gives us to when is it time to move on.

[00:27:24] When I think comparing John love to your average analyst is like comparing a major league ballplayer to a kid who got a bat at Kmart.

[00:27:31] You know like he had legitimately a chain.

[00:27:34] How is cold like John it as someone I respect and for you to compare him to a kid at weight.

[00:27:43] You know he’s either a hitter.

[00:27:46] He goes into a company and he effects change. I mean someone who’s starting their career and getting calls from recruiters they’re filling out Excel spreadsheets and frankly to a large extent they should be for a little while.

[00:27:58] But I think they should still be aspiring to a higher level purpose. Sort of what am I trying to accomplish. It’s not because honestly a of the day if you’re if your goal is to become a manager of analytics or a director of analytics or a chief data officer or whatever the title or or monetary level you want compensation that that’s your goal. Honestly it’s a little bit shallow on some levels and there needs to be more to it than that like for for you to be successful I think you got to bring more more passion and for that you need more purpose.

[00:28:35] Right. You just need you need to bring kind of like here’s what I’m really into here to do because I’ll be honest with you. Like when I’ve considered leaving a company it’s because I’ve gotten to a point where I think there’s not a way for me to achieve the thing I’ve set out to do with this company because I because there are systemic things in this company that actually prohibit me from accomplishing that. And you know I’m not perfect. I create a lot of problems for myself and make a ton of mistakes. But this is kind of the way I try to think about it.

[00:29:08] You are thinking of as we’re talking through this because what other thing that I see in pretty much every measurement organization I’ve ever talked to except for Nordstrom’s because they have like 350 hours there is way too much work and not enough people in every single measurement team and every single company I’ve ever talked to you know you know if you’re sitting there and you think I’m bored with X and I’m doing my job like the things that I’m being asked to do I’m doing them and I want to learn how to use are and try answer some hard questions. I want to get much better at understanding our attack manager and Adobe implementation and start to have business. You know what I mean like there’s so much work. It’s just sitting on the shelf gathering dust that you know I think if you’re a place where you’re meeting your basic job requirements and you’re not being allowed to self avail then that that would definitely be a criteria.

[00:30:04] You know if you’re trying to be a cleaner and you’re being told just wait till the e-mails come in and do the work in the queue at the same time flip that around and if you’re just sitting there with the business’s data right in front of you and you’re not coming up with some ideas and pushing them out to your team and your boss and be like hey I really want to I think there’s something cool we could look at here. Can I spend some time looking at this.

[00:30:26] We keep dancing around. That’s kind of gets to it. I think that your earlier point and this one is ultimately you want the organization to get smarter and move forward and there’s a point in your career where you kind of need to accept that you don’t understand the business or business or marketing well enough to just kind of single handedly drive that.

[00:30:52] So I think we’ve sort of talked and Jim you kind of touched on that if you first time you logged into Google Analytics was six months ago and you’ve been at this company for five months and 29 days because you will leverage that into an analyst job and damn it you’re not meeting with the CEO once a week and you’re frustrated. Then you need to get over yourself. But if you look up words and say who is actually who am I learning from who is actually helping me figure out how to do this who’s helping me learn the business how analytics can apply to the business.

[00:31:27] And there’s kind of two things come back from that you can say wow that person maybe is my manager maybe it’s not really seems to get it. And every time I have a conversation with them I learn something and I’m a better analyst for it. That’s a reason to stick around. If you look around and say and I’ve definitely talked to people who’ve been in this boat where they say I’m I’m really good at what I do. I’m highly regarded I’m well compensated. I have a lot of autonomy but I don’t have anyone internally who is helping me learn and get better.

[00:32:03] Know that is a problem and that goes to is it time if we say when is it time to move on. Well that may be an indication it’s time to move on but you need to be reasonably careful that where you move on to you’re not in the same boat. Six months later you don’t want to move into a role necessarily and say well now I’m expected to be kind of the the expert and do everything you may still say well when I’m interviewing I want to figure out who are the people that said some really provocative stuff that challenged me that I could learn from while also I as an analyst can bring to that role. You know some stuff that they don’t have.

