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The three career paths of the community professional

November 24, 2015 By Jim Storer

By Ted McEnroe, Head of Research, The Community Roundtable

One of the target goals that we had for the Community Careers and Compensation survey in 2015 was to be able to shed more light on the skills of community. That’s why we undertook a significant review and revision of the Community Skills Framework, growing it from 37 to 50 skills overall. We also changed the lens for how we looked at those skills. In 2014, we wanted to know if you had a skill and/or responsibility for that skill in your role. This year, we asked how much value each skill had to you.

The difference is subtle but significant. You may have a skill. You may even be responsible for using it. But you may think it’s not really valuable for your community role. For example, a Director of Community may know how to moderate. They may even have titular responsibility for moderation in the community (because they oversee moderators). But the ability to moderate is not something they might use on a daily basis.

Looking at the skills framework in this way, we saw something interesting happen. We started to see a connection between some of the skills people valued most and their compensation.

Take business skills. Those who said business skills had the greatest value for them in their role earned an average of over $97,000 per year, compared with our overall average of just under $85,000. Those who scored strategic skills highly benefitted, too. They earned an average of about $91,000 – a slight but noticeable bump over the overall average. Both of those results fall into the “noteworthy but not surprising” category: those who most highly valued business skills were more likely to be Directors of Community, and those who valued strategy were more likely to be community strategists (and make higher salaries in those roles.)

But a third set of skills also generated value. Those who valued technical skills in their jobs earned a premium over the average as well, but they weren’t any more likely to be higher up the org chart. Our tech specialists parlayed their skills to an average salary of over $92,000.*

CCC_FunFact3_2015.png

What does it all mean? It highlights three types of career paths for community professionals.

  • An upward path – where a community manager sharpens their business skills and moves into a Director of Community role overseeing a community program, for example.
  • An outward path – where a community manager focuses on a specialty and builds that out across a number of communities as a community strategist, for example.
  • A skill-based path – where a community manager parlays an interest in a specific (often technical) skill into a more important role, whether or not they move up the organizational chart.

One reason this technical path exists is the nature of technical skills. Unlike content skills, which are more-or-less universally beneficial to community team members, you don’t need everyone on your team to be understand data manipulation, API creation or UX design. But having one team member with those skills is a huge benefit, and not always easy to find or keep.

Needed + in demand = more highly paid.

That’s great news for community professionals. We don’t just see a single way up the career ladder, we see three possible options that allow people with different strengths to grow and succeed.

And that can pay great dividends for communities in the long run, giving them opportunities to retain a wider range of talent.

*-These numbers have been updated with new data we have received since the data deadline for the CCC report. The original numbers were $96,000 for business skills, $90,000 for strategic and $89,000 for technical skills. 

Want to learn more about the skills that matter for community professionals and the career opportunities that await. The full Community Careers and Compensation report is only available to survey participants and members of TheCR Network, our network of community professionals. Take the survey at https://the.cr/ccc2015survey, or learn more about the exclusive programming and benefits of TheCR Network!

Taking your next steps in a community career

November 23, 2015 By Jim Storer

By Ted McEnroe, Head of Research, The Community Roundtable

In D.C., there is something known as “the Washington Read.” When a new book comes out, you flip straight to the index and see if you were mentioned (for good or bad). The closest equivalent in TheCR world is in the Community Careers and Compensation report, where people flip to the salary chart and say, “How do I stack up?” Then they look at the upper tiers and add, “…And how do I get there???”

There’s no magic bullet – but the good news is there is evidence that you can get there.

The average community professional in the CCC 2015 survey has a dozen or more years of work experience and more than five years of community management work – but just a bit over two years in their current job. For Community Strategists and Directors of Community, the experience numbers grow, but the time in current role doesn’t change much. What’s that mean? That most community professionals are on their second or third role – and improving their salaries as they gain experience.

CCC_FunFact2_2015

How are they finding these jobs? Generally, not through external ads. Turns out only about 13 percent of Directors of Community got their jobs from an external ad. Two-thirds said they either defined their own director role or were approached by the hiring manager directly. So make those connections, work those networks, and be entrepreneurial about your opportunities.

