They may not have the business analyst job title, and they may not even be aware they are doing business analysis work, but someone is ensuring the right problem is being solved, that everyone understands the problem and solution in detail and is on the same page about what the software is going to do, and how that achieves the business objectives.

So what is a business analyst? And what does a business analyst do?

There are many variations of the business analyst role, and the business analyst job title is used inconsistently. Here at Bridging the Gap, we focus on how the practice of business analysis unfolds specifically on software projects, where the business analyst is responsible for ensuring the team is solving the right business problem and guiding the team in analysis and communication activities that get all business and technical stakeholders on the same page about the project scope, including the business and technical aspects of the solution.

Whether your team is leveraging agile software development practices or more traditional ones, effective business analysis is essential to success. If you are interested in starting, succeeding, or excelling in a business analyst role, this article is your guide to the role, responsibilities, job description, and mindset of a business analyst.

Defining The Business Analyst Role and Mindset

Out of chaos, we create order.

Out of disagreement, we create alignment.

Out of ambiguity, we create clarity.

But most of all, we create positive change for the organizations we serve.

Business analysts lead teams from the inside out. We create positive change for our organizations. We inspire others to follow us on our path toward positive change. We help everyone understand exactly what that change is and how they can contribute to it. We help teams discover what the change should be.

Source: Bridging the Gap’s Business Analyst Manifesto.

In essence, if you’ve helped teams focus on alignment, clarity, and positive change, you are filling the essentials of a business analyst role and have the mindset of a business analyst. It’s not uncommon for an aspiring business analyst to discover they’ve been doing BA work intuitively for years. They are able to uncover many transferable business analyst skills and position themselves for mid-level and, depending on their experience, even senior business analyst roles.

A Dedicated Business Analyst Role Sets Projects Up for Success

Having a dedicated business analyst role on your project has a tremendous ROI (Return on Investment). As high-performing business analysts, we need to be aware of the value we create, and how we contribute to the ROI of a project. The role is still misunderstood by many, and we’ll often find ourselves needing to educate our leadership and stakeholders about how we can make a contribution.

Business analysts add value by:

• Reducing rework that’s caused by overlooking requirements until late in the development process.
• Reducing requirements churn, or the time investment from stakeholders in getting clear on what they want out of a software solution.
• Finding more cost-effective solutions, whether that’s simplifying the requirements or finding non-technical solutions to business problems.
• Discovering new business benefits that increase the ROI on the planned project investment.
• Prioritizing requirements, so the development team has a clear idea of what to implement first.
• Facilitating communication with the business community, so the delivered solution is used as intended.
• Providing a framework for IT to scale, particularly as an organization grows beyond the boundaries of informal communication where everyone knows everything about the business.

Here’s a video walking you through the value proposition of business analysis:

>>Plan Your Next Step with a Free Workshop

While this is a lot of information, you might be wondering exactly what steps you can take. We offer a free Quick Start to Success workshop  that will help you figure out your next step.

Click here to learn more about how to start your BA career

The Key Responsibilities of a Business Analyst

To contribute this level of value, you need to bring a structured framework or approach to the business analyst role. This role includes taking the requirements aspect of the project from initial problem or idea to a fully implemented solution. The following business analysis process supports the business analyst in navigating a project effectively and successfully.

This is the 8-step business analysis process framework we teach at Bridging the Gap, and it’s helped thousands of business analysts be more effective in their role. Let’s take a quick look at the business analyst responsibilities involved in each step.

1. Get Oriented – Start actively contributing as quickly as possible by managing expectations and conducting preliminary stakeholder analysis.
2. Discover the Primary Business Objectives– Ensure the right business need or problem is solved, and that all stakeholders are aligned on the expected outcome.
3. Define Solution Scope– After exploring multiple possible solutions, gain agreement from stakeholders on the scope of the solution to be developed, and ensure it fits within the constraints of the project.
4. Formulate Your Business Analysis Plan– Identify what types of documentation or deliverables to create, and what needs to be done when. Ensure stakeholders understand what contributions they need to make as part of the project, as business analysis never happens in a vaccum.
5. Define the Detailed Requirements– Gain alignment and clarity at a detailed level, so that both business and technical stakeholders can successfully implement the solution. This involves developing a consistent method of communication so that all stakeholders know and understand the requirements.
6. Support the Technical Implementation– Be a partner with the tech team and ensure they have everything they need to be successful, and explore opportunities to generate even more business value from the software aspect of the solution.
7. Help the Business Implement the Solution– Support business stakeholders during implementation, user acceptance testing, and roll out so that they ultimately get what they need and are able to incorporate the delivered solution into their day-to-day work.
8. Assess the Value Created by the Solution– Assess the Return on Investment (ROI) of the solution, celebrate the project successes, and identify new opportunities to improve the business.

You can learn more about the 8-step business analysis process framework in this video:

And, yes, this process framework applies in agile too! Here’s a guide to how to leverage this framework to be a successful agile business analyst.

Key Skills for Success in a Business Analyst Role

The business analyst role requires both hard and soft skills. Business analysts need to be able to gain alignment from diverse sets of stakeholders on both the big picture and the granular details of the project.

First, there are core, underlying skills that set you up to be a great business analyst, such as:

• Communication skills – Verbal and written communication skills are extremely important, as is the ability to facilitate meetings with diverse sets of stakeholders.
• Problem-solving skills – The ability to understand what problem is being solved and why, as well as navigate new challenges and problems throughout the project, is essential.
• Critical thinking skills – Business analysts evaluate multiple solution options and provide critical thinking to back-up or probe into stakeholder assumptions.

Then there are specific business analysis skills in analysis and communication.  To be successful as a business analyst, you need a toolbox and a framework.

• A TOOLBOX of techniques that you can pick and choose from, based on the needs of your project and team.
• A FRAMEWORK that guides you step-by-step what to when.

At Bridging the Gap, we provide an organized, streamlined, and practical toolbox and framework in the form of The Business Analyst Blueprint® – it’s both a framework for approaching business analysis skill development and the name of our flagship, online, practical training program.

And it looks like this:

While we already talked about the end-to-end framework. :et’s take a deeper look at the toolbox of techniques a business analyst needs to succeed in their role.

• The Business-Level, or how the business work flows operationally, often completed by analyzing the business process (a textual model) and creating business process flow diagrams (a visual model).
• The Software-Level, or how the software system supports the business workflows, often completed through functional requirements models like use cases and wireframes.
• The Information-Level, or how data and information are stored and maintained by an organization, completed by data modeling techniques including an entity relationship diagram (ERD), data dictionary, data map, and system context diagram.

When you use multiple techniques, particularly powerful analytical and visual models, you will find that you naturally see gaps that others gloss over and identify the downstream impact of a change or new solution.

Here’s a video that walks you through the key business analyst skills.

The Typical Day of a Business Analyst – Or, What Does a Business Analyst Actually Do?

The role is so varied that there really is no typical day for a business analyst. And that’s one of the things many business analysts love about the role, as there is a lot of variety in the work.

