Guest Post: Finding Forrester’s Next Social Analyst

Jeremiah: Working at Forrester is a capstone in my career, it could also be for you. Charles Telep, Forrester’s talent recruiter is guest posting here at the Web Strategy blog to find my replacement. I fully endorse working at Forrester here for a plethora of reasons, here’s just a few: 1) Jump start your career, 2) Work with some of the world’s smartest people, 3) Get connected with nearly everyone in your industry, (lots of travel) 4) Learn trends and market movement 5) Great upside opportunities, pay, benefits, and culture. 6) Develop analytical, consulting, and speaking skills, 7) Learn what “4C2Q1S” means. 8: Drink fine French champagne!

Here’s Charles’s Note To The Next Social Analyst:


Greetings Strategists,

My name is Charles Telep (@forresterjobs) and I’m working with Christine Overby, VP/Research Director, Serving Interactive Marketing Professionals, to find the next great social media analyst.

Are you up to the challenge? Do you know someone who is?

A bit about Forrester: We’re a global, independent Research firm that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology. We research, strategize, consult, and help our clients with their biggest tech challenges. Forrester is a challenging workplace, and we’d like you to help identify how technology is changing consumer behavior.

The Forrester Culture: Our CEO, Chairman, and Founder–George Colony (Blog / Twitter) has been quoted as saying: “If you’re not having fun, you shouldn’t be here.” We’re a smart, innovative company that hires people of the same caliber. I tell candidates, “We hire rock stars and let them do their thing.”

If you think you’d like to join the Interactive Marketing Team, take a look at the bullets below, or job description, and qualify yourself.

“Would I hire me?”

Non-negotiables that you should consider:

¢ Am I in the Bay area (or ready to be in the Bay Area)?
¢ Am I influential in the social community? Questions like “How many Twitter followers do I have” or “how many comments do I average per blog post” should come to mind.
¢ Would I know any of the names of those who comment on your blog, link to your blog or follow you on Twitter (to represent quality of influence, not just quantity)?
¢ Am I interested in covering the application of communities and social networks for interactive marketing programs?
¢ Could I effectively analyze the future of social technology, and organizational models that support social media marketing?
¢ Can I articulate how social tools enhance the core analyst job?

Thanks for reading this; I look forward to hearing from you.

Charles Telep
Talent Acquisition
Forrester Research
ctelep (at) forrester.com
LinkedIn
Twitter
Forrester Community


Jeremiah: I look forward to seeing this new analyst, and glad Charles took up the offer to guest post. I plan on being a friend to the Forrester family for many, many years.

30 Replies to “Guest Post: Finding Forrester’s Next Social Analyst”

  1. Sounds like an amazing job, but I’m sad that you are focusing on quantity and not quality, when you look at comments or followers.
    I know that there is a correlation between number of followers and on how influential you are, but being influential in a community is to me so much more than numbers 🙂

    Good luck finding the right candidate.

  2. What a beautiful, open way of talent recruitment that you guys decided to use! It’s also neat demonstration of smart use of social media to find the right analyst for the job.

    It reminds me a little bit of how I heard about the first RFP for a “social media” consulting gig in 1986, before that term was coined, and people talked about “virtual community. A publisher who published schoolbooks wanted to create an online network for K-12 educators and posted the RFP on the popular bulletin boards and computer conferencing system of the era. They got plenty of application, my group won the bid and it jumpstarted our online consulting business.

    Good journey to the candidate who will get the Forrester job!

  3. Morten, let’s be fair about the quality/quantity issue. Charles also wrote:

    “Would I know any of the names of those who comment on your blog, link to your blog or follow you on Twitter (to represent quality of influence, not just quantity)?”

  4. Thanks for the quick comments.

    Mark, I’m interested in hearing your thoughts. We’re not exclusively looking at candidates with XX amount of followers, but, it can be one (of many) indicators for success. Make sense?

  5. Great posting, perfect wat of using social media for recruitment.

    But a word of free advice to Forrester, please do something about the terrible recruitment portal you have. The link to the job description makes me feel like you don’t know anything about the internet, and I know this isn’t true.

    The lay out, the mass text description, the horror that happens when you press apply for this job. I know you at forrester have more respect for your applicants then this.

  6. Bas – in defense of Charles and Forrester, all ATS’ (applicant tracking systems ) are brutal. Moreover, its really brutal as a customer of these ATM companies to get them to make the UX better. The designers of them have forgotten that humans are the end-users. One thing that could be done is a pre-warning as you click apply, such as, “what you are about to experience is a test of your patience, your tolerance for technological inanity, and your persistence. If you pass, you will have passed the first test in being seen as qualified for this job.”

