The Community Roundtable

Empowering global community leaders with research-backed resources, training, and tools.

(Roundtable) When Growing Your Career Means Leaving Your Community

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In light of recent layoffs in our industry, it’s hard to ignore how it impacts our communities and business outcomes.  How do you say goodbye to the community you’re leaving behind? How do you advance in your career? How do you navigate the job market? These are some questions we’d like to have a meaningful conversation about and learn from each other because they affect our meaningful work.

So come join us in a discussion panel-style roundtable call with Amanda Petersen, Shannon Emery, and Meghan Bates.

5 Critical Hiring Characteristics for Community Management Roles

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Critical Hiring Characteristics

Looking at community job descriptions, it’s clear there are some characteristics that are prized by hiring managers.

While empathy, communication skills, and collaboration have always been a component of a community professional’s responsibilities, the growing recognition of the need for negotiation and strategic skills is newer. As community roles become more common, and as they continue to diversify into more specific areas (like community operations, technical community management, etc.) there will continue to be a core set of characteristics that are critical for successful community management.

We’ve found these five characteristics to be key when evaluating community talent. This is obviously not a complete list – thinking about your unique needs as a community program and an organization will always be important when thinking about the right fit for your community team.

5 Critical Hiring Characteristics for Community Management Roles

1 – Empathy.​  Many community management job descriptions share a key requirement: empathy. The ability to understand and share the feelings of another is quickly becoming a critical part of effective community management. Emotional intelligence is a key attribute.

2- Strong communication and negotiating skills. Community professionals interact with a wide range of people and have to gracefully navigate differences of opinion and perspective. That requires sophisticated communication and negotiation skills – no wonder these skills are becoming more common on job descriptions.

 3 – Ability to collaborate across the business. Community professionals are being asked to partner with teams across organizations. This requires leading discussions and training on community topics, as well as implementing projects that generate shared value. The ability to listen, translate concepts across different groups, and collaborate is essential.

4 – Strategic planning. In an environment where you rarely can tell people what to do, staying aligned around a strategic vision is key to a successful community program. This strategic vision informs planning, governance, and tactical programming in ways all community professionals need to understand.

5 – Ability to thrive remotely. We admit, this one is new and we aren’t seeing it on too many job descriptions yet, but just wait. As the world becomes more comfortable with employees working remotely the ability to thrive both working remotely, and also connecting people who are working remotely will become a sought-after skill.

If you want a primer on 50 common community management skills our Community Skills Framework™ includes five skill families with ten skills in each family, prioritized based on what we learned from our extensive community management research. You can use the Community Skills Framework™ as you craft your community job descriptions to ensure you are using industry-standard terms and including the skills critical to your particular community needs.
Learn more about the Community Skills Framework™ here.

If you want to browse community management job descriptions and get more advice on smart hiring for online community management roles you can download our community job index here.

Critical Hiring Characteristics for Online Community Roles

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Looking at community job descriptions (download our CCC 2020 report for 30+ online community management job descriptions), it’s clear there are some characteristics that are prized by hiring managers. While empathy, communication skills, and collaboration have always been a component of a community professional’s responsibilities, the growing recognition of the need for negotiation and strategic skills is newer.

Empathy

​ Many community management job descriptions share a key requirement: empathy. The ability to understand and share the feelings of another is quickly becoming a critical part of effective community management. Emotional intelligence is a key attribute.

​ Strong communication and negotiating skills

​ Community professionals interact with a wide range of people and have to gracefully navigate differences of opinion and perspective. That requires sophisticated communication and negotiation skills – no wonder these skills are becoming more common on job descriptions.

​ Ability to collaborate across the business

​ Community professionals are being asked to partner with teams across organizations. This requires leading discussions and training on community topics, as well as implementing projects that generate shared value. The ability to listen, translate concepts across different groups, and collaborate is essential.

​ Strategic planning

​ In an environment where you rarely can tell people what to do, staying aligned around a strategic vision is key to a successful community program. This strategic vision informs planning, governance, and tactical programming in ways all community professionals need to understand.

Learn more and browse 30+ community management job descriptions in our Community Careers and Compensation report – now available for free download.

Understanding Community Roles and Responsibilities

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A lot has changed in the community landscape in the last few years. We’ve seen movement on the vendor side, increased executive support for community programs, and the continued maturation of community roles.

​To further explore some of these changes in community roles and responsibilities, we partnered with Higher Logic to provide in-depth looks at the roles defined in the Community Careers and Compensation report and profile six real-life community professionals in a number of different roles.

The resulting eBook, Community Management: Understanding Community Roles and Responsibilities, provides a practical guide for community professionals, hiring managers, and HR teams looking to better understand community roles and responsibilities today.

What skills does a community manager need
Katie Baumer Community Manager
Community Management resources

Through Community Management: Understanding Community Roles and Responsibilities you will:

  • Understand distinctions in community management roles. The Community Careers and Compensation research collected data for three common community roles – and the years of experience, salary, and skills required for each.
  • Meet real-life community professionals. Six community professionals share how they found their current community role, and share advice for those interested in pursuing a career in community management.
  • Prepare job descriptions. Use the research data to determine the qualifications necessary for different community roles and the responsibilities and main priorities of each.
  • Explore resources that advance community management skills. Whether you’re looking to build your own skills or are a manager looking to increase your team’s skills, the research highlights the top resources professionals use to network and build their capabilities.