I have an entire video on this topic, but here are a few things I’ll share here about the role:

• There tends to be a split between independent and stakeholder-facing work. It can vary from 50/50 to 70/30 in either direction. You want to be sure that you’ll enjoy interacting with people as well as doing independent analysis and critical thinking work.
• Business analysis is a self-managing role. You need to be proactively thinking ahead and planning out your process to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
• The days tend to be different depending on what type of project(s) you are on and what phase they are in. Early on, you’ll be doing a lot more discovery. Then you’ll be in the details and analysis process. Then you may be supporting the business and technology teams during development and implementation.
• It’s quite possible you’ll be working on more than one project at once! So be ready to be in all the phases at any given time.

And here’s the video with a lot more detail on what to expect day-to-day:

Business Analyst Roles Can Vary Widely

While these are the essential skills and responsibilities of a business analyst role on a software project, roles and titles vary widely. Depending on the role, the BA professional may also take on more senior-level business analysis responsibilities, such as such as strategic analysis, learning new domains, and project portfolio management.

The definition of business analysis allows for many different approaches to the role.

• It brings in professionals who work on software projects, business process changes, logistics, or ensuring compliance with regulations.
• It brings in professionals who work on projects focused on integrating multiple software systems, building new software systems, and modifying existing software systems, or migrating from one software system to another.
• Sometimes specific industry expertise or expertise in a specific business application is required to be successful. Pick any attribute of a project, organization, or stakeholder group — oftentimes the business analyst role in that context is shaped around multiple attributes.

When reviewing business analyst job descriptions, pay attention to both the generalized aspects of the role that are common across many roles and the specialized skill sets that pop up in a specific roles.

Hybrid Business Analyst Roles Are Incredibly Common

What’s more, it’s common for a specific business analyst role to be a hybrid business analyst role, meaning that you will have responsibilities beyond the core of business analysis.

Common hybrid roles include:

• Business Analyst / Software Tester
• Business Analyst / Project Manager
• Business Analyst / Product Manager
• Business Analyst / Software Developer

Because business analyst job titles are used inconsistently, it’s not uncommon for these hybrid roles to be under the title of “Business Analyst”. It’s also not uncommon for a role like Project Manager or Software Developer to simply include business analyst responsibilities.

In fact, there are dozens of different business analyst job titles. You can learn more about the difference between the BA job title and the BA role here:

The Difference Between Business Analysis and Related Roles

What’s more, there are many roles that are closely related to business analysis, or leverage business analysis skills to be successful. Here are articles in which we dive into the difference business analysis and other, similar, roles:

• The Difference Between a Systems Analyst and a Business Analyst
• The Difference Between a Product Manager and a Business Analyst
• The Difference Between a Subject Matter Expert and a Business Analyst
• The Interplay of Project Management and Business Analysis
• The Difference Between Business Intelligence and Business Analysis Roles

How to Become a Business Analyst

Business analyst roles generally favor on-the-job work experience. And it is definitely possible for a mid-career professional with work experience to start a business analyst career.

1. First, learn about the business analysis career and confirm your career choice. Exploring the resources in this article is a great place to start!
2. Second, identify your transferable business analyst skills – these will enable you to skip right past entry-level BA positions.
3. Third, invest in your foundational business analysis skill set. Here at Bridging the Gap, we provide online business analysis training opportunities that help professionals start, succeed, and excel in their business analyst careers.
4. Fourth, build on-the-job business analysis work experience by approaching your current work with a BA mindset. For example, no matter your role, you can always improve a business process.
5. Fifth, focus your efforts to find your first BA opportunity. Leverage your areas of expertise and experience in related roles to focus on the opportunities that will be easiest to qualify for. Then you can expand your skill set and experience, opening up even more opportunities.

In short – if you truly want to become a business analyst, it’s certainly possible! And the career opportunities within business analysis make this an exciting time to pursue a business analyst role.

>>How to Learn the Foundational Business Analyst Skills

When you join The Business Analyst Blueprint® training program, you’ll gain real world experience in the industry-standard techniques and business analysis processes so you can upgrade your skills, bring a fresh perspective to your business analysis approach, and know exactly what to do on your software projects.

Here’s the reader’s dilemma:

I’ve been the sole BA in my organisation for nearly a decade, only finally getting formal training in the past 8 months or so. The ‘Barely controlled chaos’ and lack of interest in formal methods has been incredibly frustrating. I’ve now been made redundant, and would like to share what happened with the first job I applied for.

For info, I have a BSC in computing, a diploma in systems practice, a diploma in business analysis, and I’m a professional member of the chartered institute for IT.

I went through the recruitment process for a firm about a month back. I passed two interviews and a group exercise with flying colours. The feedback was all very positive. However, they commented that they’d have liked longer to talk about the specific tasks I’d completed. At their request I forwarded copies of some deliverables I’d produced from various projects. They were very aware of the informal setting I work in, and lack of exposure to other BAs.

The final feedback I got was that the content of the deliverables was good, but not ‘strong’ enough, so I didn’t get hired.

I feel frustrated, as anything more complex than the examples I’d sent would be inappropriate in my current role. By their own admission I was a ‘Great fit’ for the organisation, and I hold qualifications that they hope to have their other staff pursue. I feel I’m in a catch 22 as I can’t get experience of using formal methods extensively until I get another post. Can’t get another post because I can’t evidence long-term use of formal methods!

Thanks for sharing your story. That sounds like a really unfortunate situation — to be so close to a job that’s the right fit and have it fall through. In what follows, I’ll describe the problem with work samples and give you some practical tips for using them to your advantage.

Do you have a title other than Business Analyst but know you really are a business analyst or have a fair amount of business analyst job responsibilities?

Or do you have the Business Analyst job title, but don’t really feel like you are a business analyst?

All of these situations are the reality of our profession today.

In this short video, I am demystifying business analyst job titles and roles so that you can move forward with confidence in your unique skill set and experience.

Whether you are just starting out or looking to get to the next level in your BA career, you can evaluate your skills in our FREE BA Skills Assessment.

This tool will help clarify your level of awareness and experience of key business analysis techniques and processes to make more informed decisions about training and career opportunities.

Download this FREE assessment today so you can:

• Discover the essential skills to succeed as a BA.
• Gain clarity on your strengths and transferable skills.
• Define an action plan to expand your business analyst skill set.

>> DOWNLOAD THE FREE BA SKILLS ASSESSMENT <<

Are you looking for a business analyst job and finding a nearly dizzying array of job titles? Do you have a title other than Business Analyst, but feel like at your core, you really are a business analyst? Or at least you have a fair amount of business analyst job responsibilities, and you’re wondering what that means. Or maybe you have the business analyst job title, but not really feel like you’re a business analyst. All of these situations are the reality of our profession today. Stick with me. In this video, I’m going to demystify business analyst job titles and roles.

Hi, I’m Laura Brandenburg with Bridging the Gap where we help you start, succeed, and excel in your business analyst career with weekly videos on business analyst tips and techniques.