[00:32:42] No I think that’s really good. And I think you just surface something I want to switch gears and talk about now which is the external factors which is there are more openings for the work than there are people. That’s a continuous state and there are people whose job it is to make you interested in those other opportunities. Right now all the recruiters out there are linked in e-mails the phone calls everything. If you’re not prepared for it it’s a very interesting thing. But there’s a hidden skill set in there about learning how to evaluate opportunities at companies job descriptions like how a recruiter communicates with you could actually be a really important signal and whether or not this is something you should pursue or not. How hard is it for this business to retain the talent they may be hiring. You know Northam’s may hire 350 analysts. How long are those analysts saying. You know like what do you see like Doueiri do your due diligence. But this is like I like to hear you guys like how do people get skilled up in that aspect of that of the decision making process. How do they figure that out.

[00:33:49] You know that actually made me wonder I wonder if the three of us could put our heads together offline and literally build a checklist like that you might be a redneck for a job post you know like that. This might be a good job.

[00:34:02] Well you know if the job posts list out things like First you’ll hear the sand to 1000 degrees and make it into a glass goblet and you’ll take the glass goblet and serve wine at the dinner table and you’ll clean up all the dishes and wash the dishes afterwards. Like if that is all in one job then that’s probably Vashon. That actually is a bartender job. Well I always say you know close to analogy right. Or like you know when you know I’ve been in interviews where I’ve asked people I was like you know you put this this and this in your job description. Like I’m just going to come out and tell you I don’t do those three things. Are you still interested in talking to me and I’ve literally had people tell me yeah you know we’re just trying to cast a wide net. We’re trying to figure out like we just want to get somebody good at some of these things that we can figure out. That could be a big warning sign or it could be OK. You

[00:34:53] have to kind of get a probe probe on that and figure that out. Exactly. It could be. Are you saying your son out to tell you whatever I want you to hear whatever you want to hear and then I’m still going to have that expectation. Right.

[00:35:06] And you could be setting yourself up in a terrible way. The other thing is is I don’t know like what people do in the job market today but I tend to do as much research as humanly possible. Like if I’m going to go interview with five people at a company you better believe I’m crawling all over the Internet trying to and hopefully not in a creepy way but like to get educated about. All right what do these people do I think I can respect them.

[00:35:31] What do I see about them like when I meet them I can push in and try to figure out some of those things because again the people we work with are super important to whether or not this is going to be a good position for you or not.

[00:35:43] What are their credit scores. Where did they live on Google Maps.

[00:35:48] I not going to comment on whether or not you can find somebody who’s home and now various means. It was really awkward that I had never heard of Eric Peterson when I talked to him. It was it was kind of scrambling on the fly. In your interview to join demystified and try to hide it was it was it was very genuine research. Yeah I hadn’t had not done the research know it was I think we already established that Eric does not listen to podcasts. Yeah you’re safe.

[00:36:16] This is a safe safe place to stay they place. I like that you made a career limiting move in a career podcast. That’s a problem.

[00:36:28] So here’s here’s I just I have to read you guys this one because it is so comical and I will say I’m going to name drop another demystifies partner Michelle Kest wrote a post and in lots of posts have kind of hit this issue was talking about hiring. And I think a lot of posts they don’t go for the unicorn.

[00:36:45] This was for a substantial well-known kind of household name company. They were working for a marketing insights and analytics analyst related work experience zero to two years that needed experience and Sasae SPSS or C++ experience and sequal experience and multivariate analysis decision tree not parametric methods strong project management experience skills verbal and written communication experience working cross-functional fast environment.

[00:37:15] I mean it just went on and on and on and I guess this is a junior entry level position and I actually that they sent it to me saying can you help us find someone. I’m like Are you kidding me. You’re not going to find that. And if you find somebody who has taken one course in four topics and bring them in like care if you’re looking for a job that would scare the crap out of me and I think your strategy of saying go in and saying you know what I’m giving you my resume but I can’t do half of these things. I kick ass on these other three or four and you can afford me. Then you still have to probe pretty hard and not think you’re being set up for failure.

[00:37:57] Yeah. The other thing is is that it probably shouldn’t dissuade you from talking to that company if you don’t have every single qualification on the list.

[00:38:05] You know if you really are seeking a job there and let’s let’s be fair a company that writes that kind of job description you should be able to know going in. It is a culturally not ready for an analyst organization.

[00:38:20] But there is an opportunity right. I mean that’s an opportunity.

[00:38:24] But look back to the when is it time to move on. And that’s those were the interviews that I they were fun like I stopped about half five plus years ago.

