Monday, May 13, 2013

2nd Annual Report On Hiring Prospects For Entry-level Intel Analysts In Business Is Out!

http://www.iismu.org/white-papers
If our recent report on hiring prospects within the national security community was bleak to the point of depressing, our latest report, titled  Entry-level Analyst Hiring  Projections for Intelligence In Business, more than provides an antidote.

Take a look at this excerpt from the executive summary:
"Due to an increase in job creation and the growth of several key industries such as healthcare and finance, it is likely that overall hiring of entry-level research, intelligence, and strategy analysts in the private and business sector will increase significantly over the next twelve months."
If that doesn't grab your attention, take a look at the charts below:

The Y axis in the chart represents the number of hiring managers and other individuals with direct or significant indirect knowledge of hiring plans within their company or industry. 

Note how few of the functional areas of intelligence within the (non-defense) business community had any expectation of a decrease at all.  More importantly, note how many of the experts expected hiring of entry-level intel analysts to actually increase.

It is not all peaches and cream, though.  Greg Marchwinski, the author of the report and one of our top grad students, cites a number of issues confronting any entry-level analyst trying to find employment in the business community (not the least of which is the inconsistent way in which job titles are used to describe intelligence, research, and analysis positions in the private and business sector). 

Despite this, it looks like the next 12 months may shape up to be a bit of a seller's market for entry-level intel analysts with the right skills trying to break into business.  Welcome news indeed!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome to starting salaries that are 30% below what they were three years ago.

Anonymous said...

Entry level, but not necessarily seasoned. Experienced analysts who think beyond a search engine, are not hired - even at entry level prices.

Kristan J. Wheaton said...

Thanks for the comments. We are seeing a somewhat more nuanced story than either of the previous two comments suggest.

Our report focuses on true entry-level (right out of college/grad school) because that is what our students are. It may be a mistake to extend the results to analysts with several years of experience. That said, we are seeing (and did include in the report) the preference for some sort of relevant experience on the part of employers. The experience discussed could have been modest and gained while in college but there was a clear preference for it.

As for salary, it really depends on where you wind up getting hired. New hires in the banking and some areas of healthcare (such as pharmaceuticals)report being happy with their starting salary. Since these positions are often not in high cost areas such as DC, the money tends to go farther as well.

Finally, while there is no question hiring has been sluggish, our report tries to look out 12 months. Our sources, all people with direct or significant indirect knowledge of hiring patterns in their company and industry, see a significant uptick in hiring over the next 12 months.

Kris

Anonymous said...

Great work from your team at Mercyhurst.

Agree Kris, location is a huge factor in wages (and hiring, if we're honest with ourselves) so I'd be curious how that data pans out, although I'm sure the bases are probably much to small to analyze.

I'd also contend that while wages are relatively low for entry-level analysts, the leap from entry-level wages to someone with just 3-5 years of experience is pretty significant, and that's still INCREDIBLY early in one's career.

Long story short, with "Big Data" as the "new" hot topic, these jobs aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

-Andrew Fournaridis

Anonymous said...

Kris, this is a great report, thank you for sharing it.

I'm a hiring manager in the finance industry and we're paying higher base salaries across all experience levels. Location matters, but demand is also driving up salaries for us.

Anonymous said...

Many thanks for this. As someone who currently works in anti-money laundering / financial crime consulting (specifically, international due diligence), it's nice to see that my options in the financial industry are wide. A big reason behind the ramp up in compliance / AML hiring is not only due to the recent money laundering fines and investigations, e.g. HSBC, but because FATCA will dramatically increase the reporting requirements on the part of banks. Ostensibly, FACTA is meant to help the IRS collect on overseas assets, but really, the implications it has on anti-money laundering, anti-corruption, and other financial crime compliance activities are dramatic. Add in the financial sector's increasing role in intelligence gathering and you have a fertile ground for private intelligence analysts like me.

Although, I do have a somewhat related question. Given the nature of my field, I'm having a hard time trying to decide on a graduate program of study, as a J.D. or an MBA seems too tangentially related and kind of overkill. Would you recommend Mercyhurst's MS program for someone in anti-financial crime compliance, particularly one with an interest in predictive analytics / big data (use of, not technical development)? Unfortunately, public sector intelligence is closed off to me.