Arbitron Employee Reviews for Market Specialist

"Give this dead-end job (which is a secondary role in the market research process) a maximum of 12-18 months - then get out."

What do you like about working at Arbitron?

"My co-workers were very nice. You will form a close bond, which will help get you through the tedious work day. And you will have a pretty good work/life balance."

Do you have any tips for others interviewing with this company?

"Be thoughtful about telling them why you want to spend 8 hours a day QCing card/column/punch data locations. Sorry, I mean working with their databases. Nobody wants to admit that it is kind of a dead-end job. It is a secondary role in the market research process. Work there a maximum of 12-18 months - then get out. When you are interviewing for your next job AFTER being a market specialist at Scarborough, please know that you will NOT fool any potential future employer with an exaggerated market specialist resume. Once they ask you detailed questions about being a market specialist, they will know that you are NOT a market researcher (that you only play a secondary role). Just talk about your technical skills, and how quickly you learn things, and how it got your foot in the door and gave you some excellent foundational knowledge ... but you really want to work in a primary role in market research. Just don't put yourself in a position of having to explain why you stagnated in that position for longer than 18 months. (But if you want to work with databases for the rest of you career, then you might be able to move into database marketing or something like that.)"

What don't you like about working at Arbitron?

"The market specialist position is only a secondary role in the market research process. It will not really prepare you to be a market researcher. If you want to do more work with databases, then fine. If not, then when you want to leave (and believe me, you WILL want to leave), it will be hard to find a job elsewhere. (That means a job on the front lines of market research. But if you are looking for another secondary role, then you are all set. Or if you are looking for another Scarborough job, then you are all set.) When you want to leave you will search high & low, kind of exaggerate your Scarborough experience, and please do jump at the first thing that comes your way. Just get out any way you can. Everybody that has stayed in that specific position for more than 12-18 months has had a VERY hard time getting out. The problem is that they have a hard time explaining to a potential employer why they stayed in a dead-end job for so long, why they stayed in that type of position when they were not learning & growing. The minute you take this position contact a recruiter and explain that you have taken the job to help pay the bills, but it is not what you are really looking for. Additionally, there are too many sub-par, lazy, ignorant managers (the two department co-managers, and the manager 2 levels above them). I can only remember 1 good manager: Diane. She was very knowledgeable, well prepared, a good teacher, thoughtful, organized, and intelligent. You will learn a lot from her about how to be a market specialist."

What suggestions do you have for management?

"Turn all of the dead-end jobs at Scarborough into rotations. Make the rotations a 2 year entry level analyst type of job. That way you will always have a pool of qualified candidates that will know all about the inner-workings of the company, and you can place them anywhere in your rotation departments. And all the people working those dead-end jobs will be less bored and they will actually plan on (and look forward to) a future at Scarborough."