Recently, I published a report called How to Hire for Social Computing, it indicates what management should look for, how to manage them, and how they should think about compensating them.
Just over a week ago, I put out a call to the industry that we were hiring a Community Manager. Because I was a Community Manager and write about it frequently, I received an above normal response rate, 19 Resumes were submitted. Keep in mind, that some of these folks are not community managers, but they’ve all aspired to be in the role.
I promised to protect everyone’s identity, (as many of them are currently employed) but here are the high level findings at average:
A Persona of the Community Manager (based on 19 resumes)
Years of Work Experience
An average of 10.61 YearsCurrent roles
A majority are working in Marketing or are currently social media position (community manager or social media strategist)What Industries did they come from?
Most are in tech or media or PR. A handful working in education, religious or non-profit (makes sense as these inexpensive tools have great reach)Education
Most have a BA or BS, followed by many with MBAs and a handful without a degree.
I think I’m in one of the most rare positions in the industry to have my hands on so many Community Manager resumes in one place, especially so early in the industry
Interesting, I fit almost exactly into that persona: 9 years exp, Marketing exp, from Tech, and Bachelor degree.
The persona descriptions are heavy on demographics – some argue that good personas highlight motivations, goals, and behaviors. Having resume’s are cool, but making sense of the intangibles may be interesting as well.
For fun, here is a wild guess of two personas you may run in to:
Jane the Ambitious – Jane has an uncanny ability to find the next big thing and quickly insert her self in the loop. Jane relies on firms to make selections based on lingo and buzzwords.
Sally the community builder – Sally is terrible with managing her career but her empathy and sincere interest in the matters of her community translate into trust and love among those who know her. She has a natural talent to find and be involved in the conversations that matter. Given a good venue, Sally will shine.
Jeremiah,
Thanks for the reply and I agree it’s still early to have an understanding for the web community organizer but occasionally, when faced with a design project that involves something new (read: all) the use of persona’s (a design artifact) can still come into play if one study’s analogous situations – creative research yields valuable insights – so, where do we find community builders?
-Union organizers?
-Political campaigners?
-Organizers of technical standards?
-Vertical marketers?
-etech/bar camp types?
I totally agree that it’s to early to find the best of community marketers on social networks but could the necessary qualities could be found in analogous situations where the dna lurks.
Early respondents to job listings or followers or emerging markets have other skills, the best community organizers may be too busy with their communities to follow this early market.
oops – I meant community managers – that was a slip 😉
The persona descriptions are heavy on demographics – some argue that good personas highlight motivations, goals, and behaviors. Having resume's are cool, but making sense of the intangibles may be interesting as well.
For fun, here is a wild guess of two personas you may run in to:
Jane the Ambitious – Jane has an uncanny ability to find the next big thing and quickly insert her self in the loop. Jane relies on firms to make selections based on lingo and buzzwords.
Sally the community builder – Sally is terrible with managing her career but her empathy and sincere interest in the matters of her community translate into trust and love among those who know her. She has a natural talent to find and be involved in the conversations that matter. Given a good venue, Sally will shine.