What does your role entail?
In short, a Lead User Researcher is responsible for guiding the process of understanding and improving products or services from the perspective of the people who use them. As part of my role, I also manage and mentor other user researchers.
Did you always plan to have a career in tech?
Not at all! When I left university, I felt a lot of pressure to get a job quickly. After seven or eight failed attempts, a friend told me about his work as a User Researcher and that they were recruiting.
What has been your career path to getting to Mercator?
After university, I stared as a Researcher at HMRC and worked there for just over six years. I learnt so much and I am so grateful to everyone I worked with.I thought it would be good for me to understand the differences in research between the public and private sector so moved to Asda. I was lucky enough to work with a great team on a huge ecommerce transformation. Then after Asda I made the jump to Mercator
Have you found it challenging breaking into your profession?
I never would have gone for my first role without my friend’s encouragement. I feel as though I potentially had the research skills but reading the job advert, I felt massively under qualified.I think it’s difficult if you have no awareness of the roles.Then if you hear about the roles and read the adverts it’s easy to get a bit overwhelmed by some of the jargon.
What could be done differently to combat the above?
I think wording in job adverts is super important. It’s great to see lines in job adverts saying please do apply if you don’t feel like you meet all the criteria.Some of the best people I’ve hired have come from different careers and could have easily been put off by the job advert. I also think that raising awareness of different roles in schools is important, so people are aware of different career paths. This might be better since I left school, but I had no awareness of different careers in tech outside of an IT teacher.
How have you found working at Mercator Digital?
Really great – everyone I have worked with has been so welcoming and is clearly extremely dedicated. I’m lucky to have a great support system here already and can’t wait to continue my career here!
What advice would you give to other women who may want a career in tech?
Get a mentor – you can sign up to different places online or reach out to people on LinkedIn. It’s great to start talking to people in the industry. Also apply for the job even if you don’t think you meet 100% of the criteria.