Today, I am discussing business analyst job titles. As you are considering career opportunities within business analysis, it’s really important that you understand the wide variety of job titles that can have business analysis responsibilities, as well as how to recognize a true business analyst role when you find one because the title and the role do not always match. First, let’s just define what we mean by “business analyst.”

Defining Business Analysis

Industry wide, there is a lot of confusion about what business analysts are and what they actually do. Honestly, that is not a problem that is going to be solved anytime soon. When I started blogging 14, 15 years ago, there was this hope that we would have this version of a pure business analyst and it would be aligned and all the companies would sort of have this same role and the title would be used consistently. Over the course of the last 14 years, despite much effort and communication and emphasis on the title and the role, we’re only seeing the role fragment more versus hit that cohesion, so to speak. I actually think this is an amazing thing because your business analyst skills are relevant across a wide variety of opportunities. It’s a trend that is just going to continue because business analysis skills are so important and are so critical to a wide variety of roles.

At Bridging the Gap, specifically, we help business analysts who literally bridge the gap between business and technology stakeholders. What this means is that they help ensure that software solutions actually do what the business needs them to do and solves real business problems. A business analyst in this type of role will use techniques such as business process analysis to understand the business workflow and the problem to be solved. They’ll also use use cases, wireframes, and user stories to analyze and define the software or functional requirements. And they’ll use a variety of data modeling techniques to define how information is stored and flows through various systems.

This type of business analyst starts out a project by defining the business need or outcomes, or asking why, like why are we doing this and takes it all the way through scope, defining the detailed requirements, collaborating with the business and technology teams to ensure a successful implementation of the requirements.

I have a whole video on the must-have skillsets for business analysts which you can view by clicking the card on the screen now, if that’s something you want to learn more about.

There are Dozens of Possible BA Job Titles

Now, back to this topic of job titles. There are dozens of possible job titles. The list below shows over 40 different job titles that could have business analysis responsibilities just in the category of business analysis that we’ve just been talking about.

1. Business Analyst
2. Business Process Analyst
3. Functional Analyst
4. Product Owner
5. Product Manager
6. Project Manager
7. IT Project Coordinator
8. Information Technology Lead
9. Information Technology Manager
10. Systems Analyst
11. Business Systems Analyst
12. Systems Architect
13. Process Analyst
14. Process Coordinator
15. IT Business Analyst
16. Process Owner
17. Usability Analyst
18. User Experience Designer
19. Business Consultant
20. Management Consultant
21. Agile Analyst
22. Business Solution Architect
23. Chief Information Officer
24. Process Architect
25. Subject Matter Expert
26. Digital Media Consultant
27. Operations Specialist
28. Insights Analyst
29. Compliance Manager
30. Data Analyst
31. Technical Data Analyst
32. Enterprise Architect
33. Business Architect
34. Enterprise Solutions Designer
35. Information Architect
36. Business Intelligence Analyst
37. Technical Writers
38. Technical Communications Analyst
39. Enterprise Process Engineer
40. Agile Business Analyst
41. Research Analyst
42. Research Executive

But a few that I just want to comment on really stand out to me from this list. First is functional analyst. This role is often a bit more system and solution focused. A functional analyst might spend more time on the functional or software requirements than say the business process type requirements. Now, again, that’s a broad generalization. These titles are used in multiple different ways, so no guarantees. You always want to look at the details of the job posting to really understand what’s involved.

The second that I want to highlight is a project manager. So many project managers that are executing at a rather high level are doing business analysis work. It might be strategic business analysis work in terms of how do these systems and projects fit together, or it might be like, what are the requirements we need to implement to make this project successful? If they don’t have a BA on their team and their business stakeholders aren’t great at requirements, often the PM will pull in that responsibility as well. As your Project Manager, often you might be doing business analysis.

Information technology Lead. This seems like an interesting one. Where this tends to come up is you might have a person who is in charge of a development team, maybe in a smaller company or on a smaller team, and again, no one else doing the BA work. In order for that person to articulate what his developers or her developers need to do as they are going and they are working with the business stakeholders to define the requirements so that they can organize the work on their team. And again, business analysis.

Finally, I just want to call out Agile Analysis. A BA on an Agile team might be in a role called an Agile Analyst that would be, typically, a support role to the product owner. I filled this role at one point in my career where there was a product owner and I was the Agile Analyst doing the more detailed requirements work, where the project owner was doing the more high level business outcomes and making key decisions, and also sort of the business owner for the project and collaborating with high level stakeholders and really approving all the requirements. Agile Analysts might be a role like that. But product owner also could be doing business analysis work as part of their product ownership responsibilities.

Business Analyst Job Titles Can Also Refer to a Specific Specialty

We also see expansions of business analyst titles with terms that refer to a specific functional system industry or other area of expertise. What does that look like? An example, Salesforce Business Analyst. That would be a professional who works mostly on projects and programs leveraging the Salesforce tool set and does mostly business analysis.

Alternatives would be a Salesforce consultant or a Salesforce contractor. Sometimes a Salesforce admin is actually doing some light business analysis work in addition to their administrative work.

Other examples along this line could include a Healthcare Business Analyst, an SAP Business Analyst, a Service Now Business Analyst, Cybersecurity Business Analyst, and that’s just to name a few.

Business Analysts Job Titles Can Also Have a Level

Business analyst jobs can also have a level. This is another way that the titles can get varied. It might include a seniority level, like Senior Business Analyst or Lead Business Analyst. Other organizations label business analysts with different numerical levels like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It can go up quite a quite a ways. These levels can be highly dependent on the skills and expertise that are valued by a specific company. Some companies value functional industry domain expertise, and so building that expertise is important as you move from a 1 to a 2, to a 3 and beyond. Others value the size and complexity of projects that a BA can contribute to you. So a level 1 might be like an assistant BA that is working under the leadership of a 3 or a 4. And a level 2 might be able to handle their own projects and they might be smaller. And a level 3 might handle a medium sized project independently. And a 4, having some leadership capabilities, are handling a big complex program. Again, these are just examples. The specific company often will outline what those requirements are.

Still other companies, those levels are defined by years of employment with an organization or years of experience as a business analyst, although that is becoming increasingly less common. Way more preference towards capabilities in what you can contribute than just having done the work, the role or the work in that company for a certain amount of time.

If you are interested in that senior level business analyst role, I have a whole video on what are the general areas of responsibility that you want to be thinking about if a senior business analyst role is on your path. You can watch that video below if you want to learn more about being a senior BA. It’s a great resource.

Being a Business Analyst is NOT about the Job Title

Business analysis is not about the job. I’ve worked with plenty of business analysts who have never had the job title and many who didn’t even realize there was an official title and profession for the work that they’ve been doing for years.

As I emphasize in my book, How to Start a Business Analyst Career, having the job title does not make you a business analyst. I have actually never had the precise job title of Business Analyst. I was Systems Analyst, and then I was a Manager of Business Analysis. And then I was the Director of Enterprise Solutions. I’ve had close titles, not quite ever just Business Analyst. That’s really, really common. Probably more BAs than you think have had that same situation.

