[Remote] Research Interviewer
Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. IANS is building an innovative new data product for security leaders, and they are seeking a Research Interviewer to conduct structured phone interviews with senior security practitioners. The role involves coordinating interviews, processing data, and ensuring high-quality insights are captured to support the company's new product line.
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
Company Overview