Market Research Specialist - Ben Franklin Technology Partners

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JOB DESCRIPTION AND POSITION REQUIREMENTS:

Helping new companies get a good start with effective market research, financial, and administrative practices is critical to their growth and ongoing success. Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Central PA's premier provider of capital and management assistance to early-stage technology companies, immediately needs to fill a project-based, full-time Market Research Specialist position.

Roles and Responsibilities: The position reports to the Director of Market Research and will be specifically assigned to assist client companies in the Ben Franklin TechCelerator program, which includes companies at the earliest stages of development.

The person in this position works as a member of the Market Research team to collect qualitative and quantitative market data, analyze market trends, identify competition, and distill the resulting information in understandable, accurate, and actionable reports that will drive the business decision-making processes for companies in the Ben Franklin portfolio. The position will also use market information and proprietary databases to generate lists of potential customers and company contacts. This position

Responsibilities include:

• using interviews, Internet sources, databases, published literature, and other sources and tools to conduct market research to evaluate market opportunities, competition, typical business models, communications, sales channels, pricing, and the economic, regulatory, and demographic environments facing client companies and their products.

Occasionally, companies may be obliged to meet with companies to discuss their needs, results, market research, or support the TechCelerator program on-site. Thus, some travel within the thirty-two-county geography of Ben Franklin's Central Pennsylvania territory may be required.

Education and Experience: This job will be filled at the Advanced Professional Level, depending upon the successful candidate's competencies, education, and experience. The position requires at least a Bachelor's degree and 3+ years of relevant experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

The successful candidate must be skilled and adept at research, especially with topics with which he or she may not be familiar. The successful candidate must also possess good written communications skills and be able to generate well-documented reports that companies can use to make decisions. Familiarity with probability, statistics, the use of graphs and tables, and data analysis is also desirable. The successful candidate should also have a basic understanding of business and economics.

Other requirements include the following:

• Experience in secondary research and writing papers, reports, articles, grant applications, etc.
• The ability to perform online information searches and use databases to obtain specific data sets.
• The skill to translate general information requests or search ideas into specific online searches with appropriate search terms.
• The capacity to identify the important market, economic, business, and cultural issues that will impact the markets associated with a company's products.
• Sharpened skills in critical thinking, analysis, and testing/validation.
• The capacity to produce useful reports from general instructions and when details and specificity are lacking.
• Superior time management skills, including the ability to self-start projects, work independently, prioritize, and manage work requests from multiple sources, and to produce quality reports in the specified time frames.

This is a limited-term appointment funded for one year from the hire date with an excellent possibility of renewal.

BFTP is supportive of flexible work arrangements when aligned with the ability to meet the needs of the unit and the essential duties of the position. Questions related to flexible work should be directed to the hiring manager during the interview process.

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Penn State offers competitive benefits to full-time employees, including medical, dental, vision, and retirement plans, in addition to tuition discounts (75% discount for spouse and children), and paid holidays. Please visit https://hr.psu.edu/prospective-employeefor more detailed information.

The salary range for this position, including all possible grades is:

Salary Structure - additional information on Penn State's job and salary structure.

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