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MarvelousEssays.com is one of the most highly reputed writing services that prov ide writing assistance to people with academic and non-academic writing problems . If you are a student and assignment deadline is just around the corner and an empty piece of paper is maximum you come up with, our company is your way out. E ven if you think that nothing can save you now from the F-grade and a shame in f ront of your professor, and you have just few hours left before the deadline, ev en in this situation we are still able to help you. We are real professionals in the field of writing services, and completing an excellent essay in a matter of few hours is one of many things we know best. Buy custom Intellectual Ability essay Topic: Please comment on the context of your interaction with the applicant. If applicable, briefly describe the applicant's role in your organization. (250 wor ds) In January 2011, I joined Valuation Services and Reporting Group serving in the capacity of senior manager to the company. Margarita Zavidonova, a team leader o f a business analyst team began reporting to me on the same day. Four other team leaders also report to me. We hold weekly team meetings with the team leaders t o discuss ongoing projects, future projects and taking in everyone s suggestions. I interact with Margarita during the week as required and also hold meetings to discuss important issues. The discussions and meetings allows us to be coordinat ed as we make decisions where required. My approach involves guiding or providin g directions to Margarita who then conducts independent work together with her t eam and then communicates project developments to me. The business analyst team headed by Margarita has a mandate to analyze, document , and automate reporting procedures for various risk reporting procedures run by the global middle office (GMO) group. In bargain, Margarita is in charge of com munication between our group and the Global Middle Office group and for project planning Topic: How does the candidate's performance compare to other well-qualified indi viduals in similar roles? (250 words) Margarita Zavidonova has worked with TD for 11/2years. However, I have worked wi th her for the last 10months. She is of exceptional performance. She has headed a team that has achieved quite a commendable number of initiatives like; deliver y of multiple risk calculation reporting solutions for business clients, visuali sed and documented a framework for more than 60 existing risk policies, recently started working on a major risk data governance initiative and also assisted wi th a significant trading system migration. Considering the quantity, quality and speed of projects carried out by Margarita s team, I am pleased with her above av erage character and performance. Together with working as a team leader, margari ta contributes as a business analyst. Her work efficiency is remarkable too. She can easily conduct and combine planning activities, team training, staff work r eviews and regular business analyst tasks. Recently, she has simultaneously been working on reviewing documentation for the new Data Governance Project (GDP), p lanning GDP activities and creating a schedule for the year ahead, consulting th e development team, reviewing her staff s work and following up on completed appli cations ready to go into production. Her ability to do various tasks at a go is definitely rare and above average in the industry. Margarita s skills in communication are also excellent. Her dealings with clients at all levels are great. She is courteous and accommodating. Therefore her performance is way above average compared to other well-qualified

individuals serving in the same capacity. Topic: Please describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you hav e given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant's respo nse. (250 words) Margarita Zavidonova is extremely focused on satisfying customers requests and de livering quality product on time. She is keen on maintaining the image of a grea t service provider and is therefore very demanding of herself and her team. Sinc e i started working with her, i have recognized her passion to get things done p roperly. However, she is easy on clients and accepts their rushed and non-standa rd requests. For instance, clients from the Global Middle Office (GMO) group pla ced a request which demanded unusual ways of extracting input data for reports o r non-standard report naming. Margarita did well in fulfilling all of their requ ests. Standardization of reporting processes is in our best interests. With standard r eporting format it is easier to implement and maintain report calculations. I ha ve spoken to Margarita explaining this situation and that all special client req uests should be avoided so as quality is not compromised at all costs. She agree d to this approach but raised some concerns that in some rare cases, GMO clients truly need customized reports due to the nature of their businesses. An example is one of the Dashboard reports her team worked on was in a special format whic h facilitates understanding by the senior management. We held numerous discussions and consultations and concluded that: special reque sts from regular or new customers will get go-aheads and be fulfilled if they ad d extra value to the business and if they fit the stipulated project plan. Marga rita together with her team now works with the new approach in all of the new pr ojects. In case a request for a report in an unusual format is received, discuss ions with the clients are held to come up with the best strategies to standardis e them before the next stage of work commences. Topic: Please make additional statements about the applicant's performance, pote ntial, or personal qualities you believe would be helpful to the MBA Admissions Board. (250 words)

Margarita Zavidonova has displayed excellent qualities as i have already mention ed. Her abilities to handle crisis, multitask, responsibility and client relatio ns are an asset to the MBA Admissions Board. I would also like to point out her above intellectual abilities. She is known for her evolved analytical skills and exemplary attention to the least of detail. She displays confidence in her work even in a time of crisis. Her ability to maintain calm and take responsibility in case something goes wrong is also worth mentioning. She has a way of remainin g confident and serious and conducts her team to resolve the issue at hand.