[00:38:33] I stopped ever having any stress about a job interview part because I knew it was eminently employable but it’s a good feeling. The ones that I’d walk into and say look I mean how would it not be not be a jackass about it. But you know I’d say you know when they say oh what questions do you have for us. Well guess what my questions are are real. And I think that that whole question of when is it time to move on. How much are you really honest about what you know and can do what you’re trying to literally move up to the next level. Not four levels up right. You’re not. I’ve been doing this job and working inside catalyst for nine months and I’m bored and I’m frustrated. So now I’m gunning for a director of analytics job at a Fortune 500 company. There’s some level of realism like yes you want to move yourself into a spot where you’re not comfortable. I hope because that’s how you’re going to you know light a fire under your own tush to to try to get better.

[00:39:40] I feel like that’s more like what are you moving on to. We have that I’m realizing now that this this discussion there is when is it time to move on. And then there’s what’s the right thing to move on to the side of this or why did the time move up. We’re spending a lot of time talking about what’s the right thing to move to. And the fact is it would be fantastic if analysts could actually stay at their current jobs longer and maybe it’s just the circles we move in.

[00:40:10] I mean I think half of Jim’s analysts are probably you know by the math they’re all going to be gone by the you know within within two months. I’m fortunate in that I don’t have any analyst working for me so I don’t have to worry about anybody getting you to have to worry about that somebody could dos into this episode it works and then throw these words back in your back in your face and say peace out and actually in a funny spot.

[00:40:32] Ottowa Otto is a very funny town in terms of the employment market.

[00:40:40] Unless you work for the federal government is not currently hiring right now you really have to move to Toronto or the states or Vancouver.

[00:40:49] Yeah and wouldn’t want to live in a lovely metropolitan minus 40 degrees Celsius today or right now.

[00:40:55] And my hope is that anybody on my team would hear the exact same things for me that they just heard on this podcast in person.

[00:41:04] You know that I will stand up to say the same thing I told people who were fantastic. I was like you probably need to move on. And here’s the reason and I’m I’m not going to fire you because you’re great but I understand kind of where your interest and your talents lie and the fact is you should probably be gently looking. I’ve also told people you know you burned some bridges and I’ve got credibility and I’ll help you out where I can but I’m not a civil engineer.

[00:41:33] I can’t I can’t rebuild that bridge. Yeah. You should move on. So we’ve we’ve poked at this topic a little bit and I feel like it’s a topic that is it’s hard to really dig in and really find like a kernel of truth or kind of like a really solid kind of thing. But I want us to try to go back as we wrap up and just kind of say like you know maybe here’s two things or here’s one thing to really think about is you kind of approach the process and maybe as you consider the new process because like you mentioned Tim they’re part and parcel of the same thing. Honestly if the opportunity or you’re evaluating is a terrible opportunity maybe you need to settle back down and look at how you can maintain and do well in where you’re at. So anyways let me hand back to you guys and just sort of talk some sort of key takeaways.

[00:42:21] I’ll throw my takeaway I because we have the luxury of the phone ringing. You know often I would actually say use that and one really good way to figure out whether it’s time to move on. I say the two jobs ago when I left I really spent a year knowing that I was on my way out. And I did kind of the classic I’m passively searching and being careful about who knows. I’m formally looking but if an opportunity falls in my lap I’m going to take that and with that let me do was talk to a handful of companies about their roles. And let me be kind of introspective about does this sound like it is a much better place than I am now. So it again gives you that sort of the fun part of interviewing where you say I don’t have any stress. I’m going to be polite and professional. And if if this lights a fire under me and I’m super excited that’s going to help me make the decision that it’s time to move on. But even if it doesn’t it’s going to help me kind to solidify in my mind what it is that is making me even think about moving on and I can I can look back to the last almost every job change I’ve made aside from one where I was kind of trying to geographically relocate where I use that kind of talk through multiple opportunities. Some of them I wasn’t even offered the position but they all gave me the opportunity to kind of think about what is what really let me analyze because I’m an analyst.

[00:44:05] Let me analyze what it is that makes me think I might be ready to move on and in some cases it was another year before I actually moved on. But I was really confident that what I was moving onto was.

[00:44:20] Was a move forward. What about you Jim.

[00:44:23] I was just typing and I’m so I wouldn’t forget them. This has been an interesting podcast. Have you noticed that every podcast we’ve done so far we have a clear topic in them by the time that we’re down we’re talking with something totally different.

[00:44:34] But it’s still interesting I think it’s a feature not a bug.

[00:44:41] I have four takeaways. The first one is I read.

[00:44:45] Oh sorry. A son jumped the gun there.

