WAARM Vancouver

A big thank you to Andrea Hadley of eMetrics/NetSetGo for hosting the WAARM, the Web Analytics Association Regional Meeting, and for having me out.

I want there to be a strong incentive for our Chicago readers to attend WAARM Chicago. 🙂 So, I’ll share a few high level outcomes.

My fellow panelists were John Hossack of VKI Studios and Jason Carmel of ZAAZ Seattle. The big takeaways are to write a job description that focuses on finding very smart people – the skills development can be loaded in systematically. There’s a belief that the recession is causing an increase in demand for measurement and web analytics, and it appears to be broadbased, and, if you’re going to freelance and go it alone, make sure you really, really specialize.

With respect to writing job descriptions – one should be cognizant that a job post, a job “req”, is really a marketing document. The goal is to get qualified people excited enough to actually submit their resume. They ought to be written that way.
There’s stronger demand for web analysts, in particular in the United States. I believe it’s in part being driven by the desire for tangibility and justification of online marketing results. At the same time, there are indications that there is a greater supply of web analytics analysts who are actually looking to change jobs. Resume volumes are up.

On the third point – if you’re going to go freelance – you’re going to have to really specialize to be successful. For instance, pick a media and medium, and a sector your passionate about, and go for it. Given that you’re not going to have the scalability abilities to staff up (realistically), generalization is less of a viable strategy.

I’ll be sharing more details of the WAA Salary compensation study, and implications, once the last of the WAARM’s have been hosted.

Thanks again Andrea!