Margarita is zealous about work and extra activities outside of work place. She is enthusiastic about our projects and is ready to go an extra mile to beat dead lines and get all tasks done on time. She is also on the lookout for streamlinin g and automating processes inside our organization as much as possible.

Situations at work place are not always pleasant or smooth sailing, Margarita is not afraid to lead and face the tough situations or demanding clients. She has the exceptional ability to guide her team throughout the good times as well as t

he tough times. After keen observation on her conduct and performance at the wor k place, i can say that she has a great career potential and quite a wonderful f uture in the industry. Therefore, it was not a surprise to me when Margarita fir st discussed her plans to pursue MBA programme. Losing Margarita s contributions a nd strong character is saddening to our group. However, her aspirations are nobl e and definitely bound to achieve greater heights. I am confident that she will benefit from the program at school and that she will be able to share the multit ude of her skills with those she crosses paths with. I thereby confidently recom mend her for your program.

Question 1: What are the applicant's most outstanding attributes?

Responsibility- Margarita displays a lot of responsibility and readiness to acce pt failures where hiccups may have occurred or when something goes wrong. She ha s the ability to work alone and without supervision.

Confidence- Margarita exudes loads of confidence in her work even and especially in times of crisis. In case something does not go according to plan, she does n ot panic or point accusing fingers but instead remains confident of her and her teams ability and proceeds to resolving issues.

Multitasking- Margarita clearly stands out among other employees as far as multi tasking skills are concerned. For instance, in addition to being a team leader, she continues to contribute as a business analyst, she easily combines planning activities, team training, staff work reviews and regular business analyst tasks . Such skills make work efficient and makes Margarita stand out among her peers. . For example, in the past few weeks she has been simultaneously working on rev iewing documentation for the new Data Governance project (GDP), planning GDP act ivities and creating a schedule for the year ahead, writing documentation for a Dashboard reporting project, consulting development team, reviewing her staff s wo rk and following up on completed applications ready to go into production. Marga rita s multitasking abilities are definitely above average in the industry.

Dependability- Margarita is enthusiastic about our projects and is ready to go a n extra mile to get all tasks done on time. She is also passionate about her wor k and other activities outside of work place. Also, she is constantly on the lo okout for streamlining and automating processes inside our organization as much as possible. She is therefore very dependable. Question 2: What are the three areas of the applicant's professional performance that have improved the most in the time you have known him or her? Margarita s ability to grasp procedures has improved tremendously. she had been wo rking with us for eight months, when she was promoted to position of team leader . She was asked to work on reporting systems and processes which she was unfamil iar with. This was not easy for her. However, Margarita proceeded cautiously but enthusiastically and consulted with me and other managers on process details. A fter a couple of months, however, she was able to work completely independently with no supervision required.

Margarita s ability to plan and implement projects with prudence and professionali sm has also improved greatly. She is very good with putting together plans and b udgeting for the fiscal year. However, when Margarita first began planning and b udgeting for her team, she was a bit on the optimistic side. This is to be expec ted as she most likely had very high expectations of the staff and due to her un awareness of certain overhead procedures. Afterwards, she has had more experien ce with the overhead and has had more exposure to strengths and weaknesses of he r staff, she was able to put together more realistic schedules by factoring in s ome buffer for unforeseen difficulties and hurdles. With that she has definitely improved her planning skills. Margarita has also developed and improved on her relationships with business cl ients and improved on cross collaboration between our group and the client teams . Instead of simply reacting to client requests she proactively updates client g roups on the status of outstanding projects by meeting and communicating with th em every week. With this she has strengthened her presence in the organization a nd improved her negotiation ability. Her communication skills have therefore imp roved thus increasing her performance. Question 3. What do you perceive to be the applicant's weaknesses? Margarita is passionate and obsessed with achieving best results. She has a ver y live and bold personality and demonstrates plenty of enthusiasm in our project s and undertakings. However, these qualities can sometimes make her appear a bit overbearing to others. Being eager to move ahead she can be very direct with ot her managers and leave people little room for hesitation. I believe that she is this way unintentionally and in good faith and only because she is eager for the project to succeed. After working with her for the last few months, I can say t hat she has become much smoother when dealing with others, probably after spendi ng some time discovering their work style and exchanging ideas in the many discu ssions, debates and meetings held at work.

