Gongos adds 9 to staff, immediate plans to hire 3 more

Auburn Hills-based Gongos Research has already added nine employees in 2007 and has immediate plans to hire three more. Gongos conducts market research for corporations such as  Best Buy, Hallmark, Nestlé Purina, Domino’s Pizza, Borders, GM, OnStar and Polaris. The reason for the company's growth, according to president John Gongos, is technology and talent.

"We track top talent and one of our key goals is to leverage technology," he says. 

In the industry, Gongos is known for its proprietary i°Communities social networking market research site. "We use it to talk with consumers and launch surveys," says Gongos. Compared to traditional methods of survey delivery, he explains, "There is a much faster turn-around time and a higher response rate."

Gongos is continuously recruiting employees, he says. The typical researcher that Gongos keeps his eyes open for are marketing students with an interest in consumer behavior or psychology and a strong quantitative background. He has built relationships with area professors and conducts interviews of qualified candidates even prior to a position being open.

"We know we're going to hire again in the next year or two and this gives us plenty of candidates. This way, we already have highly qualified people waiting for us. We've been able to find and attract strong talent in this area." He says that this method has significantly improved the quality of employees that have been brought onto the Gongos team.

While seven of the recent hires were indeed researchers, two were programmers and the three positions currently available are also for programmers. "As we create more technical products, we need more programmers on staff," says Gongos.

Gongos has been in business for 16 years and began diversifying its client base 12 years ago. "We used to be 100% automotive, now we are 30% automotive," Gongos adds. The company employs 65 full-time and 7 part-time.

Source: John Gongos, Gongos Research
Writer: Kelli B. Kavanaugh