Again, what makes you a business analyst is fulfilling the responsibilities of a business analyst and excelling in the skillset of a business analyst. This is where having an understanding of the skills and experience relevant to business analysis is so key. Our BA Skills assessment, which is an absolutely free digital download, will help you do just that.

If you want to learn more about these business analysis skills that I’m talking about and give yourself a sense of where you stack up along these key skill areas, claim your free copy by clicking the download link below.

>> DOWNLOAD THE FREE BA SKILLS ASSESSMENT <<

If you want to learn more about the business analysis skillset in general, click the video below to watch our video on that topic. I’ll see you there.

You’ll see a lot of advice saying that you need to go back to school, get a degree, and wait years to move into your first business analyst role. In my experience, that’s just not the case.

What is true is that you need to:

• Understand the role
• Identify your transferable skills and experience
• Expand your skill set, with high-impact, practical, real-world training
• Expand your experience by doing business analysis, in your current role of a volunteer setting
• Focus on the best opportunities given your unique experience and career background

I’ll Help You Become a Business Analyst

I’m Laura Brandenburg, the author of How to Start a Business Analyst Career – the career guide that’s helped thousands of mid-career professionals break into their first business analyst role.

I’m going to share everything I can with you about how to become a business analyst in this article, with links to all kinds of related resources and video trainings for more in-depth information. It’s truly the ultimate guide to becoming a business analyst – even if you have no official work experience as a business analyst and an unrelated degree.

But in all transparency, if this is your career path, you’ll want to pick up a copy of my book to go even more in-depth with more practical strategies and approaches.

This is an in-depth article. For a quick overview of these strategies, check out this video to get yourself started – and then come back to watch more of the video trainings below.

Before I forget, I want to be sure you know about my Quick Start to Success free workshop, that’s designed to help you, the mid-career professional, kick-start your business analysis career.

With that out of the way, onward with the 5 steps!

Step 1 to Becoming a Business Analyst – Learn about Business Analysis and Confirm Your Career Choice

If you want to become a business analyst, you need to understand the role. There is a lot of confusion about the role, and business analyst job titles are used inconsistently.

Business analysts  are professionals who help organizations identify and solve problems. They analyze data and use various tools and methodologies to identify areas for improvement and to make recommendations for changes. At Bridging the Gap, we provide online business analyst training for business analysts who literally “bridge the gap” between business and technology stakeholders. This means they help ensure that the software solutions actually do what the business needs them to do and solve real business problems.

Understand the Techniques Business Analysts Use

A business analyst doing this kind of work would use a technique like business process analysis to understand that business workflow and the problem to be solved. They would use use cases, wireframes, and user stories to analyze and define the software or functional requirements.

They would also use a variety of data modeling techniques to define how information is stored and flows through all the various software systems. This type of business analyst starts out a project by defining the needs or outcomes, takes it through to scope, defining the detailed requirements and collaborating with the business and technology teams to ensure a successful implementation of the requirements.

Here’s a video with an overview of the foundational skills necessary to be a business analyst.

Before Becoming a Business Analyst, Be Sure the Role is a Good Fit

Before pursuing this role, you really want to be sure it’s going to be a good fit. Check out 42 Reasons to Start a Business Analyst Career and The First 5 Signs that Business Analysis is the Career Choice for You for some clarity on whether or not you’ve found the right role for you.

Even if these checklists confirm you are on the right track, you might still not be 100% sure. A second and more concrete litmus test is to practice some BA techniques to get a feel for the role.  We’ll speak to this specifically in Step 4, so keep please reading.

Step 2 to Becoming a Business Analyst – Identify Your Transferable Skills and Leverage Points to Develop Your Positioning

There are relatively few entry-level business analyst roles, and they only make sense to focus on if you are a recent college grad. (I cover this more fully in the FAQ.)

As a mid-career professional, you’ll be focusing on mid-level, and sometimes even senior-level business analyst roles.

Here’s the good news – You most likely qualify for a subset of BA jobs already. (Don’t be frustrated by only qualifying for a subset – even the most experienced BAs do not qualify for all BA jobs.) Many professionals we work with are able to skip right past entry-level BA positions by identifying their transferable skills and the unique qualifications from their career backgrounds. You may also be able to open up opportunities within a slice of business analysis or in a transitional role.

Yes, You Have Transferable Business Analysis Skills!

Transferable skills come from experiences using business analysis techniques in a non-BA role.  And here, I share 3 real examples of transferable skills.

Whether or not you have a deep career history in business analysis, it’s likely that one or more elements of your career history give you expertise to leverage into business analysis. Whether it’s your knock-your-socks off communication skills or your deep experience in a relevant industry domain, you have a quality that potential managers are specifically hiring for.

If you are currently employed in a company that employs BAs, then your most valuable leverage point very well could be knowledge of that individual organization, the business model, and the business stakeholders.

(You might be thinking this step doesn’t apply to you. I’ve worked with many, many mid-career professionals on their career transition plans and we’ve always been able to find at least one transferable skill and career experience. More often, we’ve discovered several transferable skills and relevant experiences.)

And Don’t Overlook Unique Skills That Set You Apart!

But your business analysis experience alone often won’t qualify you for a specific business analyst role.

Other factors can include:

• Industry domain experience (Read about how industry expertise can impact your job search)
• Application expertise (Read about how system knowledge helped me qualify for my first BA position)
• Expertise in a specific process area, such as HR or finance
• Expertise in a broad set of functional areas or a broad collection of organizations

All of these can be leverage points, or ways to focus your job search, that give you more opportunities to get started in a business analyst role sooner rather than later.

After discovering your transferable skills and leverage points, this is a good time to update your business analyst resume to showcase how your past experience qualifies you for roles within or close to business analysis.

Step 3 to Becoming a Business Analyst– Invest in Your Business Analysis Skill Set

as part of preparing for a career as a business analyst, you’ll need to invest in developing your business analysis skill set. While a formal degree in business analysis is most certainly not required, some professional training will help you perform business analysis responsibilities effectively.

At Bridging the Gap, we offer online business analyst training in the foundational skills you need to be successful as a business analyst. We organize the BA skill set into a visual model we call The Business Analyst Blueprint®.

Analysis & Communication Techniques are Both Key Sets of Business Analyst Skills

The first thing you’ll notice about The Business Analyst Blueprint® framework is that the techniques are organized into Analysis Techniques and Communication Techniques. The Analysis Techniques are the models and templates we use as business analysts to analyze and think through the requirements. But these requirements do not get created in a vacuum. We must elicit or discover them from our stakeholders. This is why knowing the right Communication Techniques to use as a business analyst are equally important.

The key Communication Techniques for collaborating with stakeholders are:

• Discovery Session – to discover information related to the process or requirements from business stakeholders, so the requirements represent their needs.
• Requirements Review Session – to validate the requirements that have been captured are clear and correct.

We also consider the glossary and user stories to be communication techniques, because their primary purpose is to capture and communicate requirements-related information to various stakeholder groups.

