Career Level:

Entry Level

Position Description
The primary responsibility of the entry level statistician will be to provide a statistical framework for the collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation of quantitative information. Additionally, the position will require the design and management of experiments and surveys. The statistician will work under the direction of the Analytics Team Manager to collaboratively process and analyze the data in context, looking for patterns to help make decisions. Typical work products will include reports of findings and recommendations on actions. The focus of the data mining work will be retail and consumer product and goods (cpg) related. Specifically, the entry statistician will extract "insights" from retail transaction data to support retail marketing, merchandising and supply chain decision making and cpg marketing.

Typical Work Activities
The entry statistician, with the aid of mathematical techniques and software, will carry out some or all of the following activities:

• Use analytics and customer transaction data to predict customer behavior
• Design analytical experiments to test retail performance hypotheses
• Create action-oriented variables for use in process decision making
• Analyze historical performance to improve the quality of future activities
• Predict demand for products and services
• Determine product price-sales elasticity
• Assess consumer choice dynamics
• Conduct retail market basket analysis
• Create shopper segmentation

Using commonly available graphics and spreadsheet tools the statistician will present and explain results to internal and external clients showing:

• Causes for the occurrence of observed events
• Predictions for the outcome of future events
• Profiles of the differences among groups

Position Requirements
Pre-entry experience is not essential. A 4 year degree (or near completion) in one of the following disciplines is expected:

• statistics
• mathematics
• economics
• management science
• operations research
• analytical social or political sciences
• analytical psychology

Strong analytical skills and familiarity with commercially available mathematical packages are essential. Strong interpersonal and communication skills are necessary to share findings with colleagues and clients. A working familiarity with one or more of the following development languages is considered highly helpful (Perl, C, C++, Java). In addition, a good understanding of SQL will also be highly helpful. Knowledge of retail and cpg is considered a plus. Strong interpersonal and communication skills are necessary to share findings with colleagues and clients. In summary, potential candidates will need to show evidence of the following:

• analytical ability;
• a clear understanding of statistical terms and concepts;
• computer and development literacy;
• communication skills;
• the ability to work with data and people at all levels within a range of organizations