Question 4. Please address the following components of the applicant. Cite speci fic examples where possible. A.Intellectual ability (e.g. analytical and quantitative skills, communication s kills, creativity, curiosity)

Analytical Margarita has highly evolved analytical abilities. She can quickly analyze and p rocess complex sets of data and break them down into logical components. For ins tance, she was recently working on set of Dashboard risk reports which are a com plicated combination of various risk reports. They took Global Middle Office (GM O) the whole day to put together. Margarita analyzed full data set for the dashb oard and traced data sets to their origins. She then drove data extraction autom ation initiative, which resulted in all data inputs being fully automated. She a lso split all calculation components into several simple logical components, whi ch could be easily understood and implemented by the development team. The proje ct is now near completion and the new calculation process will take no longer th an 10 minutes, as opposed to one full day it took before.

Communication Margarita possesses excellent communication skills which helped her establish gr eat relationships with other team members and with business clients. When it com es to communicating with business clients, she relies on regular communication a nd impeccable service. Margarita is our group s main contact for GMO businesses. S he attends weekly meetings with each of the business silos, follows up on all of their requests and ensures that they are happy with our services. Margarita s ded ication has improved and strengthened our relationships with GMO.

Margarita s performance at our organization has been exceptional. She was origina lly hired as a business analyst and six months later she was promoted to positio n of a team lead due to her outstanding contributions and leadership potential. In her first six months at TD, Margarita successfully completed her part of the MaRRs project (market risk daily reporting against internal limits) ahead of the deadline and ahead of other analysts, while simultaneously working on two other projects. Now she leads a team of experienced analysts and has already contributed to a nu mber of initiatives. In the last nine months her team delivered multiple risk ca lculation reporting solutions for business clients, visualized and documented a framework for over 60 existing risk policies, assisted with a significant tradin g system migration and recently started working on a major risk data governance initiative. Taking into account the speed, quantity and quality of work done by Margarita s team, I am very satisfied with the impact Margarita has made on our gr oup so far.

Love for learning Margarita loves to acquire new skills and to get into new fields, over time beco ming an expert in them. She always welcomed new assignments with enthusiasm any over time has become knowledgeable in many areas, including Basel I and Basel II credit risk calculations, operational risk methodology, market risk approaches, financial statement data reconciliation, as well as internal processes and depa rtments. B. Career performance (e.g. responsibilities and progression relative to others in the industry, impact on organization)

Margarita Zavidonova s performance at our organization has been exceptional. She was originally hired as a business analyst and six months later she was promoted to position of a team leader due to her outstanding contributions and leadershi p potential displayed and proven through the different issues arising in the wor k place. In her first six months at TD, Margarita successfully completed her part of the MaRRs project (market risk daily reporting against internal limits) ahead of the deadline and ahead of other analysts, while simultaneously working on two other projects.

Now she leads a team of experienced analysts and has already contributed to a nu mber of initiatives. In the last nine months her team delivered multiple risk ca lculation reporting solutions for business clients, visualized and documented a framework for over 60 existing risk policies, assisted with a significant tradin g system migration and recently started working on a major risk data governance initiative. Taking into account the speed, quantity and quality of work done by Margarita s team, I am very satisfied with the impact Margarita has made on our gr oup so far. C. Career focus (e.g. clarity of post-degree plans, active participation in hi s or her own career development)

Throughout the time i have interacted with her, Margarita maintains a strong car eer focus and is in a constant pursuit of building and improving necessary skill s. She seeks feedback on her progress at the organization, works on her skill s et and builds a network within the organization which should aid in her career p rogress. She also enquires with accomplished TD professionals about their motiva tion for obtaining MBA degrees and their satisfaction in the organization. In my honest opinion, Margarita is a wonderful candidate for upper management positio ns in our organization. She has a well-rounded personality, is very positive, mo tivates people around her and has a good goal vision. I believe she is a wonderf ul candidate for the MBA program and has what it takes to prosper. D. Interpersonal skills (e.g. maturity, listening skills, team skills, sense o f humor, respect for different viewpoints)

Margarita has excellent interpersonal skills and demonstrates a high degree of m aturity on the job: she remains extremely professional in all of her projects, a voids any emotional reactions no matter how critical the situation is and remain s honest, punctual and co-operative. For instance, we are in the process of impl ementing procedures to satisfy audit requirements. As people are getting accusto med to new procedures they do not get everything done right the first time aroun d, which has produced negative reactions in some group members. Margarita, on th e other hand, has always remained calm and proceeded to fixing the issues in her power. This has helped with a smoother transition to the new procedures.

Margarita is also a great team member. She is very loyal to goals of her team an d is always willing to help out a team member. For instance, in the summer her t eam was close to releasing a new independent price verification reporting applic ation. Unfortunately, her staff member was behind schedule due to unanticipated issues in report calculations. So, Margarita dedicated a lot of her time helping him out with calculation checking and ensuring report accuracy. As a result the team delivered their application on time and fully satisfied their client s requi rements.

E. Leadership experience and potential (e.g. ability to influence others, init iative, contribution beyond expected responsibilities, integrity)

Leadership is a task that requires gifted hands and talent. Margarita is eager t o take on new projects, as she is genuinely interested in learning new reporting methodologies and expanding the breadth of her experience. Over the past few mo nths her team has handled a number of important initiatives ranging from collect ing business requirements for brand new systems to modifying trading system inpu ts for the existing applications.

Margarita is very effective at influencing her staff to succeed. She portrays a high degree of confidence and provides a long-term vision, both of which inspire her staff to perform well. They do not only complete their tasks on time but al so take on proactive stance in their assignments looking for potential improveme nts for the business. In addition to influencing her staff, Margarita can also e ncourage our business clients to fine-tune their requests or adjust deadlines. F or example, recently, her team was working on a Global Precious Metals (GPM) rep orting solution for clients at GMO. Clients were very adamant to have the soluti on delivered on the predetermined date. Margarita s staff did their best to make t hat date, however, discovered that input data handling was more complicated than originally thought. In addition, GPM kept changing calculation methodology. Due to these factors, delivery date was delayed. Margarita not only managed to conv ince clients to move the final implementation date forward but she also maintain ed a very positive and understanding attitude between her and client teams. The solution was delivered soon after the original deadline and its level of quality has added to the positive image of Margarita s team.

Margarita is also known for contributing beyond expected responsibilities. She d oes her best to help her existing or even her past clients. For example, back in 2010 Margarita worked on FX products market risk policy which was implemented a nd passed to the support team. GMO manager responsible for the policy recently a pproached Margarita with some requests. Margarita did not redirect the manager t o support team. Instead she analyzed manager s request in relation to the risk cal culation, presented her analysis to him and followed up with the support team ma king sure that his request was implemented. While performing her analysis she al so discovered a new 2011 portfolio not showing up on risk reports and misreprese nting the risk, so she raised it with the FX manager and had it fixed. Dedicatio n like that is what builds our relationship with the client group.

Please provide an example of a time when the applicant was particularly succ essful at interacting with others in a team (employees, peers, managers, etc.); how was the applicant successful? How does the applicant compare to his/her peer s in this dimension?

Communication is one of Margarita s strong points. Her communication style at work combines two features her personable style spiced up by a sense of humour and h

er goal-oriented thinking. She facilitates interaction by making others feel at ease with her humour, yet she always maintains professional attitude focusing on getting the job done. Earlier this year Margarita s team was simultaneously working on two challenging p rojects for the Global Precious Metals (GPM) group. The goal of each project was to produce a comprehensive reporting solution generating a number of various re ports run by GPM analysts with a single click of a button. Two business analysts from Margarita s team and two solution developers from anoth er team were assigned to work on the projects, effectively forming a small proje ct team. Margarita established positive work relationship with each team member at the beginning of the project through personal interaction. Business analysts successfully interviewed GPM clients and produced a requiremen ts package for developers, who then built the reporting applications. By the tim e applications were released for business analyst s review and testing, the projec ts were on schedule. However, during the testing stage, problems started mountin g. First, some of the documented requirements were misunderstood by developers w ho implemented them incorrectly, thereby skewing reported figures. Second, GPM c lients kept changing their reporting requirements even at this stage which only added to the overall confusion. Finally, there was lack of communication between the analysts and developers: analysts continued to report to Margarita while de velopers reported to their own team lead. Analysts did not know which functional ities were already fixed by developers, while developers were unaware of require ments package being modified with new requests from GPM. Frustration was mountin g and the chances of delivering projects on time were looking bleak.

