I’ve been working as a Researcher(Interviewer as disguised) for like 2 years.
I think I’ve interviewed over 300 people in 20 projects. some projects require me to conduct interview over the phone, some required me to look for respondent myself
In research, we have 2 major types of survey. These are discussion group (DG) and central location(CL). Other than that, we have others like product testing, auditing and mystery shopper.
The DG usually done in-house(in the research company) with few researcher and client watching from another room(just like those interrogation room in the movie where they can see you from another room without you knowing it.) and 1 or 2 facilitator asking questions to the group.
Those respondent usually have been screened before they allowed to sit in the group and usually these people have a certain types of interests, hobbies and knowledge about the particular topic. Respondents needs to join in the discussion and speak up during the process or else the discussion group will not be a success as the researcher needs every details that the respondent got to offer.
The other type, CL survey usually done in some shopping complex(don’t be afraid if you been approached!!). Depending on how many respondents they need, sometimes they needs a lot of surveyor or interviewer like us.
I remember about the Pizza Hut pasta project(the one you having in the pizza hut now!), we need to find 100 respondents a day(9 rounds) for 3 conservative week ends. That projects we have almost 20 interviewers, 10 of us needs to interviews the respondent while the others looking for respondents for the next round.
While the projects needs a lot of coordination between the supervisor and the interviewers, for every projects they have quotas on races, sex and age group(sounds discriminating? Yes, it is)
So, we will work according to the quotas, we will identified the scarce respondents(middle age and with family) and they are top of our list to head hunt. It is fun when we are looking out for respondents, we need a balance between the young age group(below 30s) and the middle age groups.
We usually will look out for the young chics(for guys) 1st, we will head hunt the attractive and beautiful girl(nevermind even if her BF is besides her cause we have valid reason to approach her).
After few rounds of searching hot chics as interviewee, supervisor will gather all the guys and tell us stop flirting around and start finding the right respondents:0. That’s when we started to be “not so aggressive” in finding interviewees..
Isn’t it fantastic to have a valid reason to look at hot chic and approach them, if your BF/GF complained. Tell them “is my job to do that!”
So far, the pizza hut pasta project is the projects that involves largest group of interviewers.
Journey as a interviewer to be continue…
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