December!
DECEMBER
Happy Birthday Denise, Rachel & Suhayr!
What drew you to Core?
Denise: I saw recruiting as an opportunity to be more involved in the actual studies (which were already interesting), and an opportunity to keep growing in a company I greatly enjoy working for.
Rachel: I never thought about recruiting as an interest of mine until I was the president of my college's leadership honor society and had to recruit the student executive board. I found that I was good at picking apart people's answers to surveys and interview questions. For the first part of my college career I thought that I wanted to be a clinical psychologist, but on a whim I took an Industrial/Organizational Psychology course in my sophomore year and was hooked. In that class, my professor spoke about companies that specialize in human factors and mentioned Core and that it was a great company to work for. I never thought about it again until after I graduated and saw a job posting for Core and applied.
Suhayr: I knew that I wanted to continue working in qualitative research and working in the human factors field was the perfect opportunity to do so. I knew Core was the right place for me because of our drive to help our clients improve their products and better connect with their consumers.
What is one fun fact about yourself?
Denise: I don't like cheese... BUT I will eat Mac n' Cheese... and also order pizza WITH cheese but scrape the cheese off the pizza... I also like Mozzarella sticks... But I really don't like cheese AT ALL.
Rachel: In high school I went on tour with my school's choir to Boston to showcase composer Morten Lauridsen's work. We sang "Lux Aeterna", which is 26 minutes in latin. Because of the amount of practice and performances I can still sing it if it starts playing, but I have no idea what the words mean, though! Also, Morten Lauridsen composed "Prayer" for our chamber choir to sing and it's still my favorite song to this day.
Rachel: In high school I went on tour with my school's choir to Boston to showcase composer Morten Lauridsen's work. We sang "Lux Aeterna", which is 26 minutes in latin. Because of the amount of practice and performances I can still sing it if it starts playing, but I have no idea what the words mean, though! Also, Morten Lauridsen composed "Prayer" for our chamber choir to sing and it's still my favorite song to this day.
Suhayr: My favorite colors are purple and green because I was obsessed with Barney & Friends as a toddler.
What is your educational or professional background and how does it relate to your everyday job at Core?
Denise: I studied Hotel Management and have a Major in Marketing. In addition to that, I have experience in customer service from my time working in American Airlines, PNC Bank and the Wedding Industry, which means I have a few extra tools to deal with participants that woke up that day to make my day more difficult, and to manage projects that require finding unicorns in a timely manner. If you see me freaking out, it's because I forgot the toolbox at home (It's heavy).
Rachel: I majored in psychology and minored in business for my undergrad which gave me a great introduction to a variety of topics like behaviorism, industrial/organizational psychology, finance, and marketing. I use skills in each of those areas while recruiting participants and managing recruits. While volunteering as an undergraduate RA in a clinical research lab, I was introduced to study design, participant recruitment and scheduling, and data security which gives me an understanding of what we do at Core and why finding the right people for studies is so important. As president of Temple University's chapter of the National Society of Leadership and Success I gained experience in interviewing, recruiting, managing people, managing budgets, and managing projects.
Suhayr: I have a degree in Environmental Studies and worked at the Philadelphia Zoo for several years before coming to work at Core. At the Zoo, I collected data on how our guests interpreted our exhibits and messaging and worked with marketing and education departments to determine how to better those aspects. This work has impacted my moderating and research skills here at Core.
What do you enjoy doing most at Core?
Denise: Finding unicorns (participants that are very difficult to find) and proving Frank and Lauren wrong, are definitely my favorite activities to do at Core! It really gives me a sense of fulfillment!
Rachel: It's actually something random and what most people would consider weird, but I love creating study schedules in GoogleSheets with the counts and everything! There's something so satisfying when everything looks great and is functional.
Suhayr: My favorite aspect about my job is moderating. I love speaking with people and discovering why they do what they do. I would definitely say it is my "niche".
Rachel: It's actually something random and what most people would consider weird, but I love creating study schedules in GoogleSheets with the counts and everything! There's something so satisfying when everything looks great and is functional.
Suhayr: My favorite aspect about my job is moderating. I love speaking with people and discovering why they do what they do. I would definitely say it is my "niche".
What is the best or worst recruiting story?
Denise: One of the best stories I can think of, is the day I started recruiting my first large study, and the first phone call I made turned out to be the unicorn (most difficult participant we needed to get)! It was a participant that was HS, left-handed, 40 and had a port on the chest... I peaked that day.
Rachel: I recruited a recent teleconference study almost entirely using my free LinkedIn account. It was a rewarding experience because I learned that I enjoy recruiting via social media and it was fun to think outside of the box!
What is the worst (or best?) design you have ever seen and why?
Suhayr: This ad campaign-
