ICN Releases 3rd Article on Recruiting and Hiring in Insights in Quirk’s Media
Updated January 6, 2026
Originally posted July 2, 2025
In this ongoing series from the Insights Career Network (ICN) on Quirk’s Media, our researchers explore how recruiting and hiring processes are struggling to keep pace with a changing industry, creating an increasingly acrimonious environment for both sides of the desk.
The Journey So Far:
- Part 1: Understanding and Navigating the Evolving Insights Job Market
- Part 2: Old Way vs. New Way – How the Hiring Process Has Evolved
- Part 3 (New): Beyond Job Seekers: The Hidden Emotional Weight on Hiring
Original research conducted by the ICN for this article can be found on our Hiring in Insights page.
***Excerpts from Quirk’s***
Beyond job seekers: The hidden emotional weight on hiring in insights
Editor’s note: Randy Adis is Insights Career Network’s director of research on research, and SVP at RTi Research. Brian Fowler is Insights Career Network’s senior executive director. Kahren Kersten is Insights Career Network’s VP of research on research, and founder of Experience Insights. This is the third part of a series on hiring in the insights industry. Don’t miss Part 1 and Part 2.
The insights industry has always prided itself on empathy. Empathy is a core tenet of our profession, along with curiosity and integrity. And we can see researchers’ empathy turn into action in our community as people in search of new roles are actively supported on LinkedIn by insights professionals who share colleagues’ profiles, give endorsements and make connections happen.
While the job market continues to be stuck, demand for job seeker support is at an all-time high. Spending five minutes a day helping others can start a positive chain of events for hundreds of people. Keep reading
Old Way vs. new way – how the hiring process has evolved.
Part 2 of a 5-piece series
Two times a month, more than 100 experienced and mid-career professionals across research specialties and industries wake up and sign into an Insights Career Network (ICN) meetup to connect with “seekers” and “allies.”
As a fee-free, volunteer-powered career support community, the ICN has created a safe place to be heard and not judged as we work on personal skills and wrestle with mental health and career transformation. The ICN tells researchers that it is OK to bring your whole self to the discussion, and that there’s a community of people with relevant experience who have your back.
The most common refrain heard from those with more than 10 years of experience: “Things are so different now.”
In this second article of our series on how recruiting and hiring in the insights world has been completely turned on its head in recent years, we’re diving into a tale of two eras – the old way and the new way of finding talent and being found in our field. Keep reading
***Excerpts from Quirk’s***
Understanding and navigating the evolving insights job market
Part 1 of a 5-piece series
The process of hiring research and insights talent is hard to recognize even from just a few years ago. And trust us … we’re not talking about the latest “big idea” in methodology or some trendy tech jargon. We’re talking about how we actually find and hire research and insights professionals and those who support them. Something has shifted so drastically that it feels like we’ve lost our sense of equilibrium.
Remember when hiring meant you’d pick up an actual phone or sit down for an actual coffee with actual people to chat about an actual job? It was a time when networking meant getting out there and speaking with people instead of just hitting connect on LinkedIn. If that world doesn’t seem all that long ago, it’s because the “before times” were just five years ago, tops.
At the Insights Career Network (ICN), we’ve had a front-row seat to the transformation. We were born out of the very disruption we’re now studying. While we started as a network to help research and insights professionals through career transitions three years ago this spring, the community’s twice-monthly meetups with more than 100 people can be viewed as a live stream of evolving hiring processes in a profession that continues to be challenged by overwhelming amounts of applicants and limited growth. Keep Reading