Product Research Specialist

Role: Product Research Specialist

Location: Bucharest, Romania 

Job type: Full time, permanent – hybrid 

Why QS? 

At QS, our culture fosters a flexible working environment that encourages our employees to own their career whilst personally and professionally thriving. We collaborate, respect and support each other – and as a company, our values underpin these. 

Our mission is to empower motivated people around the world to fulfil their potential through higher education, and to ensure everyone has the same opportunity to achieve that potential. We celebrate the diversity of our teams and believe through sharing our experiences we can learn from one another and become stronger together, which enables us to achieve our goal. 

At QS, you’ll be responsible for implementing real change in the international higher education landscape, full of exciting and interesting challenges where you can drive positive impact across the business. 

In October 2023 we were thrilled to be included in Newsweek’s Top 100 Most Loved Workplaces® in the UK list which is compiled using employee sentiment and satisfaction data.  

Using insights from more than two million employees in organisations with 50 to 100,000 members of staff, the list recognises workplaces where employees feel most respected and appreciated.  

The Role

QS is seeking a motivated individual to join our team in the position of Product Research Specialist. The role works as part of a professional and friendly teams in London, Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur and Bucharest offices – giving you excellent exposure to working in an international environment.

This position will report to the Product Manager of QS Stars and will require a combination of drive, analytical capability, organisational skills, knowledge, and an interest in higher education. The role will be responsible for assisting the QS Stars Product Manager and product management team on a variety of projects and analysis to improve the effectiveness of the product.

The Product Research Specialist will have a focus on: better understanding our customers through feedback tools, research how to improve student awareness, writing and maintaining existing documentation and leading on the creation of new material, providing competitor trends and learning new tools/maintaining current systems. This will require the ability to quickly adapt to unfamiliar situations, confidence to work independently, and excellent relationship management skills.

You will be creative in your thinking and have an interest in improving various areas of the QS Stars product. An effective team player, you will bring a flexible attitude with you every day - being prepared to collaborate with various teams, but to also work on your own initiative. We are looking for someone who can think critically, solve problems, adapt quickly to unknown and bring an international perspective to what we do.

Responsibilities include:

• Take the lead on designing feedback instruments for internal and external stakeholders (e.g. universities, students) and providing follow-up action points, contact management and compiling personas

• Tracking user engagement progress in collaboration with the user experience team

• Actively conduct competitive landscape analysis, fold the learnings into our roadmap and prepare briefings of this internally.

• Manage the student strategy and activities, with a focus on student recruitment events and how we communicate the ratings to students.

• Own the documentation around any methodological changes focused on students/institutions and support with any research activities required

• Coordinate all translations (methodology, marketing guidebook etc)

• Oversee the QS Stars report updates and support other teams where required.

• Establish and maintain QS Stars publishing policy and functionality

• Automatization processes – work with various stakeholders to create process efficiencies and maintain systems

• Involvement in a variety of projects

We’d love to hear from you if you have most or all of the following:

• Experience of managing projects or demonstrable experience of delivering assigned tasks

• Adaptable, flexible, and comfortable with uncertainty

• Confidence to work independently and manage one’s own time effectively

• Excellent decision-making skills, deadline-orientated and an exceptional eye for detail

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English

• Strong inter-personal skills and the ability to work with cross-functional teams and multiple stakeholders.

• Capability to analyse quantitative and qualitative data and synthesise clear narratives and conclusions.

• Experience working with data in Microsoft Excel

• Data visualization tools such as Tableau are a plus

• Enthusiasm for taking on varied, sometimes challenging tasks

• Highly analytical and an innovative and creative thinker

• Strong work ethic and problem solver

• Nice to have: any product experience

So, who are we and what do we do? 

QS is the world’s leading provider of services, analytics, insights, and intelligence to the global higher education sector - supporting university excellence across the world. Our student recruitment and enrolment solutions enable universities and business schools to connect with talented individuals seeking to further their academic progress and career development. Our portfolio of professional services includes consultancy, student mobility and academic partnerships management, and branding solutions. We publish highly visible and influential rankings of international universities, including the QS World University Rankings® which reaches a global audience of hundreds of millions of people.  

Founded in 1990, our activities span across 50 countries, working with over 2000 of the world’s leading higher education institutions and over 12,000 employers.  

Headquartered in London, QS has over 750 employees globally with offices in Australia, Malaysia, India, Romania, Singapore, France, Germany, and the USA. QS keeps growing organically, through acquisition and by recruiting top talent across key regions. 

We take investing in our people very seriously. 

As standard you will have: 

• Competitive base salary

• Access to an annual bonus scheme (for qualifying roles only)

• 21 days annual leave

• Enhanced maternity and paternity leave

• Unicredit Bank Partnership

• Meal tickets

• Medical subscription to Regina Maria

• A vibrant social environment and multicultural and multinational culture

But that’s not all. Outside of these standard benefits we also offer resources to allow professional growth, and wellness initiatives to nurture a healthy mindset: 

• Free subscription to the Calm App – the #1 app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation

• A focus on welfare which is led by our global wellness team, with mental health first aiders globally

• Access to a variety of diversity and inclusion initiatives and groups

• Strong recognition and reward programs – including a peer-to-peer recognition platform, quarterly and annual QS Applaud Awards, Connect with your Career annual PD event

• Support for volunteering and study leave

• Free subscription to LinkedIn learning – with over 5000 courses and programmes at your fingertips

• Options to join our outstanding global Mentorship programme

Like what you’ve heard? Great, apply now! 

As a candidate, we know the application and interview process can be daunting and so it’s important that you have a great experience with us. Our dedicated Talent Team will work hard to ensure you are fully informed at all stages and you are really excited by this opportunity to do meaningful work in the education space.  

Equal opportunities