Monday, 4 November 2013

Fresh MBA's - Take a shot at Sigmainsights opportunity, last date 8th Nov-13

True to the overall theme, I am going to offer you a "second opinion" on how to equip yourself to get that job at Sigmainsights, a Delhi based company.

Read on if you are a fresh MBA or know a friend who is a fresh MBA (you can email link to him / her)

In their own words, "Sigma Insights, is an innovative product company, which develops world class information and analytic products for corporations"

What they do: Produce analytic reports for different stakeholders in the power sector (at the moment), to help them make better investment decisions

Why is this business interesting: The power and energy sector in India has gone through periods of attractiveness to disinterest, with fluctuating fuel prices, policies. It is however clear that investing in power and energy infrastructure is an inevitable pursuit for any government. Trillions of dollars are going to be spent in the next few years in this space

To give you an idea, one of the reports (approx 425 pages) is sold for Rs 55000/- and organizations are customers for such reports

What is the job AboutThe job is simply to help produce those reports (standard like one above or customized, in response to a query that could be posed by one of their clients) 

Who Can Apply: Fresh MBA's (2013 pass outs) with 60%+ score

Process: A written Test, 1 or more rounds of face-to-face interview

Why this could be a useful skill / career move?

The future of knowledge work depends on assimilating / synthesizing pieces of information to produce meaningful conclusions. Multiple strategy firms like McKinsey & Co, Bain & Co, Accenture Consulting, Monitor Group; as well as investment banking firms like Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs will value such profiles. If you get to work here, you will also pick up a knowledge base in a sector of interest for the future. The power and energy sector is not an intuitive one to understand, hence formal exposure could add value to your overall career

You need to write to careers@sigmainsights.org by 8th Nov with your CV and request for appearing in their selection process

What are they looking for?

In their own words, "we look for people who have demonstrated exceptional ability and an enviable track record. The basic personal traits that we look out for in our new hires are curiosity, thoughtfulness, problem–solving and leadership ability"

More Insights

If we analyze this job basis our employment framework, we will classify this job as

a technical or problem solving variety, where

Operating in a dynamic environment (dealing with ambiguity, decision making, reporting and informing); followed by vigorous pursuit of results (perseverance and drive for results) are key employability traits that could be tested

How would a prospective employer like this one test it?

In the written test - Analytical reasoning questions, data sufficiency questions, data based inference questions would be typical

In the interview - Estimation questions (with an intent to understand the process and approach to the estimation) - for e.g. what is the total talent pool count for this opportunity; maybe a case study

General Awareness questions - Especially on the major dilemmas in the power sector, the stakeholders in that sector, total capacity requirement related questions, policy and de-regulation related questions

If you don't know, I would encourage you to guess after stating that you are making an educated guess

In the illustration of achievements, if you could focus on stuff you have done in dynamic circumstances, with insufficient data, that will be a plus.

Other - Communication during a crisis, how do you seek help, how do you work with others, how do you self analyze your output, have you been punctual about your deliverables, do you admit errors and rectify could be key aspects where negative behavior could disqualify candidature in personal interview assessment

Desirable - how do you store information and findings? how do you create a knowledge database? have you done that in the past, while working for placement committee or cultural committee?

I hope this gave you my take on the job and the context. I would encourage applicants to get into the rhythm, tempo and soul of the job rather than memorize dos and donts. This is the best way to equip yourself!

All the very best!!!

PS: I am doing this based on applying a structured framework to interesting information available in the public domain. The idea is to provide a second opinion on equipping yourself to get that job out there. This is purely undertaken in personal capacity to add value to you




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