It’s worth it – and turns out it’s possible, too.

—-

Want to get started enriching your community career? Check out the training options for community professionals in TheCR Academy!

Five reasons you should tell a stranger how much you make as a community professional

September 2, 2015 By Ted McEnroe

By Ted McEnroe, Head of Research at The Community Roundtable

The Whisper (Malcolm Campbell) / CC BY-SA 2.0

The Whisper / Malcolm Campbell) / CC BY-SA 2.0

As you may have heard, The Community Roundtable’s Community Careers and Compensation survey is out now. The survey is one of our key pieces of research each year – a compilation of the skills, roles, responsibilities and yes, salaries of community professionals from moderators and community specialists to community managers, strategists, Directors and Vice Presidents of Community.

It’s data with a lot of value to community professionals and those who hire and manage them. It’s data that many people want to get, but sometimes don’t want to give. We get it. It’s personal stuff – and for that reason, we treat this data very carefully. TheCR research team doesn’t share it with anyone else, even others on The Community Roundtable team.

But just like our other major research platform, The State of Community Management, it’s critically important to furthering the work we do as community professionals and educating others in the power and importance of community.

So here are five reasons you should share your data with us.

Other people are making way more than you. Let’s start with shameless self interest. Your contributions to the data may very well demonstrate that you make a lot less than others who do your job – in other places, in other industries, and other use cases. But without your data, we don’t get the statistical evidence we need to make the comparisons you can use for the next time around.

You make more than others in your position. You have a hard job. So do other community managers. But you don’t want to go into your next salary conversation with data that shows other people with your title make way less than you. You want to be able to show that your direct reports, community use case, and industry matter – and justify your current and future pay. But if we don’t get the data, we can’t segment the data enough to show that. So you will be stuck justifying why your salary is higher than the average across all industries or geographies, when that may be an unfair comparison.

You’ve got mad skillz. One of the lessons of last year’s survey was that people with the same job title often had different skills and responsibilities. This year’s survey asks you what skills are most important for your job – and you’ll be able to compare what you do with what those in your position are doing. You may find you’ve outgrown the title you have, or discover some things that your peers are doing you may want to jump on.

You have untapped potential. Many of the questions in the survey feed your aspirations. We ask the areas in which you most desire training – which will inform not only programming within our own Community of Practice, but can serve as fodder for others, ideas for sharing resources and building informal networks, as well. You’ll also be able to see what skills those who sit on the next rung of the ladder value, to give you a sense of where to grow to better prepare yourself in your career.

You are not a snowflake. You’re special, don’t get me wrong. But just as we have seen there are artifacts and elements that consistently appear in successful communities, there are those skills and backgrounds that correlate with success as a community manager. Maybe, depending on the data, we’ll be able to see skills and backgrounds that correlate with higher salaries. But in order to do that we need to know your skills and your salary.

…And one more, if you’re in charge. If you manage a community team, we have a sixth reason for you. Sharing your information, and getting your team to share theirs as well, feeds your ability to use our skills framework to evaluate your team – and work with HR and others to create job descriptions and compensation for new hires that is rationalized and reasonable, which will help you hire.

Telling someone you don’t know about your work can be uncomfortable, and we don’t ask these questions lightly. If you have issues with sharing personal information, I want to work with you to either make you more comfortable or come up with a plan that makes you comfortable. It’s why we started asking for salary ranges this year instead of exact figures. It’s why we’re happy with you putting down the nearest metro if you don’t want to put down your specific location. We’re OK with not getting your name as long as you give us a valid email. (By the way, we do separate that stuff from your data in the database we work with.)

In the end, we think the value of the data is worth the ask. We hope you do, too. And don’t hesitate to email me with your questions and concerns.

—-> Take the survey now <—-

Learn more about the Community Careers and Compensation research platform (including sponsorship opportunities), and review the 2014 survey report in the Research section of communityroundtable.com

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