Learn more and download the free eBook now.

Community Management Skills That Matter: Technical

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Technical Community Management Skills: Designing and building effective communities

Technical skills are unique in that they are most easily outsourced and often score lower than their true importance because not everyone on a team needs each specific skill. But as noted in our Community Careers and Compensation Report Key Findings,
developing a technical specialty is a great way to increase your value within a community team — and add to your paycheck.  Not everyone needs technical skills in data analysis, API  development or UX and design, but team members that have them provide great value. Community teams and those who lead them do need to understand where their technical strengths lie and what individual skills can do to strengthen the community if they are to reap the maximum benefits from them.

TRAINING OPPORTUNITY

Data. Data. Data. ROI and engagement statistics are critical, and your community’s existence is heavily based on demonstrating behavior change and measuring community value, so it’s not surprising that the ability to collect and analyze data is seen as both a valued skill and a training need at all levels. Because community teams often need just a limited number of “experts” in other technical skills, community professionals may want to pursue the opportunities that most excite them, while keeping in mind community needs and desires.

CLIMBING THE LADDER

Technical skills are unusual in that strategists and directors value the skills themselves less than their ability to manage the people who have strong technical skills on their team. At all levels, being tech savvy will help you move up the ladder — and investing in specific knowledge can help you develop into a community technologist role, a horizontal career path that has great value, particularly as a consultant. Software and application programming, for example, was the lowest scoring skill of all we surveyed — but being able to code software and APIs can be a hugely valuable to certain organizations or the vendors who serve them.

Want to level up more of your community management skills? Click a skill set to learn more:

community manager skills community manager skills Community Skills Engagement

What is a community manager?

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Community Manager is by far the most often cited and discussed role in the community space for a couple of reasons. First, in the past online communities were used primarily for tactical reasons, which often did not warrant more senior roles. Secondly, communities were often run by ‘lone wolf’ community professionals who did not directly manage a team, but were responsible for everything from strategy to moderation. Community manager seems to have been the best catchall title to give to someone without direct reports, but who had a breadth of responsibility.

The community space has come a long way, but the Community Manager role has a wide variation in responsibilities, compensation and reporting levels. Community managers are often expected to do a bit of everything, and while the role is evolving it still requires generalists who handle a diverse set of responsibilities.

Community Managers in the Organization

Our research has shown that community managers work predominantly for corporations vs. agencies or as independents — suggesting that organizations are seeing the value in investing in community management for the long haul. Community managers often work with communities scattered around the globe, giving them the opportunity to work remotely — a benefit that accrues to both internal and external community managers.

Community managers typically report to someone at the director level, with only about a third reporting to a vice president or higher. Despite the manager title, most community managers don’t manage anyone. Our research shows that only about a third have direct reports, either employees or volunteers.

Skills and Training Needs

Community managers’ top five most valued skills get to the heart of the tactical day-to-day monitoring and management of communities. Their most desired areas for training suggest an interest in digging deeper to drive engagement and understand what specific elements lead to community success. These training needs also suggest an opportunity for community professionals to develop into community specialists such as Community Architects, Community Analysts and Community Strategists.

Performance Evaluation

While community metrics are part of the evaluation of a community manager’s performance, the voice of the community is rarely part of the process. Just 5% of community managers say a review from the community is part of their performance evaluation — versus 91% who say they receive a manager assessment and 72% who submit a self-assessment.

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Interested in more about the community manager role?

Download the Community Careers and Compensation report for free. 

Join TheCR Team: Community Research Analyst Wanted

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Do you love digging into data to discover the story it tells?

Are you comfortable questioning assumptions?

Do you enjoy debating what something means?

Are you fascinated by human behavior and how it impacts decisions and organizations?

Does working in an emerging industry excite you?

If so, you may be a great fit for the Community Research Analyst role at The Community Roundtable

Community Research Analyst Role

This is an exciting opportunity to learn about the future of work and how community approaches affect outcomes, financial measures, workflows, and leadership. The ideal candidate will have research experience, familiarity with analytics tools, good written communication skills, and strong critical thinking.

The Community Roundtable (TheCR) is the leading research and consulting firm in the community management and digital transformation space. Our core research platform, The State of Community Management, is read by tens of thousands of people every year and we work with 200+ clients to support their organizational transformation efforts.

The Community Research Analyst will be responsible maintaining and delivering high-quality research, analysis, reports, and content. This includes building and maintaining TheCR’s research databases and tools as well as supporting client work.

This is an individual contributor role for someone with 2-5 years of analysis and writing experience. This is a high growth opportunity, working with TheCR’s co-founder and head of research, Rachel Happe.