  7. Charles – Of cause it makes sense 🙂 I was just hopping that Forrester would raise the bar when it comes to social media, and not focus on the empty numbers, but analyze the conversation and social engagement of the candidates. This is an important position in shaping the future of social media marketing and I hope that the right candidate has the right mindset.

  8. Charles: Please quit bugging me. The emails, the voice mails, my name drawn inside a heart on your PeeChee. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times: I’m just not right for the position. It’s not you, it’s me.

  9. @Joshua: sorry, but that’s a really lame excuse. First of all, nobody forces you to use an ATS. If it’s this bad, you will loose talent because of it. Second of all, it’s party how you implement it. Third off: Vurv is much worse then most.

    Like you’re idea on the warning, however, I’d personally just like to up the experiance a little 🙂

  10. Thank god you’re not asking for something silly like X years of experience, y degree, and MBA preferred. Here here! Why not leverage the craft of social media to find the job. Let the community at large recommend 20 people for you to follow up with. This would cut down on the number of resumes you’d have to review and would clearly be a person that meets your criteria.

  11. J: What is this book face of which you speak? Is it like the ‘Atari-ported Joust’ BBS I just started? (Do you know you can talk to people ON YOUR COMPUTER? Awesome to the max.)

  12. @Bos: Thanks for your feedback. We are always looking for ways to improve, and I hope we can incorporate your feedback.

    @Curt: I don’t know you, but thanks for DQ’ing yourself.

    @Adam: I’m glad you see this as a change in recruiting. We do try to practice what we preach! Speaking of, do you have candidate recommendations?

  13. Why is the number of Twitter followers a part of the job search process. Twitter is so full of spammers that I don’t follow the vast majority of people who follow me. I don’t like to be part of the Twitter popularity contest. I like to follow certain people that are going to add to the conversation.

  14. Love the way you are recruiting through Jeremiah’s own blog. Recruiting at the heart of your market and using Jeremiah as brand ambassador for ‘his Job’ is brilliant. Perfect example that you understand recruitment and social media use. Just for the example I think it would be great to follow the rest of the process and apply for the job myself. Must agree with my fellow dutchman Bas though about your webform, etc. I would have expected an ‘apply/connect with facebook’ button. Like here on Jeremiah’s blog has the ‘connect with facebook’ button. The way you implement the ATS makes all the difference. This particular guest post is of such great example and importance that I think it would be great to post a seperate article to inform the world how this case worked out. What the do’s and dont’s have been and how (fast) the position was filled. That sets the example once and for all on the effectiveness of the use of social media in recruitment. And I would love to replace your ATS ofcourse to make the same case perfect! 😉

  15. Charles: You’re welcome. I always enjoy a nice Peanut Buster Parfait. And have you tried the new Blizzards? FANTASTIC.

  16. @bas – well, I’m not sure I’d say the ATS thing is an excuse, its a reality right now – albeit a reality that deserves more focus. I’m sure there are better examples of ATS systems out there than Vurv/Taleo from a candidate user/experience standpoint. Yes, you could go without one, unless your applicant numbers are gigantic, then you’d just have another version of the candidate experience problem with some added risk to boot. The reality of the business challenge is the regulation piece is so heavy to slog through for large orgs that they need a system that accounts for all the i’s being dotted and t’s crossed. Its a problem that can be solved, so from that standpoint, I completely agree with you. If it were up to me, candidate experience would be the first thing I’d focus on at any company. The irony is the companies who can impact that most, are the ATS vendors (Vurv, Taleo, Mr. Ted, et al) yet, their design is so often driven by some myopic client HR leadership who have to look at OFCCP and other regulations (aka cya measures) which lead to the endless forms, drop downs, and brutal UX. It’s a real interesting problem for companies to solve, because every candidate applying at most any company has the exact same experience you did.

  17. “Am I in the Bay area (or ready to be in the Bay Area)?”

    Pity that you still need to be locally based for a mostly virtual job.

  18. @Joshua: sorry, but that's a really lame excuse. First of all, nobody forces you to use an ATS. If it's this bad, you will loose talent because of it. Second of all, it's party how you implement it. Third off: Vurv is much worse then most.

    Like you're idea on the warning, however, I'd personally just like to up the experiance a little 🙂

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