Hey, I applied to Mercer way before the deadline, was asked to do the numeracy tests and have not heard anything since? Have people at the same stage been going for interviews/getting rejections? Any info would be appreciated.

You'll find out tomorrow. A lot of the Oxbridge candidates are doing their tests today (for some reason they have to do it in the flesh). My guess is they'll make a final review today.

I did the online test back in November and was swiftly rejected. I guess I messed up one of them. I asked them for feedback on the test scores as usually I'm quite good at them, but was completely ignored. V. rude in my opinion.

Come on! You expect feedback at a screening stage for a web based test. What feedback were you expecting? Although you answered questions 1-15 very well, you answered questions 16 and 17 wrong. I hope your post was tongue in cheek.

I applied on the last day of the deadline, took the online test in the calender void between Christmas and New Years, and I also waiting to here back from them.

Thanks, thats all very helpful, geuss Ill be waiting till tomorrow then. Thats wierd about the Oxbridge people doing a test in person - anyone know if they did online ones too? Any more Mercer experiences would be cool.

In their first round of interviewing I got through to the first round of interviews. The online tests are used as a screen, if you get through to interview you will be asked to do a (harder) version at the time. My experience from the first round interviews was one more formal case study and one more relaxed discursive one with more questions about my CV. They seemed very anxious to know who else I had applied to, what interviews I had got etc. which I found quite uncomfortable and unprofessional but hey, just a warning. Oh and if some guy asks you how a paper manufacturer cut its transport costs the answer is they changed the customer base to nearer customers! Took me embarassingly long to get that and I still think its a bs way to cut costs but oh well.

"..........the answer is they changed the customer base to nearer customers"well f%^k me! Do you have a business problem? Are your sales stagnating? Are you desperately looking for strategic insight? Hire a bunch of Oxbridge jocks to tell you the f&*ing obvious and alleviate you of a 7 figure sum in the process!

Yes, Oxbridge applicants had to sit the exam/test in flesh- I had mine today and it was as "sh*t as hell"- Not even a miracle could get me through to the next round- BTW I read Geography and math is not my strongest point- though i did pretty well with the verbal reasoning- Regardless- I am not looking forward to seeing them for the first round of interview- I have just kissed my chance " Goodbye" :) though i would have loved to live in Belgravia :) :)

people, has anyone heard from mercer about first round yet? they said they'll let me know by the 9th. ie. today. I took the tests on new years eve - the deadline. no news yet. is this a ding?????

Yes I have.. have you?????

No online tests for Oxbridge brigade so far- we just the test in person at their London office- looks like Big Brother was watching us throughout the test..

Hi, Having applied on Wednesday (31/01/07) I have a test (in the flesh-I'm at Oxford) on the 2-th of Feb. What does this involve? Just a case study interview plus the VR? Any advice much appreciated!

Anyone?

Ok, here go my assumptions on their recruitment procedure. I applied with them too and was invited to do the tests. Without exaggeration, I found their tests online very easy and I had done the numerical one at least 5 times ( with many similar questions from shl) for other investment banks. Like someone here in the forum, I got swiftly rejected. I strongly believe they make some candidates from other universities take the tests just to keep up their 'diverse hiring' profile. The truth is they only care about oxbridge candidates. That is why they make them sit in person. They know their shl tests online are crap and candidates can crack them easily. Shame on you Mercer people and your dirty policies. Well, anyway, I got offers from much better firms.

When it is question of such narrow-minded employers, it is not even worth aspiring to a career with them. Let them prosper on their Oxbridge candidates. Talented people from alternate universities, appy elsewhere and do not waste your time with Mercer. They do not deserve your time. Let them sink in their own mediocrity.

I've worked at the Mercer London office and I'm non oxbridge. Yes everyone was from Oxbrdige there. Yes it was a very dull and boring environment. And the London office is performing quite poorly and there is large turnover. Alot of grads are moving into finance.Anyways one thing that I learnt is that MOST (not all) of the oxbridge lot at MMC are socially inept with the wider public. They are simply nerdy, reclusive and arrogant. No wonder they are finding it hard to sell. In the US, its a different story. PPl are from a wider range of univs (all good offcourse) and the culture is more abt "Where can you go" and not "Where are you from".

"MOST (not all) of the oxbridge lot at MMC are socially inept with the wider public. They are simply nerdy, reclusive and arrogant."I couldn't agree more. Yes I got rejected (although at the final round) so bound to be accused of bias, but during the whole process I never felt more out of place, despite coming top of my year at a very good but non-oxbridge uni. One of my interviewers, clearly having prepared by not reading my CV, looked more than shocked when I corrected him that I wasn't at either Oxford or Cambridge. Luckily there's plenty of other consultancies that aren't like this.

To dr 8/1/2007I've got a similar question i.e. ways to reduce tranportation cost. What I did was to identify the drivers to transportation cost namely (i) distance (ii) size of the items to be transported (iii) nature of the items eg. valuable items require additional security features (iv) means of transportation and lastly (v) frequency of the trips.In my final analysis, the distrubutors can deploy scale economies by engaging bigger trucks and hence reduce the number of trips. The critical assumption was: there is no specific demand for on-time critical delivery as the solution is based on combined and bulk scheduling.

n,I broke down the drivers of growth just like you mention. However it didn't occur to me that the way to cut transport costs is to change customers so that they are nearer - what this suggests to me is that there is plenty of room for growth in the market and is really a revenue question as there should be potential to both keep existing customers and find the new ones as it was easy enough to change the customer base within a fairly short time frame (forgetting for the moment capacity constraints).

Yup I agree, the hurdle rate for lateral thinking in case interview is observably high. Having said that serving to geographically-near customers to reduce transportation cost may be justifiable from that standalone perspective. This, however, require more debates on the other economics such as margin and sale size analysis.

Hi, I want to know more about the numeracy test. Is it the same as the IB's numeracy test?Thanks!