Ask a Consultant: How do you learn so quickly?

Yang started working right out of school, excited to put what she had learned to use, and learn even more by doing. “After graduation, I started with marketing in a manufacturing firm which turned out to not meet my expectations of personal development. While I had a lot of responsibility, I had to teach myself a lot, rather than being able to learn from working around an experienced team, so even though I was doing a lot, sometimes it felt slow.

“During this first job, I developed some interest in getting insights from data. I appreciated applying analytics to optimize things like lead gen forms, or working with tags. While I was looking for a change, Ariad recruiters presented me a freelance opportunity as a junior web analyst in a well-known company where different kinds of training was provided, and the enterprise culture encourages learnings. I’ve decided to take the leap and that was how I entered digital analytics – and of course I’m still more than happy that I made this decision!”

Working as a consultant is a great fit for Yang; consultants regularly start new projects at different companies, meet new people, and tend to learn a lot, fast. For Yang, this is one of the main benefits. “You get to work on different exciting projects in great companies. It not only strengthens your knowledge and capabilities on the job, but also provides a great opportunity to meet interesting people and expand your network. I get bored easily, so consulting is the perfect match for me.”

So why choose to work with Ariad? “Before becoming a consultant, I was a bit worried about the technical details, like insurance or a pension, but I was very concerned with my career path.” Having a team of people working to find you missions that help you move closer towards your career goals, the right kinds of training, and support when you need it is fundamental. “I was approached by a recruiter from Ariad in a personal way. She worked to understand what I want in a job and what motivates me, and she worked to find me the right position with the right culture fit. The first contact did not lead to a common project but she still gave me advice on some marketing tools that I might want to use to improve my work. That helped to build trust (and my CV!).”

Yang likes to focus on digital analytics, but works under the umbrella of Customer Experience (CX). The importance of CX is being more widely acknowledged, but why does Yang think companies should care about CX? “CX is one of the most important factors that makes a business stand out. And digital analytics help businesses to better understand their customers in terms of how they interact with the website and what their needs are, which can lead to improvements of the marketing activities – and eventually customer satisfaction.

“A basic example is looking at your sales flow, which is important to every single company. First, of course you need to have it defined. Using digital analytics, you can easily see how many people started the flow, and how many of them moved forward to the next steps. If there’s a big drop between steps, then you know where to investigate. Often times there is improvement needed on the design of that step.”

What are some major challenges facing digital analytics now? Yang points out that first and foremost, data accuracy is key. Another important challenge: “the conflict between the increased awareness of individuals on data protection/privacy, and companies’ need to collect more specific data on the potential clients. This is a struggle that we will continue to see into the future, and that needs to be addressed.”

Are you ready to find your next step? Check out our current projects, and download our e-book on becoming a consultant with Ariad!