Editor’s note: This article was first published in May 2011. Its claims that the profession had existed in Spain for less than two years and that no Spanish university trained people for it reflect that moment. Training options for the role have since multiplied.
In Spain it has become common to use English names for a job, a skill or a position. This is happening with one of the jobs expected to be most in demand in the future: the community manager. The problem is that even the companies looking for a community manager aren’t very clear about what they want to hire, what on earth the role is for or what it will involve.
Is it a manager, a head of IT, a business administration graduate, an economist, a finance director…? It may sound like a joke, but community managers have been hired for all of these roles. What I don’t understand is why they change the name when the job already had one in Spanish.
So, put simply, the community manager is the person hired to manage a community of users on the internet and strengthen the company’s online brand image. They are the web content manager, in charge of promoting the company’s name on social networks by legitimate means. They’re responsible for making sure the company’s website commits no infringement it could be sued for, and also for keeping an eye on the comments posted in the company’s own forum or community.
What qualifications should a community manager have?
More than qualifications (which, unfortunately, companies are increasingly asking for: law, business administration), what’s needed is knowledge. For better or worse, at least in Spain, there’s currently no university that trains people for the tasks a community manager will actually carry out in the job.
Some companies ask for a law graduate, thinking that person will know the laws of cyberspace; others ask for a graduate in business administration and management (ADE, in Spain), which in my view is like asking for an engineer to prune a garden. The ones I find funniest are those that require a community manager to have, as an essential, non-negotiable condition, a university degree or diploma (in anything, even nursing) and three years’ experience in the position, bearing in mind that this profession hasn’t even been around in Spain for two years. Could it get any more…?
Most Spanish companies don’t really know what they want, but they advertise for it anyway. Let’s say it’s “cool” to have such a modern professional in a company that wants to grow, and with the requirements they usually set, they end up hiring a highly qualified person who looks incompetent six months later, because they were hired for a job they weren’t prepared for.
Further reading
- Differences between Spanish and American entrepreneurs
- The 10 jobs of the future
- The most in-demand professions in economics and finance
- The most in-demand jobs in social services
- University degrees with the best job prospects
Featured image: Chris Potter, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
