[Remote] Research Interviewer

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. IANS is developing a new data product for security leaders and is seeking a Research Interviewer to conduct structured phone interviews with CISOs and senior security practitioners. This role involves coordinating interviews, capturing detailed data, and ensuring data quality while maintaining close communication with the account management team.

Responsibilities

• Work with sales account managers to identify the best interview contacts at each client — the person with the most hands-on experience with a given topic, not necessarily the CISO
• Persistently follow up with AMs to get introductions made and interviews scheduled; track and escalate when outreach stalls
• Maintain a master tracker of interviews completed vs. needed by market, product, client, industry, and revenue band to identify coverage gaps
• Coordinate scheduling directly with practitioners once introductions are made; accommodate busy executive calendars with flexibility
• Conduct 60-minute structured phone interviews with verified security practitioners using the IANS CATI survey instrument
• Cover all survey sections during interview (survey questions will be provided by product and research team)
• Ask intelligent, probing follow-up questions when responses are vague, surface-level, or inconsistent — the goal is detailed, usable data & insights, not checkbox completion
• Vet any quantitative data points required from the user to ensure data is fact-based and high-quality
• Record all interviews (with consent) and capture real-time notes during the call to supplement the recording
• Target throughput: ~7-10 completed interviews per week (accounting for scheduling, cancellations, and rescheduling)
• Enter all structured data from each interview into the survey platform (Qualtrics) accurately and completely
• Edit and process verbatim quotes from interview recordings: remove filler words (“um,” “you know,” “like”), fix grammar, and ensure quotes are fully coherent and attributable — while preserving the practitioner’s authentic voice
• Flag data quality issues: inconsistent responses, potential conflicts of interest, respondents who lack sufficient product experience to provide reliable data
• Ensure all interviews are properly tagged with firmographic metadata (industry, revenue band, team size) for downstream filtering
• Maintain a real-time dashboard of interview completions by market, product, industry, and revenue band vs. target sample sizes
• Identify gaps in firmographic coverage (e.g., “we have 15 financial services respondents but only 3 for healthcare”) and work with AMs to fill them
• Provide weekly status reports to the Research PM on throughput, coverage gaps, scheduling pipeline, and AM responsiveness
• Flag early if target response rates are at risk and recommend corrective actions (e.g., different outreach approach, incentive adjustments, alternative contacts)

Skills

• 1+ years of experience conducting structured research interviews, CATI surveys, or qualitative research with senior professionals (B2B context strongly preferred)
• Familiarity with cybersecurity concepts and terminology — you don't need to be a practitioner, but you need to understand the basics and be able to facilitate a technical conversation about implementation challenges
• Strong interpersonal skills: ability to build rapport quickly with senior executives, keep conversations on track, and ask tough follow-up questions diplomatically
• Meticulous data entry and editing skills — comfort processing interview recordings into clean, quotable verbatim text
• Organized and persistent: able to manage a pipeline of 30–50 scheduled and pending interviews simultaneously across multiple markets
• Comfort working with Qualtrics or similar survey platforms for data entry
• Based in the US (onshore requirement for data quality with technical audience)
• Background in cybersecurity, IT, or adjacent technical field (even in a non-practitioner capacity — e.g., analyst, sales engineer, product marketing)
• Experience with market research firms (Gartner, Forrester, IDC, KLAS) or B2B research agencies
• Familiarity with CATI methodology, sample management, and quota tracking
• Experience with Bayesian modeling concepts or statistical analysis (for collaboration with our modeling contractor)

Benefits

• Plus bonus
• Opportunity to grow into a senior research or research management role as the data collection function scales

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