Opinion about Woodmac

Fellow monkeys,

I'm about to interview with Wood Mackenzie for their upstream research division to cover either L48/Latam. I've heard good things about them but I don't really know what to expect out of the interview. Any ideas?

Also, what's the perception on Woodmac around here? Do you think that 2-3 years there will allow me to have some interesting exit opp?

Thanks.

15 Comments
 

Hey Lubb,

I just recently joined WSO, so sorry for the late response!

I work for a large international oil/gas firm in Houston and our general view of WoodMac is that they produce some very good work! I personally like all their reports - easy to read, digestable, and insightful.

From a career opportunity/advancement perspective you might actually benefit more by either working at an oil/gas firm in their business/planning/strategy/analysis department or IB/ER in oil/gas.

At the end of the day, you do gain valuable oil/gas knowledge by working at WoodMac but you don't really develop commercial experience. You learn a lot of industry info + report writing....

My two cents...

 

Hi, how was the outcome? I'm about to interview with them for a research analyst role in the institutional investor service dept. All that I've researched was about upstream research analyst, I was wondering if the Assessment Day structure of the role I'm interviewing for is the same as that of those upstream analysts? Any thoughts?

 

It all depends how relevant you are within your group. If you maximize your 2-3 years at Woodmac, you will be able to easily make the jump into any of the opportunities that Richard mentions.

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver. Niccolo Machiavelli
 
Best Response

I personally would be sceptical about the exit opportunity to ER from the likes of WoodMac and my advice would be to put it low on your preference list. If you did take the job I would not do for its own sake, and not as a stepping stone to move into ER.

The work they produce on cost curves and providing news is useful, but we have interviewed people from firms such as Woodmac for our team before and it has been very clear that experience in a certain commodity area does not necessarily translate into being able to analyse an equity and produce commercial equity research.

Also bear in mind that moving into ER is a common exit goal for many juniors and mid-levels at Woodmac, CRU and the like so there would be a lot of competition for a very small number of places. Not impossible- but would be tough to move across both as a result of this and the other reasons mentioned above.

If anything I would say exiting into consulting in the natural resources team would be more of a natural progression.

 

Also, they have some sort of excel test as part of their interview process. Anyone have any idea of what types of things I need to know for it?

 

When I was in Upstream O&G we saw them as the reference for business intelligence regarding assets and trends in the industry, extremely solid shop worldwide in that regard. I think they also do some power, mining and metals too.

Probably a good place to learn about O&G industry and valuation. Exit options I can think of are O&G FP&A, Consulting or maybe even O&G ER. Have no idea about MBA placement, but they are a well regarded shop In the energy space, and if you show career progression, I imagine at least decent top 10 placement. If you do MBA and focus on natural resources for recruiting, I can imagine consulting firms and IBs really interested in your experience

As a color note from my experience, even junior staff has client exposure, and quite international too in that respect.

Have no idea about pay though....

 

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