When you’re buying a pair of pants, you have a general idea of what you want. You have a good idea of what size and style work for you, but there are other things you have to take into consideration as well. Are the pants for a specific event or setting? What season are you going to use them in? Do they need to be a specific color? When you’re thinking about your next digital strategist role, there are also a number of things to think about.
If you’re an experienced digital strategist, you know that digital strategist roles can look very different from organization to organization, initiative to initiative, and project to project.
Before you pull the trigger on your next digital strategist role, there are three questions that are crucial to ask.
- What critical conversations am I going to have, and with whom am I going to have those conversations?
As a digital strategist, you may be expected or asked to speak with marketing teams, technology teams, UX teams, and analysts, or to boardrooms, clients, or outside vendors. Having effective conversations with each group requires different skill sets, experience, and knowledge. It is important to understand who you will be speaking with on a regular basis to be successful in the role.
- What specific deliverables will I be responsible for producing?
As with conversations, the deliverables produced as part of a digital strategist role can vary significantly from organization to organization. You might be responsible for producing very visual presentations for stakeholders in boardroom presentations. You might be responsible for producing strategy documents for face-to-face meetings with clients or documents that will enable other people to share recommendations with clients. You might be asked to develop detailed project plans to hand off to the UX, analytics, and technical teams. While these may be some of the more common deliverables, you will simply not know the expectations unless you ask. It is crucial that you know which deliverables you will be responsible for producing to better understand if your interests, knowledge, and skill set will be a good match. This can also help you determine if some sort of training would be beneficial if the deliverables are outside of your realm of experience.
- What kind of project oversight responsibilities will I have?
Again, the possibilities for oversight responsibility are many and vary depending on the organization, initiative, or project. You might be asked to keep a particular initiative moving throughout the stages from beginning to end so that you can help avoid or remove obstacles. You might simply shepherd a project making sure the strategy stays on point. You might also be responsible for doing a high amount of detailed project coordination and work with other teams within the organization to see it through. Or, you might simply walk away from a project once you have handed over the deliverables you were responsible for developing. In any case, it is important to know ahead of time the responsibilities you will have when it comes to project oversight.
When considering your next digital strategist role, there are many things to take into consideration. We have provided these questions to give you a solid start. Are there specific questions you ask or strategies you use when considering a new digital strategist role? Let us know in the comments! We’d love to learn from you!
Are you a hiring manager looking for your organization’s next great digital strategist? Check out our post on the three key questions that will help you find a digital strategist that is a great fit for your organization.
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