James Corr sits down with former Associate Director of Analytics, Jocelyn Chen, to discuss her career journey throughout over 5 years at Seer and the advice she has for future leaders joining the team she helped build.
Key Takeaways & Quotes:
What are some of your proudest Seer moments?
Upon reflecting back on half a decade at Seer, Jocelyn noted how much the Analytics & Insights practice has evolved and improved. Additionally, the team members themselves have experienced tremendous growth and development at Seer. In fact, Jocelyn was promoted 5 times during her Seer tenure and even had the opportunity to create her own role with helping to build out the GA360 Program at Seer. Associate Director, James, has also risen through the ranks throughout his 8 years with Seer and he has received a whopping 7 promotions over the course of his tenure.
The Seer team is encouraged to pursue thought-leadership opportunities. Whether that means speaking at an industry conference, leading a webinar, writing a blog-post or publishing a killer case-study. These external-facing opportunities for thought-leadership have enabled the A&I team to build their confidence as technical SMEs and even helped to establish their own personal brands in the industry.
In fact, Jocelyn noted how serendipitous and ‘full-circle’ it can feel to have your blog-post retweeted by Google. Plus, nothing beats hearing a new client say that they initially heard about Seer through a webinar that you hosted or case-study you published.
What are some of the challenges you’ve faced and how did you work through them?
Analytics is continuously evolving so, being a life-long student is a necessity in this space.
For instance, as an industry, we’re addressing increased privacy concerns while also ensuring that we’re collecting adequate amounts of data, in order to create value for that end user. Honestly, that’s part of what is so intriguing about sitting at the intersection of digital marketing and measurement.
In terms of internal challenges, standing up GMP Partner in 2018 was definitely a complex undertaking. We are an authorized reseller of all the products in the Google Marketing Platform.
When we started that program, we were trying to determine the best way to position ourselves within a pretty saturated market. Plus, it’s a constant balancing act of remaining true to Seer’s approach, while supporting Enterprise clients. Seer actually committed to having a dedicated individual for each GA360 client vs. a hotline style ticketing system. Each client has a Seer strategic partner who is supporting the account, trying to understand their business & determining the best ways to unlock the potential of a tool like GA360.
Do you have any advice for future leaders joining the Seer Analytics team?
When it comes to expanding our team, in order to truly succeed, we need to have a unique blend of technical expertise and intangible soft skills. It is important to continuously question the ‘WHY’ of everything that we do and maintain an insatiable sense of intellectual curiosity.
Folks on the Analytics Team have an inherent desire to poke at a problem and pull it apart, in order to truly get to the root of an issue. They’re relentless in their pursuit of solutions and that requires a certain sense of grit, in order to forge the best path forward for both your team & clients.
Our Team Leads are deeply invested into the overall success of the department, as well as the individuals on the Analytics team. There is a sense of being a part of something bigger than yourself and our commitment to doing the right thing in all instances is unwavering.
It’s not uncommon to see Team Leads volunteer to walk someone through a tricky deliverable for the first time or offer to shadow a newly promoted Manager on a client check-in call.
What’s next for your career? How has Seer set you up for success?
Jocelyn has been super focused in the digital analytics space for the majority of her career– specifically, web analytics and some app analytics. Upon transitioning into the Team Lead & Associate Director role, Jocelyn started to realize that there was even more out there, beyond the realm of digital analytics. She was eager to expand her technical horizons, however, she wasn’t sure it was something she could realistically pursue at Seer.
She had a very open and transparent conversation with the Leadership Team regarding the type of work she was looking to tackle. Unsurprisingly, they were supportive of our career aspirations and encouraged her to pursue other opportunities, if that was, ultimately, what was going to bring her fulfillment.
After closing out half a decade at Seer, Jocelyn is pivoting into an energy technology role at a large consultancy. The entire transition has been bittersweet to say the least. She has grown tremendously over the past 5 years and everyone at Seer will be cheering her on from afar as she enters this next chapter in her career.
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