Changing To Market Research

by: Cherry

I wonder what it is that is prompting your desire to switch career right now? What is it about your current role in marketing that you are bored with or that you find difficult? If you start with analysing the good and bad of your current role it will help you critically assess a new role and decide if it is right for you.

Will market research give you what is missing in your current role?

Here are a couple of great resources on market research for you to take a look at:

The Prospects website has a profile for market researcher with details of what the role involves, entry requirements, training and career development.

http://ww2.prospects.ac.uk/p/types_of_job/market_researcher_job_description.jsp

And here’s a really interesting interview with a Market Researcher talking all about his job.

http://www.careerplayer.com/careers/marketing-and-sales/marketing/market-research/charles-skinner—head-of-research.aspx

How do you respond to the information you have read and listened to? Does it make you feel interested and enthusiastic? Does it sound like you would feel at home doing this kind of work?

Given your MBTI type, will it allow you enough quiet time to work on your own and opportunities to problem solve and come up with new ideas? Will you be able to use analytical skills to make logical and rational decisions and will you not to too pinned down to a rigid structure?

It seems to me that INTP could be a good match, though it depends on the kind of market research you end up doing. You may spend quite a lot of time designing research and analysing the data you collect, which may sit comfortably with your I, N and T preferences. However, if you have a strong P preference you could find that that some of the work is a bit too structured for you.

Why not use your own professional contacts as a Marketing specialist to contact some Market Researchers and chat to them informally over a coffee to get more inside information? Take a look at the section on Informational interviewing on this website for some ideas about what you could ask.
https://www.how-to-change-careers.com/informational-interview.html

At the end of the day, only you can judge of whether Market Research will be right for you. Use what you know about yourself ? especially from your personality profile, but also from an assessment of your skills, interests and values ? to critically evaluate the detail of the new role and work out if there are enough good matches to enable you to find job satisfaction.

https://www.how-to-change-careers.com/personal-skills-audit.html
https://www.how-to-change-careers.com/new-career-ideas.html
https://www.how-to-change-careers.com/core-values-exercises.html