The Key Business Analysis Techniques

The second thing you’ll notice about The Business Analyst Blueprint is that there is not just one set of analysis techniques. One of the challenges that plague way too many projects is “missing requirements.” We miss requirements either when we don’t involve the right stakeholders (i.e., apply the right communication skills) or overlook key areas of requirements because we are only looking at one view.

The Business Analyst Blueprint® – our flagship business analyst training program – walks you the 3 key levels of analysis that are important to fully understanding a problem and solution domain, when software is being implemented as part of the solution. These are:

• The Business-Level, or how the business work flows operationally, often completed by analyzing the business process (a textual model) and creating business process maps (a visual model).
• The Software-Level, or how the software system supports the business workflows, often completed through functional requirements models like use cases and wireframes.
• The Information-Level, or how data and information are stored and maintained by an organization, completed by data modeling techniques including an entity relationship diagram (ERD), data dictionary, data map, and system context diagram.

When you use multiple techniques, particularly powerful analytical and visual models, you will find that you naturally see gaps that others gloss over and identify the downstream impact of a change or new solution.

The Business Analysis Process Framework

The third thing you’ll notice about The business Analyst Blueprint is that there is a foundational framework underlying the techniques. This is the business analysis process, or the end-to-end approach you apply to be successful and effective on a typical business process improvement and software project.

As you leverage this process framework, you’ll gain increased recognition for the value of business analysis, and you’ll start to get pulled into more interesting projects, and be engaged earlier in the process. Here’s a video about the business analysis process framework.

And, to complete a self-assessment against these skills, we have an absolutely free business analyst skills assessment for you.

Download the FREE Business Analyst Skills Assessment

In this FREE assessment, you will:

• Discover the essential skills to succeed as a BA.
• Gain clarity on your strengths and transferable skills.
• Define an action plan to expand your business analyst skill set.

>> Download the Assessment <<

Step 4 to Becoming a Business Analyst– Build Experience By Approaching Your Work with a BA Mindset

As part of the analysis you did in steps 2 and 3, you may have discovered some gaps. Add these to your professional development plan and explore opportunities to fill them through volunteer positions or by building on-the-job business analyst experiences. What we see is that one business analysis task tends to lead to another, creating a virtuous cycle of new business opportunities and expanded experience.

Practice techniques such as:

• improving a business process
• facilitating meetings
• crafting use cases
• scoping projects with these 5 questions
• eliciting information

How One Business Analyst Experience Leads to Another

As you a cultivate a BA mindset, you’ll find that business analysis begets business analysis. Once you see your first opportunity, several more sprout up right in front of you. Is a virtuous circle that can lead you to a full-fledged business analysis role, step-by-step.

Want some inspiration? Here are a few success stories of participants who built BA experience in non-BA roles:

• Amelia McHenry transitions from Technical Writer to Business Analyst
• Zineb Iotti transitions from Underwriting to Business Analyst
• Roshni Dominic transitions from Support Analyst to Business Analyst
• Becky Goll volunteered for a CPA to build business analysis experience
• Todd Fleming landed paid contract work by volunteering with his old employer!

When in doubt, it almost always makes sense to start by analyzing a business process. Here’s a video tutorial on this essential business analyst skill:

Step 5 to Becoming a Business Analyst – Focus Your Efforts to Find Your First BA Opportunity

In time, you may qualify for a business analysis role in your organization or be in a position to propose a business analyst role in your firm.

But not all job situations provide the same opportunities. Some BAs find themselves looking outside their organization for their first BA jobs. If that’s you, you’ll want to read more about our business analyst job search process.

Showcase Your Business Analyst Skills in Your Resume

You’ll want to prepare a business analyst resume, that highlights your transferable business analysis skills and career experiences.

 Prepare for the BA Job Interview

Prepare for business analyst job interviews by being ready to share specific stories and examples related to your business analysis work experience. I share more about how to do this – even if you’ve never held the BA title and have no “official” BA experience in this video:

Be Open to Transitional Opportunities on Your Path to Becoming a Business Analyst

And if your transferable skills assessment came up a bit short, you may need to explore a transitional role to lead you on the path to BA. Focus on roles where you are working on projects or interacting with business analysts in some way. Start to build up more transferable business analysis skills, while you expand your business analyst skill set through professional development training opportunities.

Not sure where to start? Here are 13 jobs that can lead to business analysis.

>>Plan Your Next Step to Become a Business Analyst with our Free Workshop

While this is a lot of information, you might be wondering exactly what steps you can take. We offer a free Quick Start to Success workshop  that will help you figure out your next step. And before you move on – be sure keep scrolling for answers to the most frequently asked questions we receive about becoming a business analyst.

How to Become a Business Analyst – Frequently Asked Questions

You might be thinking that these steps don’t apply to you because {fill in the blank here}. I’ve corresponded with hundreds of aspiring business analysts as part of my online courses and helped many successfully make this transition (just check out our list of success stories).

What follows is a list of concerns and questions that most commonly come up and how to address them.

How do I become a business analyst if I’m unemployed?

If you are unemployed, focus your efforts on step 2 and use the results of this analysis to update your resume and strengthen your positioning for BA jobs. If you are still not able to qualify for a small slice of business analysis roles and your timeline to find a job is short, refocus your job search on transitional roles. If your timeline is longer, you may consider investing in step 4 as a business analyst volunteer.

How do I become a business analyst if I just graduated from college with a degree in business analysis?

If you are a recent college grad, you can still use these steps. In any given location, there are often a select few organizations that actively recruit recent college graduates into entry-level business analyst roles. Find them and apply!

If you worked through college or actively leveraged internship opportunities, you may have adequate experience to invest some time in step 2 and qualify yourself for a role requiring 2-3 years of experience. (For more information on how this works, read Eric’s transition story – he landed a BA job just 7 months out of college.)

If neither of these options works out for you, consider investing a few years in a transitional role working your way towards a business analysis, particularly focusing on step 4 above, and then working your way back through the 5 steps.

Here’s a full tutorial on starting with an entry-level business analyst role.

How do I become a business analyst if I have my MBA? 

While it might give you an extra edge in your positioning, but it’s not a silver bullet into business analysis. If you participated in real-world projects as part of your MBA, then analyze those using step 2. And also be sure to heavily leverage the professional network you built during your MBA as part of your job search in step 5.

If you pursued your MBA right after your bachelor’s, refer to my answer above. If you pursued your MBA mid-career, be sure to go through all 5 steps as it’s likely you have a lot of experience to draw from. And ask your employer for opportunities to apply your MBA and build relevant professional experiences (see step 4).

What training do I need to become a business analyst?

Good question. Look for training opportunities that help you build your business analysis skills AND expand your experience and covers the foundational skills in business process analysis, software requirements analysis, data modeling, and an end-to-end approach to a project as a business analyst.

Our flagship offering –  The Business Analyst Blueprint® training program – covers all of these skill areas and offers practical, results-oriented content and learning.

You’ll leave the program with instructor-vetted work samples and real-world experience as a business analyst.

How can I become a business analyst if I don’t have IT skills and experience?

