Job titles for doing literature reviews, etc.

[gomipile]

What are some job titles for jobs where the primary tasks are digital/print/library/etc. research? Just jobs where 90% ish of the work is just looking for relevant sources on questions handed over from elsewhere in the company/organization/business.

[Rynjin]

"Document Specialist" is one, but not too many people hire for that. "Office Assistant" and similar roles might work too.

[Peelee]

Document Specialist, Office Assistant or Administrative Assistant might fit. Research Assistant sounds like it should but it's usually for much more intensive research work.

[gomipile]

Hmmm. I just searched for "document specialist" on some job boards, and the only jobs with that title were for making sure a stack of boilerplate contracts and releases get signed at car dealerships, HR, employment agencies, etc.

[Rynjin]

Hmmm. I just searched for "document specialist" on some job boards, and the only jobs with that title were for making sure a stack of boilerplate contracts and releases get signed at car dealerships, HR, employment agencies, etc.

So the issue you're gonna run into is that pure research positions are...rare. And they're gonna primarily be for people who are highly educated, and highly specialized in some very technical field.

The vast majority of roles that require research are going to be people who do their own research to accomplish some specific purpose. As an example, I am a Technical Writer. I research systems and processes, then document them. I am also typically in charge of determining storage and managing knowledgebases such as SharePoint based sites. So primarily a specialized content writing position with heavy emphasis on direct research and interviewing SMEs (Subject Matter Experts), with light webmaster duties.

A "document specialist" would theoretically be someone who worked with me to help procure information. However, that would only be something done for VERY large projects where I'm juggling too many balls at once to make it feasible to just go and figure out this stuff for myself. I have never come across this scenario in the real world.

Similar roles in IT exist, like Business Analysts or Systems Analysts, Reports Writers, even Project Managers, all of whom are usually the SMEs I am interviewing...but it's very rare you're ever going to find a role in a practical business that is going to be primarily research as the focus and very little practical done with said research directly by the employee doing said research.

A document specialist would be an entry level position (the only time I ever served in such a role was as a part-time job working for my college while attending) where you kinda learn the ropes of what you'd be doing for one of those more advanced positions. It is not going to be glamorous or very intellectually fulfilling work. It's the documentation equivalent of digging ditches, frankly, but it might get your foot in the door especially if you can prove ability to then properly summarize and write white papers and whatnot on stuff, you can parley that into better work.

[gomipile]

I expanded my search and found another different job that's being called "document specialist." The person whose job it is to make sure that documents are filled in and filed properly when people who make 7+ figures a year submit them.

The signal to noise ratio is 0.00 so far.

[Peelee]

So we know the desire, but not the context. What's the goal here? Is this something that you did, and you are trying to put a resume together but didn't have a formal title? Are you looking for this specific type of work to do ans trying to search for it? Something else? That might help.

[Rynjin]

I expanded my search and found another different job that's being called "document specialist." The person whose job it is to make sure that documents are filled in and filed properly when people who make 7+ figures a year submit them.

The signal to noise ratio is 0.00 so far.

Did you try using any other search terms?

[TaiLiu]

I think there's a bunch of jobs that mostly consist of library research:


Research librarian;
Archivist;
Historian, though it depends on the specialty;
Journalist, though it depends on the specifics of your job;
Freelance fact-checker, which I believe are trained in journalism schools;
Various other types of researcher, like others have mentioned.

All of them require special training. There are also other jobs that sometimes do library research. In the sciences, work that consists solely of library research tends to be situational. A scientist doing a meta-analysis is mostly reading papers, not performing experiments—but it's unusual for a scientist to spend most of their time doing that.

[DeTess]

What are some job titles for jobs where the primary tasks are digital/print/library/etc. research? Just jobs where 90% ish of the work is just looking for relevant sources on questions handed over from elsewhere in the company/organization/business.

I think you're going to have to be more specific, because 'tech support' fits your description? At least for me like 90% of questions can be answered by looking through catalogues/manuals to find the answer.

[gomipile]

I think you're going to have to be more specific, because 'tech support' fits your description? At least for me like 90% of questions can be answered by looking through catalogues/manuals to find the answer.

What I'm looking for would be more general than that. Like an on-call research assistant for more than just tech support.

[Peelee]

What I'm looking for would be more general than that. Like an on-call research assistant for more than just tech support.

So you're looking for a specific job type, then? It's probably going to be incredibly niche, and will have a more generic title more along the lines of what's been tossed out.

[TaiLiu]

What I'm looking for would be more general than that. Like an on-call research assistant for more than just tech support.
That sounds pretty close to being a research librarian.