Key responsibilities include:

  • Developing research approaches and hypothesis
  • Working with large and complex data sets to develop analyses and key insights
  • Building surveys that include contextual logic
  • Cleaning and reformatting data for analysis
  • Developing tools to access key data required for reporting
  • Analyzing data and developing conclusions
  • Developing dashboard and research presentations
  • Building narratives based on research findings
  • Writing analysis and recommendations
  • Presenting research findings
  • Managing the research process
  • Collaborating with clients and team members to develop, execute, and publish research

Expertise required:

  • Bachelor degree in social sciences – economics or sociology a plus
  • Strong analytical and communication skills
  • Research and report writing experience
  • Excellent MSExcel skills and proficiency in PowerPoint
  • Proficiency in database development and reporting tools like Tableau

Why join The Community Roundtable team?

If you are looking for a predictable job in a big, slow-moving, and bureaucratic organization… this is not the job for you.

The Community Roundtable is a small, agile, and innovative team with a lot of opportunities to learn and grow into new responsibilities. We work with the largest organizations in the world, including, American Express, Electronic Arts, and H&R Block as well as established non-profits including AAAS, City Year, and The World Bank. The exposure and access you will get is hard to match and there is never a dull day.

You’ll join a team that works hard but also feels strongly that everyone needs balance and flexibility. We strive to keep the workday to eight hours, but recognize that both extra work is sometimes required and that life sometimes gets in the way of work. Collaboration is our team’s superpower, requiring personal responsibility and accountability, but also providing incredible support and new opportunities.

Salary and benefits are commensurate with experience. New England region preferred.

Are you ready to explore with us? Apply now. 

Are you our next community management fellow?

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I am thrilled to announce that we are hiring a new community management fellow for TheCR Network. “What?!” you’re saying, “But you just hired, not one, but two back in January!” Well, dear reader, you’re right, and spoiler alert: they were so awesome they have both moving onto full-time roles on TheCR team (yay!) While onboarding, training and mentoring our new fellows each year is a lot (A LOT!) of work, I am always delighted when they find their true spot on our team.

So, now we’re on the hunt for another aspiring community professional to join TheCR team and learn by doing, right alongside our community managers. Our fellows are always neck-deep in the Network from day-one, so it truly is an unparalleled learning experience. Our fellows do everything from planning and eventually running programming, drafting content, managing working groups, diving into metrics and analytics and yes, some of the ho-hum admin stuff that goes with any community management job.

You might think I’m overselling it, so let’s hear from two of our most recent fellows who are still on the team at TheCR (nb: did you know I was our first fellow, all the way back in 2011? It’s true!)

“The fellowship program is an incubator of knowledge – you are given space to test and explore, in a real time environment, with the support of experienced mentors who want to see you succeed.” – Rachael Silvano, TheCR Fellow 2017

 

“It was great to learn more about community and community practitioners while actually being one myself. You do valuable work and get a lot of experiences that internships and fellowships don’t usually offer.”

– Kelly Schott, TheCR Fellow 2017

 

Our application for TheCR Fellowship role is now open! Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.

Community Jobs Round-Up 4/28/17

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Best practices for getting a community management jobEvery week we share a list of new community management and social media jobs – usually everything from community coordinators all the way up to director level positions (depends on what we can find each week).

I also wanted to share some of my favorite community reads from this week:

If you submitting for a Lithy, a TheCR Connect Award or any other type of recognition program Jillian Bejtlich shares some great advice.

Do you think community management is on the right track? Marjorie Anderson does and shares her perspective.

Looking for some new community folks to follow on twitter?

Know of a great community opening that we’ve missed? Let us know and we’ll add it to the list!

Best practices for getting a community management job

  1. How Do I Find a Community Manager Job? – Community management is a profession of relationships – use your network to discover your next role. Most community jobs are not currently found through traditional job listings.
  2. 50 Skills of Community Management – The Community Skills Framework represents the five skill families and top 50 skills that are required to build a successful community program.
  • How To Win That Community Manager Job – As organizations begin to increasingly recognize and reward the value of good community management the market for jobs has begun to heat up. While at any given moment there are literally dozens of interesting community jobs open around the country (and truly, the world) the competition for these roles is getting stiffer. How can you set yourself apart?

Community Jobs Round-up – 04/14/17

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Every week we share a list of new community management and social media jobs – usually everything from community coordinators all the way up to director level positions (depends on what we can find each week).

This week as a special bonus posting we’re featuring an open role with TheCR team – a part-time Sales and Marketing Coordinator. Working with TheCR is great (I might be biased…) as we are flexible, fun and hard-working. If you happen to love community management that is certainly a bonus! Check out the open role here.

Know of a great community opening that we’ve missed? Let us know and we’ll add it to the list!

Best practices for getting a community management job

  1. How Do I Find a Community Manager Job? – Community management is a profession of relationships – use your network to discover your next role. Most community jobs are not currently found through traditional job listings.
  2. 50 Skills of Community Management – The Community Skills Framework represents the five skill families and top 50 skills that are required to build a successful community program.
  • How To Win That Community Manager Job – As organizations begin to increasingly recognize and reward the value of good community management the market for jobs has begun to heat up. While at any given moment there are literally dozens of interesting community jobs open around the country (and truly, the world) the competition for these roles is getting stiffer. How can you set yourself apart?