You don’t need to be able to code to be a business analyst! If you are going to be a BA on an IT project, you will need a technical understanding, but you don’t need to know how to code or create software.

Here’s a post describing the difference and why we see technical skills in BA jobs.

Here are the technical skills and understanding you do need to be successful as a business analyst, which include:

• The ability to analyze and specify functional/software requirements in use cases and wireframes.
• The ability to model data and specify data requirements
• The ability to ask good questions about what the technology can do and what the business wants it to do.

How can I become a business analyst if I don’t have business domain expertise?

Business domain expertise is a leverage point and many aspiring BAs are very successful at leveraging expertise in a particular domain to find their first BA position. But if you don’t have expertise in a particular domain, it doesn’t mean that you can’t become a BA, it just means that you need to focus on the opportunities where business domain expertise is not such an important qualification.

At times this can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. But believe me, the opportunities are there. Keep working away at step 4 and putting your feelers out. An opportunity will surface for you.

>> Get Your Quick Start to Success to Become a Business Analyst

Earn the respect you deserve and get the insider details on how to get into a business analyst career quickly, with our free Quick Start to Success training. You’ll learn how to avoid the most common pitfalls faced by new business analysts and the step-by-step business analysis process to create predictable, consistent project success.

> Click here to register for the free training today <<

• If you are learning the role from scratch, how do you make sure that you are the best BA you can be and build up your confidence?
• How do you hone your skills to the maximum, to make sure you keep the job or turn what might be a temporary role into a permanent position?
• Or, simply put, how do you establish a solid foundation from the get-go?

Getting a solid start as a business analyst is what we’re talking about in this video.

(By the way, if you are looking to fill your BA toolbox with the key skills to launch your business analyst career, be sure to check out The Business Analyst Blueprint®.)

Without further ado…

For those who like to read instead of watch, here’s the full text of the video:

We’re in an exciting space right now in business analysis and we’ve been getting lots and lots of emails from people who have just started their first or next business analyst job. We wanted to record a video to talk about what do you do first when you’re starting a new role as a business analyst.

So, let’s jump right in. There are five things that I think you want to be thinking about when you’re starting a new role. Some of these might not actually be what you would maybe expect.

#1 – New Business Analyst Job: Understand the Role

The first thing is you want to understand the business analyst role that your employer wants filled. It’s easy for us as business analysts to have some sort of expectations or assumptions about what our roles should be, and for that to really conflict with what is really important to your hiring manager, or project manager, or the person that you’re reporting to.

You want to make sure that, first and foremost, you understand what they most need you to be successful at. What’s the biggest problem that they hired you to solve, and how can you make an impact quickly? So, make sure that you understand that and allow yourself to be flexible at first if you need to be, even if it doesn’t meet quite the expectation you had as a business analyst.

#2 – New Business Analyst Job: Understand the Processes and Templates

The second thing is to understand the core processes and templates in place in your organization. You want to know if there’s a specific kind of document that is being created.

• Do you create business process flows and use cases, or do you create more traditional business requirements documents, or do you, maybe, even create agile user stories and a product backlog?
• What are the templates and processes in place in the organization, and how does business analysis, or whatever that flavor of business analysis you’re doing, how does that typically work?

That’s going to, again, help you get started off on the right track.

In a few cases, you might be the first business analyst. It’s up to you to figure that out. In which case, start with some industry standard practices and bring those to your organization. And our Business Analyst Template Toolkit is a great starting resource if your organization doesn’t have any existing templates to use.

#3 – New Business Analyst Job – Step 3: Get To Know Your Stakeholders

The next thing, we’ve talked about understanding your role, and those core processes and templates in place. The third thing to do is get to know your stakeholders.

You want to be looking for stakeholders both on the business side and the technology side. You want to get to know the business domain, the business process, how the business looks at technology, and what is important to all levels of the business. From end users all the way up to hiring managers, managers, directors, some cases even VPs who are the sponsor of a project. In a small organization, you might be working directly with the CEO, who’s the sponsor of a project. Stakeholders, meaning all levels of stakeholders.

And, those on the technology side. Who are your lead contacts that can help you understand the technology stack that’s in place, what’s already implemented, what’s the potential opportunities provided by those tools so that you can make sure you’re helping the business leverage the technology in the best possible way.

New Business Analyst Job: Make an Immediate Positive Impact

With those three things in place, or even as you’re getting those three things in place, you want to be focused on the fourth thing, which is making an immediate positive impact. Whatever that role is, whatever that first project is, how can you, essentially, hit the ground running and make a big important impact?

This can be frustrating because sometimes you might be hired in the middle of a project and you’ll be picking up somebody else’s requirements documentation and trying to answer questions around it. You might even come in a lot later in the project and be asked to start with the testing, the user acceptance testing with the business, or even just testing yourself against things that you didn’t write the requirements for.

Sometimes you really do just have to jump into where the organization is with that project and make an impact. That’s how you’re going to prove your value. You’re going to prove your skill set, you’re going to earn your reputation in that organization. That’s going to pave the way for all kinds of career opportunities to come forward.

If you don’t make the impact first, it can be hard to create the exact role that you want to have created. Make sure that whatever that first project is, that you’re making that investment in making it a positive impact and being successful in the context of how your organization defines success.

New Business Analyst Job: Start Bringing In “Best Practices”

Then, that’s step 5, with that clear win under your belt, with that sense of reputation, and trust that you’ve built with those stakeholders and that you do what you say you’re going to do in that you can really have an impact on their team. Then you can start bringing in “best practices.” If you see a gap in the business analysis process, maybe your team jumps right in and focuses on the functional requirements and you know that you can do a much better job if you started and focused on some of the business process and workflow diagrams, and things like that.

Maybe there are certain stakeholder groups that aren’t involved at all and you can get involved in bringing them in and expanding who’s communicated with around a technology project or a business process improvement effort.

Whatever that best practice is that you see having an impact in your organization, after your first win is the time to take that first step forward and say, “Okay, I see how things went this time. One of the biggest challenges we had with this project was…(whatever it was). This is what I’m going to do next time to help improve that.” So, you’re continually bringing those best practices. You can rinse and repeat that again, and again, as you form a business analyst role in a specific organization.

But it all starts with those first four steps – understanding the role, understanding the templates and processes in place, earning the trust and respect of those stakeholders, and creating that first win. Then you can continue to evolve and bring in more best practices and evolve the role of the organization.

I would love to hear from you if you have started a role recently, or if you’re one of our veterans that has a ton of experience as well. What have you found to be the best things to do when you get started in any organization? Any tips or crazy stories that maybe would help somebody else, please go ahead and leave those below.

Learn More About Starting a New Business Analyst Job

Also, be sure to check out our 4-part series on getting started in a new business analyst job and making the most of your opportunity.

Click the links below to read each article in the series.

#1 – What To Expect On Your First Day

#2 – How to Prepare For Your First Day

#3 – How to Make the Most of Your First Week

#4 – Your First 60 Days

I’d recommend checking out all of the articles as there is something different covered in each one.

Good luck to you. We’re rooting for you and we’ll be here when you need us!

About The Business Analyst Blueprint®

When you join The Business Analyst Blueprint® certification program, you’ll learn all 12 of the industry-standard techniques and the business analysis process framework – to build your confidence in the best practices of business analysis.

You’ll create validated work samples and be a credentialed business analyst as a recipient of the Applied Certification in Business Analysis (ACBA).

>> Click here for more information about The Blueprint <<

You may also want to check out this video on how to really sell your business analyst skills in a job interview.

(Before I forget, I want to be sure you know that you can download my free BA Job Interview Prep Guide and receive more detailed information on preparing for your business analyst job interview.)

Business Analyst Job Interview Question #1 – Tell me about yourself.

Nearly every interview starts out with this question, but it’s frustratingly vague. Does the interviewer want a complete rundown of your career history? Or a synopsis of your key skills? Or a more personal account of how you got where you are today?

Instead of stumbling through a long-winded introduction that may or may not be relevant to the position or interesting to your interviewer, a good approach is to provide a brief summary and turn this opening question into an opportunity to shape the direction of the job interview and focus the discussion on your most compelling business analysis qualifications.

Business Analyst Job Interview Question #2 – Tell me about a time you ____.

Fill in the blank with any key term from the job description. These are called behavioral interview questions and your interviewer wants to hear about how you used a skill or technique required to be successful in this job. Select one of the more positive and complex experiences from your career background and tell this story with as much detail as possible.

Business Analyst Job Interview Question #3 – What is a _____?

Again, fill in the blank with any key term from the job description. (Common examples would include business process, use case, or data dictionary. These questions seem different from behavioral interview questions, but I would suggest providing a brief answer and then sharing a specific experience you have related to the skill. That’s what is going to help your interviewer believe you really know what you are doing anyway, even if they don’t directly ask about your experience.

Business Analyst Job Interview Question #4 – How do you deal with difficult stakeholders?

This one can crop up in a variety of forms, depending on the difficulties perceived by your interviewer. This question is nice because it gives you a bit of insight into the challenges you might face at this organization, which you’ll want to understand before you accept an offer.

Like many interview questions, you’ll gain the most confidence from your reviewer if you provide a direct answer and then speak to a similar challenge you had in a previous stakeholder environment. Working with difficult stakeholders is one of those areas where your transferable soft skills are extremely important, so even if you don’t have a relevant BA experience, be ready to speak to a relevant experience from a different profession.

Business Analyst Job Interview Question #5 – What will you miss most about your current job?

Typically someone asking this question is looking to get a feel for your orientation and what you perceive as most important about a job opportunity. They may want to be sure they can position their organization in a positive light against your past experience or they may be looking to make sure that you would be a good fit for the work environment they have to offer.

Avoid answers like “being the expert” as that can make you seem tied to your current position and lacking confidence in your ability to perform in a new role. Saying you’ll miss the people is always a safe choice – just be sure you can say it honestly and back the sentiment up with detail.

Business Analyst Job Interview Question #6 – What was a typical day like at your most recent job?

I used to like to start with this question to get a good feel for the candidate’s actual work experience and their ability to summarize it briefly and relevantly. It’s a bit of a false question because everyone knows that there is no “typical” day. As a business analyst, your work varies greatly day to day.

The best candidates I’ve interviewed were quick to point out that there is no typical day and then speak to the types of days they had or activities they engaged in. (As a side note, having a candidate nicely but clearly point out that your question is a bit off shows that they have the confidence to correct a potential manager. This type of leadership is a quality that managers are often looking for in BAs.)

To answer this kind of question, be ready to speak more to the types of meetings you attended and client engagements you had than the deliverables you created. This is also a good question to speak to how you organize your time, handle conflicting priorities, and stay focused on moving your projects forward.

Business Analyst Job Interview Question #7 – Tell me about your typical approach to a project.

This question is looking both to understand your business analysis process and see how flexible you might be. If you start spouting lists of deliverables and processes, you’ll probably turn most hiring managers off. Instead, speak to the general phases or types of deliverables you tend to create and let them know how you’ve customized specific approaches to the project needs. Then ask about their project and business analysis processes.

Business Analyst Job Interview Question #8 – When are you done with requirements?

When I was interviewing BAs, this was my favorite question as part of the screening process. I can’t tell you how many candidates couldn’t answer it or provide clear criteria for finishing a set of requirements. Don’t be those candidates!

Be prepared to speak to how you see the business analysis effort through from start to finish – and that you know how to finish. Finishing typically meets a set of clear and approved requirements that represent the business need and have been vetted by the solution team.

(For more information about what you can do to cultivate a manager’s confidence in you as a BA job candidate, you might also read about our BA job search process.)

Business Analyst Job Interview Question #9 – What do you see as the key strengths of a business analyst?

Business analysis is a growing and emerging profession. Employers want to know that you are aware of the skills needed to succeed as a business analyst, and that this is not just technology skills.

Be prepared to speak to the variety of business analyst roles within the profession and the key business analyst skills that are important for success in the role.

Business Analyst Job Interview Question #10 – What questions do you have for me?

As a business analyst, you will ask questions – lots of them. There is no better place to demonstrate your ability to ask thoughtful, intelligent questions than in the interview. Your interviewer should ask you if you have questions and you should have at least a few.

Turn this part of the interview into a conversation by sharing more about your experience or offering a suggestion. Use active listening techniques so your interviewer feels heard and understood. This is a time to demonstrate your elicitation skills, not just simply get a few questions answered.

>>Go Into Your Next Interview with Confidence

Pick up the BA Job Interview Prep Guide that walks you through the essential steps you need to take to prepare for your first or next business analyst job interview.

Click here to get your copy of the BA Job Interview Prep Guide

Why do so many industry veterans say they just “fell” into business analysis and what can you do to orchestrate your own fall?

That’s the question we are answering in this video.

Before I forget, I want to be sure you know about my business analyst career planning course (it’s free) that’s designed to help you, the mid-career professional, kick-start your business analysis career. The course will help you dig deeper into each of the concepts outlined below.

For those who like to read instead of watch, here’s the full text of the video:

The Chicken and Egg Problem of Becoming a Business Analyst

Today, I’m going to talk about what I like to call the “chicken and egg” problem in business analysis, which is, almost all roles require business analyst experience, but how do you get that experience if you aren’t a business analyst?

It can feel like the chicken and the egg. What comes first, the chicken or the egg? Who knows?

What comes first, the business analyst, or the business analyst experience? It’s frustrating for those of you who are looking to get started in the profession, and just don’t know how to break through that egg.

Let’s talk about it.

Orchestrating Your Fall Into Business Analysis

Here’s the thing. When you start to ask people in the profession how they got started into business analysis, a lot of times those who didn’t go to school for business analysis, those who have been around for a while, before we had programs for business analysis that trained us how to do this, they would just tell you,

“Well, I kind of just fell into the role. Like one day I was on a project and it was kind of cool, and they needed a subject matter expert, and then I learned about this thing called requirements, and I started doing more interviewing and elicitation. I discovered business analysis. It’s this name for the career I’ve been doing all along.”

