Senior Insights Manager for Target Is Curious for a Living

Name: Emma Beyers-Carlson (she/her)

PhD: Developmental Psychology, University of Michigan, 2018

What was your main area of research?

I studied family adjustment during the transition to the second child.

What is your current job?

I am the Senior Insights Manager for Target in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

My job entails a lot of different things including:

• Building enterprise-wide empathy and understanding of consumers based upon important demographics, behaviors, needs, and attitudes.

• Designing and executing guest or consumer research to support key initiatives.

• Identifying the appropriate research method, data source and vendor/supplier to execute work.

• Managing quantitative and qualitative projects from initial meetings through report delivery

• Creating key deliverables from scratch: questionnaires, discussion guides, reports (including executive summary)

• Analyzing data and creates the “story” of reports with minimal direction

• Conceptualize slides, drafting research briefs, presenting reports, and leading calls with stakeholders

What is your favorite thing about your job?

I love getting to be relentlessly curious for a living.

What is the most important skill you developed or experience you had during your PhD that now helps you in your current position?

• The ability to manage multiple projects and priorities at a time with minimal direction.

• Empathy for your team and the people you are researching.

How did you build the skills necessary for your current role?

I pivoted to market research with minimal direction. I found out about this type of work by setting up calls with all sorts of folks in my network and asking, "what do you do? do you like it?".

Eventually I came across someone doing market research, and it sounded like a wonderful fit, so I tailored my resume and applied for a job that seemed junior, but I wanted the experience. That job got my foot in the door and I was able to build up industry experience to supplement my academic experience. This helped me quickly move up and expand.

How did you find this position? What were the career steps you took to get to where you are now?

Target is a major company near me, and I always kept an eye on roles even though I was on the agency side.

PhD graduate ➡️ Sr. Analyst at the City of Seattle ➡️ Sr. Analyst at Hypothesis Group ➡️ Associate Consultant at Hypothesis Group ➡️ Sr. Consultant at Hypothesis Group ➡️ Insights Director at Psyche Strategy ➡️ Principal, Consumer Insights at Psyche Strategy ➡️ Sr. Insights Manager at Target

If someone is interested in a similar role, what would you recommend they start doing now to prepare?

Reach out to those in market research/consumer insights fields and start figuring out how to write your resume in an industry format (nothing like a CV).

Why did you decide to not pursue a career in academia?

I'm not competitive, and the constant publish or perish energy wasn't for me. I loved teaching and being curious but wanted to know a little bit about a lot of different things, not everything about a small niche field.

It was a difficult decision, because it felt like a loss of a dream but I'm so grateful and happy to be in industry now.

What advice do you have for someone getting their PhD and looking to pursue a career outside of academia?

You have the experience and background to do other things. It's scary to make a leap but you can do it. Reach out to your community - they want to help.