[00:44:49] So the first one is that there’s three reasons why someone would leave. I originally only thought there were really two. One of them is that I hate my job and the other one is a mercenary. The market is high. And the third one that we actually covered more than the other two was the fact that there’s so much opportunity and there’s so many smart people in our industry that sometimes people just evolved out of their role. You know it doesn’t just need to be money. They it can be you know value and challenge. And the second thing is that I really seem to have a hate on for millennials because I spent the whole beginning to ranting you know these 22 year old asking for more money wanting to be the vice president.

[00:45:28] I think it’s called Managing the PNL of two companies I think is what it’s what it’s called. When I was a lad we went uphill both ways here.

[00:45:36] Search discovery we welcome millennials here at napkin.

[00:45:43] Get off my lawn and kids.

[00:45:46] The third point is that in the words of the Dalai Lama with great power comes great responsibility for Spiderman 2.

[00:45:54] And I think that you know when you’re starting up your career. When I started my career I had a don’t get fired work as long as you can and maybe you can be a senior senior sales person. Most career paths are like that. Digital analysts have the ability to actually properly chart their own careers. I never had that that liberty until I started my own company. You can actually sit there at the beginning of your career and say in five years I can do this and take ownership of it. But if you decide to lead an extra 5 k here and a better title there be the reason you make your decisions I think you’ll you’ll come to regret it but you can really chart your own path and take ownership of it. And then the last thing is that I wonder how many people if if people are still listening to this podcast by this episode are you going to take it and send it to their boss and go see.

[00:46:47] I can go anywhere listen to those three guys. I want to raise right now.

[00:46:52] Now the boss doesn’t call their bluff. There are people in this fight guessing crap I’m not actually having actually don’t have recruiters calling me at this point.

[00:47:01] So we all just get it read. Any good analyst can pick up and go anywhere.

[00:47:06] It was just an assumption. Yeah. So so for me I think you know there’s a couple of things I heard in that one of the things. It’s not simple and hopefully we’re treating it with the respect it deserves because that decision making process is very personal. It’s very important. But I think because some of the things you said like how mobile people are how available there are for new opportunities and how awesome it is to have that control. It actually forces a digital analyst to really have an unprecedented amount of self-awareness and reflection about their motives.

[00:47:43] What they’re really out there to accomplish and those kinds of things. The other thing is is I think you can you can measure happiness in a job in some cases around impact. You know what is my impact or how am I making a difference. And I think sometimes being able to see the difference you’re making even if it’s not a big difference and that’s a pretty meaningful thing and you shouldn’t give up on it lately. At the same time if you can’t get any traction if you can’t make a difference and maybe that’s when it’s time to start looking at other options.

[00:48:15] Again you don’t get it. You’ve got to try you’ve got to try for a while.

[00:48:18] And I think that’s where you get a coalition and that’s it too is you know the first sign of adversity don’t bail out and jump to that next company. You know eventually like like Jim has been saying that will catch up to you in a in a harsh way and at a time when you probably won’t like it to happen. Right.

[00:48:37] So you know because obviously we want to see digital analysts going from success to success to more important things and becoming more influential and more important in the context of the marketing organizations and the businesses that they work with anyway.

[00:48:51] So to ramp this up you know thanks so much for listening. You know this topic is quite interesting one in one that I think you know we feel pretty passionately about here at the Digital World Power Hour. We’d love to hear your comments and questions on our Facebook page. And you know if you’ve got questions that are more personal like feel free to reach out to any of the three of us privately via Twitter Facebook or Twitter and things like that I think we’d be probably most probably speak for the three of us that we probably will at least have a conversation with you via e-mail or maybe by phone to discuss some of these issues and see if there’s some light we can help shed on things.

[00:49:32] AB’s told me that yeah that’s I will. I will definitely say I’ve never not responded to an e-mail from somebody asking for you know looking for somebody to kick something around on on the career development front. Yeah.

[00:49:46] And I don’t know I guess I’ll be nice to.

[00:49:48] All right. See. Look at that.

[00:49:51] So obviously because we’re a podcast we have iTunes and that’s how a lot of people subscribe to our show to the show and we’re very thankful for that. We’d love to get your ratings your comments anything that iTunes lets you say about us good better ugly Purfleet the good ones.

[00:50:08] But it would be great to hear from you and get your feedback on the show and that were that way too thanks again for listening. For Jim Kane for Tim Wilson It’s my Lowboy. Thanks so much.

[00:50:23] Thanks for listening. And don’t forget to join the conversation on Facebook or Twitter. We welcome your comments and questions. Facebook dot com slash. And on this next hour or at least now on Twitter at.

Podcast: Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS