>> So my name is John Cremo [phonetic]
and I'm currently and I'm a Global
and U.S. Business Analyst at Exxon Mobil and
refining supply plant her in [inaudible].
By the Global and U.S. Business Analyst I'm
also the Global Executive and U.S. Manager
and when I'm telling this to my friends
and they're trying [inaudible] what I do,
I compare it back to Money Ball
with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill.
I'm Jonah Hill, so I really have to manage
the business, you know that includes a lot
of heavy internal analysis and also
a lot of heavy external analysis.
You know providing them with the information
that they need to make well-informed decisions
because I'm not just looking
at the commercial actions,
I'm also looking at just
managing the business internally.
You know whether strategies, overall
strategies because we have a real top-level view
because you know we're making them with the
global decisions and as a global executive
and a lot of the decisions that he used
to make, come from an array of things.
So, I decided on commercial
strategies business by [inaudible].
That was one thing I got to
do last year was help develop
and present the 2012 business plans
to one of our Vice Presidents.
So that, but then a lot of like Ad-Hoc stuff,
well whether it's working with our suppliers,
we could go on with this one,
but a lot of different things.
In this area, in D.C. you have a lot
of people working in the public sector,
so they're limited to 40 hours a week.
So I have a lot of friends working those jobs.
Fortunately I'm not one those people which
makes it a little more difficult so it range.
I could have a 50 hour week,
I could have a 90 hour week,
you know it all really depends what's
the reporting period, what's going on.
Right now I can tell you it's
a 7 days a week right now.
[Pause] What I love most about what I'm doing
and one of the biggest challenges
I face is data.
One of the greatest opportunities in our
time is making data readily available
and easy to understand.
So with Exxon Mobile 80,000 employees,
billions upon billions of dollars are spent.
There's so much information, we have so
many different systems, so it's interesting
because I didn't study information
systems technology.
I didn't do anything like that, I
was a marketing guy and it's there's
so much opportunity to fix things and what I
love is getting a project, finding solutions
and solving problems and Exxon,
we're such a well-run company,
but even though we're well-run, there's still
so much opportunity to find improvements
and my managers, I can tell you right now
there are a few projects I find on the side,
I'm like hey I'd really like to
go do that because it intrigues me
and they say yeah, go ahead and do it.
And now some of these projects have
started small but have now massed
into company-wide operations so, it's
the challenge, it's the opportunity
to innovate I guess to come back to the point.
I love innovating and helping
people do their jobs easier.
[Pause] So for a business analyst
role, it could mean a number of things,
paying the company or even the [inaudible].
You can have general-- you need
to have a good base for business
and so whether it's you're studying finance
or economics, having that base is solid.
But if you really want to be lethal, you really
want to provide value right when you come in,
you've got have a good sense of how
to use systems like Excel, Access,
Tempo is the new thing, because when I was
still an undergrad, I did an internship
at Exxon Mobile before I went fulltime
and hey, you know what I had great grades,
I had all this great business
experience, but guess what?
I didn't know how to use Excel and
I got caught with my pants down
and I literally changed my whole curriculum when
I went back for my last year and said I've got
to take these computers classes, I need more
math so to provide value right when you come in,
yeah you're going to get those general
business skills from your array of classes,
but you really want to have a
strong computer sense because--
and I'm not just talking about knowing how
to use pivot tables, that's pretty basic.
Like if you want to be able to provide
value, have some tools under your belt
like the [inaudible] I've already mentioned.
[Pause] So I went to Penn State and I
initially came in as an athlete, I was a swimmer
and I had no idea what I wanted to study and
the great thing about Penn State is that there's
so much opportunities to get involved with so
many new things and just being a sports guy,
loving ESPN, I ran into this club called
the Penn State Marketing Association
and in there they had a sports marketing
division where you can get involved in some
of the marketing of the athletic
teams that we had on campus.
And, I got really involved.
I treated it like sports and through
the Penn State Marketing Association;
I got exposed to so many different, new things.
I look at the Fortune 500 List and
then I saw this company, Exxon Mobile.
I didn't know much about them besides
they're a gas station on the top of the list.
And I said, all right they're number one,
what do I have to do to work for them?
And, my due diligence, I'm like all right
I've got to get some international experience.
I really wanted to differentiate myself from my
peers and I was gaining this opportunity in PSMA
in the case and the competitions and I
really wanted to go to a unique country,
a lot of the Penn State students go to Italy
or Spain and I went to Brazil and through all
of these experiences, the case studies gained
[inaudible] opportunities and research,
I eventually put myself in the
position to become the President
of the Penn State Marketing Association and at
the time, that was 500 student organizations.
So it was a fulltime job.
But between student organizations, case studies
and research, I had a really large portfolio
in diverse experiences that put me in a position
to get a really unique job coming out of school.
[Pause] It's like I said
before, differentiating yourself.
When you sit down in an interview, a lot of
the people are interviewing for the same job,
are going to have the same degree,
and besides the suit they're wearing,
what really differentiates you?
So did you do any [inaudible]
competitions, did you get involved
in student organizations,
did you do any research?
Because you know we're all taking
the same classes, but what did you do
that can say I show initiative to go above
and beyond because what you're going to find
in your job, especially in a position like mine,
my boss may be half way around
the world sometimes.
I always have eyes on me, but you know it's
just like I did when I was at Penn State,
I show initiative, I wanted to do these
things and you've got to learn how
to do things on your own without being told.
So take advantage of opportunities.
There are so many out there and
if there's not, there's school,
there's definitely something
within your community.
It's creating, building,
innovating like making opportunities
because if you want something bad
enough, you'll find a way to get there.