Once Margarita became aware of this confusion she quickly took the matter in her hands. She organized a meeting with analysts, developers and the developers team leader and gave each of them a chance to talk about their progress to date. At the end of the meeting she had a comprehensive picture of where the projects wer e standing. She thanked everyone for their contribution so far, but emphasized t hat they had to work together to make the final deadline. When handling this sit uation Margarita put a great emphasis on team work and brainstorming, as opposed to issuing authoritative instructions. So the team put together a list of all r eporting issues observed by the analysts and selected the most critical ones req uiring immediate attention from developers. They also looked at analysts testing progress and thought of ways to speed up testing procedures. Margarita stressed the importance of communication and urged each team member to inform the entire team immediately if a new issue was discovered or a previous issue was fixed. Sh e also set an example by always sending important communication to all team memb ers.

Margarita also stressed that she understands the complexity of reports and empha sized that the team should concentrate on the existing requirements package, not accepting any new requests from GPM at the time being. She then followed up wit h GPM herself, explaining the situation and firmly refusing to take on any more requests until applications are released. Finally, Margarita scheduled daily mee tings for the duration of the testing period to follow up on outstanding issues.

As a result of all these changes, analysts and developers were no longer frustra ted with each other as accountabilities were established. Communication channel was set up so that everyone was aware of the status of each issue. Team spirits

were raised and enthusiasm for the projects revived. Margarita talked to her ana lysts privately asking for their feedback and suggestions. She also had a few se parate conversations with the development team leader and thanked him for the tr emendous efforts of his team. At the end, the testing stage was completed successfully and reports were passed on to GPM group. Margarita expressed her gratefulness to the team by taking it out for lunch.

The way Margarita interacted with other team members in this project is not cust omary in our group at the project level. Usually Business Analyst managers only interact with analysts in their team and the development team leader, leaving te sting and communication with individual developers to testing analysts. Hence, i n this situation Margarita has done a great job by resolving outstanding conflic ts and by setting up a strong communication channel.

How has the applicant s career progressed over the time that you have known hi m/her? How does this growth compare to his/her peer group? Please describe the p eer group that you are comparing this applicant. Margarita was hired in May 2010 as a business analyst. In her first eight months in TD, Margarita successfully completed the FX trading part of the MaRRs projec t (market risk daily reporting against internal limits) ahead of the deadline an d ahead of other analysts, while simultaneously working on two other projects. R ight after the project was finished Margarita was promoted to team leader ahead of other candidates due to her outstanding contributions and leadership potentia l, which make her stand out among her peers. Her peers are business analysis pro fessionals with analytical experience in banking operations, finance and IT with years of experience and education. Margarita clearly stands out among her peers with her unique blend of three big traits: unbeaten analytical skills, communic ation abilities and confidence. Her peers I have been working with usually posse ss one or two of these traits, for example they are good with analysis but can t c ommunicate or they can communicate and analyze but lack the courage to put their ideas forward. Margarita successfully combines all three. She has superb analyt ical skills which let her work with large sets of data and documents quickly. Sh e is also great with communicating with our business clients and her peers and h as a natural talent for negotiation. And, to top it off, she has courage to stan d up to pressure and to suggest new ideas.

As i mentioned earlier, for the past ten months she has been leading a team of e xperienced analysts and has already contributed to a number of initiatives. Her team delivered multiple risk calculation reporting solutions for business client s, visualized and documented a framework for over 60 existing risk policies, ass isted with a significant trading system migration and recently started working o n a major risk data governance initiative. In addition to working as a team lead er, Margarita continues to contribute as a business analyst. She can easily comb ine planning activities, team training, staff work reviews and regular business analyst tasks. Such work efficiency is remarkable and makes Margarita stand out among her peers. For example, in the past few weeks she has been simultaneously working on reviewing documentation for the new Data Governance project (GDP), pl anning GDP activities and creating a schedule for the year ahead, writing docume ntation for a Dashboard reporting project, consulting development team, reviewin

g her staff s work and following up on completed applications ready to go into pro duction. Margarita s multitasking abilities are definitely above average in the in dustry. Considering all this qualities and traits of speed, quantity, and quality of wor k done by Margarita and her team, i am pleased with the impact she has made on o ur group so far