Company Information

1. The Strategy Analyst position

Are you interested in:

• solving original, wide-ranging, and open-ended business problems?
• not only discovering new insights, but successfully implementing them?
• making a significant mark on a growing company?
• developing the fundamental skills for a rewarding business career?

If this sounds like you, the Strategy Analyst position could be the unique opportunity you've been looking for. The strategy team at CarMax currently consists of more than 40 analysts, many of whom are recent college graduates from top schools. Their academic backgrounds range from computer science, economics, math, and engineering to English, journalism, and political science.

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2. Responsibilities

Strategy Analysts lead advances and decisions in several key business areas:

• Inventory and pricing—What is the optimal selection of inventory, how do we acquire it, what should we pay for it, what should we price it for?
• Expansion planning—Which markets should we enter and how do we store those markets? Will each $10-30 million store investment generate a sufficient economic return?
• Credit strategy—How can our bank (CarMax Auto Finance) approve more customers for loans and convert more approvals to sales?
• Marketing and consumer insights—How do we reach our customers, increase traffic to our stores, and best use the internet to drive sales and build our brand?
• Industry and competitive research—What middle- and long-term risks are we exposed to, and how best do we prepare to respond?
• Production—How do we increase vehicle reconditioning quality while reducing cost and production time?
• Sales process and workforce—What is the best way to serve customers in our stores, and how do we manage, motivate, and compensate our sales team?

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3. Opportunities and growth

Even early in your career at CarMax, you will have the responsibility to own an area of the business and will be expected to improve it. For example, one undergraduate recruit used data analysis to reformulate our retail pricing strategy, pitched and sold his idea to the senior executive team, and implemented a new system nationwide in his first six months with the company.

This is the kind of impact you can make at CarMax. And as you do so, you will work closely with the senior executives and analysis managers to develop the fundamental and advanced skills that underpin a successful career in business. In fact, most of our managers in the strategy group started at CarMax as analysts, and our VP of Strategy and Analysis started his career here through our undergraduate recruiting program. While an MBA is not required to advance or contribute at CarMax, analysts who have chosen to pursue a business degree have enjoyed superior acceptance rates at their first-choice schools, including Harvard, Chicago, UVA, Columbia, and Duke.

Your opportunities to develop, contribute, and lead as an analyst at CarMax are as great as the company's opportunity to grow. While CarMax is already the largest used car retailer in the country (with over $8 billion in sales and over 90 superstores across the country), we have only 2% of the 1-to 6-year-old used car market. At $280 billion annually, this market is bigger than the home improvement or consumer electronics industries, and so represents a tremendous opportunity for growth.

As an analyst, you can be an integral part of that growth, while enjoying a casual and friendly environment, a diverse group of talented associates, a healthy work-life balance, and excellent compensation and benefits.

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4. Qualifications

An ideal candidate will have:

• Demonstrated top caliber analytic and problem-solving skills
• History of achievement demonstrated by top 15% GPA, a quantitative major(s), and/or other recognition such as scholarships, awards, and honor societies
• Passion for business and desire to develop into a strong business leader

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5. Internships

CarMax Strategy and Analysis internships are designed to expose you to a corporate environment and give you valuable hands-on experience while you are completing your degree. Our internships are based on business needs and are available throughout the year, including summers. Please note our campus recruiting schedule for opportunities to learn more about current internships.

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6. How to apply

If you attend one of the schools where we conduct on-campus interviews (refer to the campus recruiting schedule), please submit your resume through your career services system. To be considered for future openings, please send your resume to college_recruiting@carmax.com.

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