Editor's note: Mia Hurley is a qualitative data analyst at Brand Riffs Inc., with experience in product development and CPG research. Prior to Brand Riffs, she served as a junior associate in product development at Dremel (Robert Bosch Tool Corporation). She graduated cum laude from Loyola University Chicago's Quinlan School of Business in 2025. Find Hurley on LinkedIn.
In May 2020, I graduated from high school, having little to no idea what I wanted to study in college. I arrived at Loyola University Chicago with a bold, yet naïve, optimism that I would figure it out as I went along. Cut to sophomore year, when I decided on a business degree in marketing. To be perfectly frank, it was a shot in the dark, but I had heard great things about the program and didn’t think I could cut it in finance.
As I started exploring paths it seemed that my future entailed some sort of social media or brand management role. The first of several twists occurred when I managed to land a six-month position as a product development trainee at Robert Bosch Tool Corporation – Dremel, where I postponed a semester to work full-time and see what life after college might look like.
This experience transformed my perspective on marketing and what I could do with a marketing degree. In my role, I worked alongside many different teams: engineering, brand and, most influential to me personally, UX. At the time, Dremel was evolving as a brand, preparing to create a whole new product line, positioning itself as a go-to choice for the casual to serious DIYer. For me, this meant being tasked with developing a strong understanding of our target users. Months of journey mapping, competitive analysis and communication of common pain points with the product development team ensued. But it wasn’t until we brought in Mindy Predovic from Pipeline Research to moderate prototyping sessions that I felt I fully understood our target user. As I watched Mindy moderate these sessions, so much of the work I had done in the previous months seemed to come to life. Instead of searching for answers behind a desk, she was actually uncovering insights in real time. This was my first true introduction to qualitative research; previously I didn’t even know what a moderator was. Just like that, a whole new career path opened right before my eyes.
In school, I had a vague sense of what market research was. Of course, many SWOTs and PESTLEs were performed diligently but it took this experience to grasp just how comprehensively you must understand your consumer. I discovered that research is, at its core, due diligence. For example, you wouldn’t just buy a new car without first reading reviews, looking for any model recalls, searching through Reddit threads, asking your dad for advice … you get my point. When you’re about to invest in something, you do your homework. This is what marketing research is to me, gathering as much information as possible before making a decision that could cost millions or billions of dollars.
Part of this is being confident that you know the person your product is for – how they talk, what they value, what excites and frustrates them. It sounds so obvious that I’m surprised at how little this important process was discussed in school – a sentiment that has been echoed back to me by almost everyone I’ve talked to working in the research sector. It seems few people set out to moderate and become qualitative researchers, most falling into the role accidentally, like me, not knowing it existed in the first place.
Perhaps it is overlooked and sometimes undervalued, how much qualitative and quantitative work can make or break a business initiative. This was made clear to me during my time at Dremel. I was surprised at how easily I lost sight of actual user needs while I was in product development. Especially since, most days, all that I worked on and thought about revolved around user pains. But when the time came to bring users into the lab to test prototypes, I was shocked by how off base some of my assumptions were about what actually frustrated them compared to my own carefully developed hypotheses.
As it happened, our cross-functional teams were so in-depth in our research and persona-defining that we developed faulty assumptions about pain points. In some cases, we thought the consumer was worried about something they weren’t even thinking about. Eventually, we became trapped in a kind of echo chamber, repeatedly recycling the same assumptions. While frustrating, I have found that this is not uncommon and, thankfully, is very solvable.
Of course, the biggest lesson for me was that the best way to get out of this echo chamber is to actually talk to the people you want to sell your product or service to. One of the most important functions of marketing research is to connect brands with their audiences in a meaningful way. This is also perhaps my favorite part of qualitative research so far – being able to translate the insights we get from consumers into actionable recommendations for clients. Seeing that lightbulb moment when clients watch IDIs or immersions never fails to give you a sense of accomplishment.
By the end of my time at Dremel, I went back to school with a clear vision of what I wanted my career to look like. I took a leap and pursued the opportunity to work with qualitative researchers and moderators at Brand Riffs Inc. As someone who feared in business school that my passion for understanding people might take a backseat in a brand or social media role, the experience as an associate qualitative researcher has so far been an absolute delight. Having the opportunity to work with different brands and categories, collaborating with people who know their brands and products inside and out while bringing a fresh perspective to the table is a thrilling experience. It’s a path that continues to affirm that I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.