To make sure your qualitative market research study gets off on the right foot, you’ll want to partner with a recruiting firm that is focused on your needs and has a proven recruiting track record.
Focus Insite has recruited for all sorts of and types of market research studies, and the common denominator between them all is being in alignment with our clients and putting their recruiting needs front and centre! We’ve learned a thing or two over the years, and we thought we’d share some tips with you so that you can get the most from your qualitative market research recruitment.
The Courtship. Selecting a recruiting firm is a lot like speed dating. Ideally, you’ll expose yourself to a number of options and select the agency that you feel most aligned with. Deciding on which recruiting firm to go with is like deciding to go on a second date. Before you make that leap you want to make sure you share the same goals, values, and connection. Your recruiter will quickly become a partner in your market research study, so you want to make sure you feel all the feels (trust, easy communication, etc.) from the get-go.
Taking the Leap. Once you’ve decided on a market-recruiting firm, it’s time to get past the pleasantries of the initial get-to-know-you phase, and into the thick of it. Don’t limit your communication to emails with your recruiting team. Pick up the phone or schedule a video call. A lot of nuance and details will be uncovered through a verbal conversation that is much harder to do via email. This is your opportunity to ask for clarification about how the recruiter manages dead-ends and hard-to-find recruits. You’ll have already learned a lot in your communication during the ‘courtship phase’ and now is your chance to get more clarity and insight into how the partnership will play out.
Screening guides are your friends! The old adage ‘good fences make for good neighbours’ is more about the boundaries that are required for good friendships than it is about physical barriers. The same can be applied to the partnership between a recruiter and the market researcher. This is where screening guides come into play. Ideally, the screening guide is crafted by the market researcher, with input from the recruiter, so that clear boundaries are set early about who does and does not qualify to participate in a study. This is the working tool that helps the recruiter identify qualified participants and get a sense of how communicative the respondent is. During the screening process, the recruiter will make a lot of judgements about who would be the better study participant. The final call on who should populate a study always goes to the researcher, but this process is why a recruiting firm and market research firm are partners working in tandem, and not siloed in their efforts.
The Recruiter Takes the Lead. During the active part of the recruiting phase, the recruiting team is in the lead. Depending on the type of candidate to participate, recruiters will use a multi-pronged approach for outreach. Your recruiter should provide you with daily updates and consult you when questions arise about issues with the screening guide (sometimes they’re too strict and disqualify decent candidates). Once a slate of candidates has been identified and accepted the recruiter’s job pivots to ensure that every study participant shows up and gets paid.
Market research recruiting can seem nerve-wracking, especially for those new to market research studies. Often times recruiting isn’t fully appreciated until you’ve tried to do this component of the study on your own, and you quickly realize how time consuming it can be. We’ve said it before, but market research recruiting can feel like herding cats, or playing a game of whack-a-mole. You’ll save yourself a lot of frustration and money by outsourcing recruiting to specialized agencies that have years of experience and expertise. Our recruiting teams may make recruiting look like a walk in the park, but that’s only because we’re seasoned and have recruited for thousands of studies.
Looking to Partner with a Recruiting Firm to Improve your Market Study? Contact us Today!
