A day in the life of CiteAb product manager Rebecca

Rebecca Sadler joined our team this summer as one of our two new product managers. Today we introduce Rebecca and give you an insight into the work she does with us here, and we chat to her about her exciting new hobby!

Rebecca graduated from her biology degree at the University of Bath earlier in the summer. During her studies she undertook a professional placement in market research, making her move into product management at CiteAb a natural progression.

I usually have a pretty slow morning, I like to have plenty of time so I’m not rushing. I’ll wake up and get ready whilst watching some morning news. Once ready, I’ll head into the office for between 9 and half past. I’ll start out by catching up on any emails and dealing with anything those bring up. Then I’ll check my to do list and calendar and go and grab a cup of coffee before moving onto my first job for the day.

Every so often, such as this morning, I’ll check on the quality of the citations that the deep reviewers have been working on over the past few days. We’re really focused on ensuring the excellent quality of our data before it goes out to companies, so this work is to make sure that the citations the reviews have provided are correct, to avoid any errors. This would also involve updating stats on the data, so I’ll track various figures, such as the total number of citations, so that I can see how our data is improving over time.

What time does hunger strike?

I usually get hungry pretty early so lunch is almost always dead on 12pm. I usually bring in some leftovers, because I much prefer hot meals over sandwiches! We’re right in the middle of Bath, so after eating, I might pop into town if there’s anything I need, or go and grab a coffee. I’ve particularly enjoyed visiting Parade Gardens on lunch breaks, as it’s so pretty (when it’s sunny!).

And your afternoon work, what have you been focused on recently?

I have one particular project I’m focused on at the moment involving our small molecules data. My aim has been to try and increase and improve the data. This might involve carrying out deep reviews myself to add to the number of citations, or I might focus on filling in some of the gaps in the data, for example pubchem CID. This is to try and improve the coverage across all columns in our data.

The reason for this is simply because the more data we have the better the it becomes for looking at trends. This would allow us to see how the citation share of certain products has changed over time – very useful information for the companies that make those products, but also for those who don’t, who may find an opportunity to expand into that area. There are many different ways of looking at the data, so I try to find multiple examples in order for our clients to understand how the data can be useful to them in so many ways.

How do you like to unwind after a day at CiteAb Towers?

Most of my evenings are free to relax and cook dinner, apart from roller derby training on Wednesday! I just started this year – I did the ‘Fresh Meat’ course, the name of the training all new members of the team undertake.

I’ve never really enjoyed sport, or at least found one that I’ve enjoyed doing. I remember when the “This Girl Can” ads began on TV and I saw this sport on roller skates, and I had to find out what it was. I’d always enjoyed roller blading. My local park was perfect because it was just a big concrete sphere around grass that I could skate around for hours with friends. I looked into the sport and found there were all these roller derby teams across the country and specifically there was the Bath Roller Derby Girl’s team, and they ran fresh meat courses. It felt a bit like fate when BRDG advertised their fresh meat course to start in July, just after I’d accepted the role at CiteAb, so I took the plunge and signed up and have had a great time so far (even though the rules for this game are still quite confusing to me!).

Well that’s all folks! Find out more over the coming weeks about other new members of our team. We’ll be featuring them all here on our blog and giving them the chance to tell you all about themselves.

– Katrina and the CiteAb team

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