That’s my story, too. I was a QA engineer before I was a business analyst. I got stopped in the hallway by a senior business analyst who said,

“Hey, there’s a new position opening up on our team. Would you like to apply?”

For so long, I had internalized in my head is like, how do I become a business analyst? I was just walking around in the hallway. But then people, when I started Bridging the Gap nine years ago, started to email me and say, “Well, Laura, how do I get started?” And telling them you just walk around and hope that somebody offered them a business analyst job wasn’t a good answer.

So, we needed a new answer, and then I started doing the interviews and I felt like a lot of people had this same answer I had. It just kind of happened. And, so, I knew that people who were trying to make this happen for themselves, they needed a better answer.

The reality is that you can orchestrate your “fall” into business analysis. You do it by, essentially, following the path that I took, and follow the path that thousands of others have taken into business analysis by just starting to do the work, even if nobody’s asking you to do it.

One opportunity tends to lead to another. You just start doing the work in your current role.

Start By Analyzing a Business Process

Now, this is something we can talk about for hours. We have hours and hours of training programs, teaching new people how to do business analysis, or people who are either newly in a BA role, or who are not even in the BA role yet, how to do business analysis. But I want to give you some quick tips in this video so that you have some takeaways and you can go try and experiment with this for yourself.

One obvious way to look at it is to look for business processes that you can analyze. Business process is just a step-by-step set of activities that happens in a pretty consistent way. You do work again and again in your business, like servicing a customer, or setting up a new account, things that happen pretty similarly time to time, and analyzing that as a process and writing down what that process is. A very easy way to get started.

Then Evaluate Software Requirements

Other ways are to look at the software that you use as a business user. What are the requirements of that software? How does it work?

• Create a use case or a set of user stories describing the functionality of that software.
• Or if there’s a change that you want to that software, create a wireframe and annotate, “Hey, I want this here instead of here,” or maybe information’s on two different screens and you want it together on one screen. Create a wireframe mockup of what that would look like and share that with a developer and see if they can maybe help you create that kind of screen or create that for you.

Those are just simple ways to get started.

• Analyze the data. Data seems more technical, and it can be, but it could be as simple as creating a glossary or a high-level model describing the terminology in your organization so when everybody says account, or customer, or order, those words tend are deceptively simple in that everybody thinks that they’re saying the same thing, but they’re saying something different.

Can you be the person that creates the glossary or clarifies definitions when we’re talking about those things in a meeting? Again, you’re starting to do business analysis work.

And It Never Hurts to Improve Your Communication Skills

So, business process, software requirements. We talked about use cases, wireframes, and data models. A third area to look at is communication. Being a business analyst, a huge part of that role is being a good communicator.

What you want to do, you can practice communication in any role. You could take notes in a meeting so you’re practicing hearing what people have to say. You can practice asking questions and getting feedback. “Hey, what I’m hearing is this. Did I get that right?”

Or, instead of spending a lot of time researching the answer, go and ask somebody the answer. If you’re on the technology side, go ask a business user for input. Present them with a wireframe and ask for their input and feedback before you actually build what you’re building. You’ll be doing a little bit of business analysis if you do that.

Documentation reviews, or any kind of documentation, how can you review that documentation so it’s more clear, more complete, more concise? Again, a large part of the business analysis effort is creating some sort of documentation that’s usable and clearly understood by the whole team.

Those are just some quick ideas to get started. What you’ll find, the cool part of just like starting to do business analysis is that your work, especially if you’ve been frustrated or bored or feeling like you’re kind of at a dead end in your career, the work automatically starts to become more fulfilling. There is salary and other benefits that come with being a formally sanctioned business analyst with the job title and with that level of responsibility assigned to you. But you can get some of the benefits just of having more challenging fulfilling work of making your organization better just by getting started applying those techniques in the role you’re in today.

Start Your Virtuous Cycle of One Business Analyst Opportunity Leading to Another

What we see, I call it the “virtuous cycle of business analysis.” You take just one of these steps and you take that step forward, and that opportunity leads to another opportunity, leads to another opportunity.

The first couple of steps, you’re going to have to do some of the heavy lifting and make them happen. And put more effort in consistent driving forward to get it started. But what starts to happen when you do that is opportunities start to come to you.

People see that you’re contributing to meetings in new ways and asking the tough questions, or you’re taking notes, and everybody needs somebody to take notes. Maybe you get invited to more interesting meetings and problem-solving discussions.

In that meeting, you can volunteer to create a document or to do something extra that would help move that problem or that discussion forward. It’s just like one thing leads to another and all you have to do is take the first step.

That’s my call to action to you. Leave a comment below with what step are you going to take. What one slice of business analysis will you use in your work this week, and how are you going to make that happen?

Leave a comment below.  I’d love to hear about it.

If you’re one of our veterans, we have lots of people with lots of experience that still listen into our videos. Go ahead and just let somebody know something unusual that you did as a business analyst. Or maybe the very first thing you did even before you were a business analyst, and share your story. It can inspire a lot of other people as well.

Again, I’m Laura Brandenburg from Bridging the Gap. We help professionals like you get started in business analyst careers. It’s all about just taking that first step and letting the virtuous cycle start to create momentum for you in your career. This is how you do it. This is how you get started as a business analyst with no experience, and you break the egg by creating the experience, and creating the success for yourself.

Again, Laura Brandenburg. Thanks for watching. Talk soon, everyone.

The Benefits of Volunteering as a Business Analyst

First, let’s discuss the benefits of volunteering as a business analyst.

• First, you can expand the work history section of your resume by volunteering. You can add the volunteer work you do as your most recent item in your work history, using the title of “Business Analyst.” This is especially valuable for someone who does not currently or recently have the business analyst job title.
• Second, you build actual on-the-job business analyst experience that you can speak to in business analyst job interviews.
• Third, this experience builds your confidence. As you engage with new stakeholders in a new organization, and often with new technologies, you’ll rely more heavily on your business analyst skills and gain more confidence in your abilities.

Volunteer Idea #1 – Look to Non-Profits

It’s very likely that the non-profits that you care about need business analysis support and can’t afford to hire a business analyst as part of their full-time staff. Non-profit organizations have business processes, often significant ones. Often because their organizations are grown by a variety of grassroots efforts, those processes are not well documented or understood.

Enter in you as a business analyst.

One course participant went to her local church to find an opportunity. She found the course to be a perfect excuse to get them to give her a business analysis volunteer opportunity and analyzed the process for recruiting volunteers.

She iterated through several hand-drawn visual models and used our Business Process template (you can download it for free) to add more detail. While working and re-working the process, she ended up combining four processes into one and simplifying how she and her stakeholders viewed the process.

As a result of this iterative process (which is a very normal part of analysis), she learned how to get to the right level of detail and left more confident in her skills.

Another course participant conducted an elicitation interview with a non-profit about a fundamental process that had yet to be documented. Then he formalized the information he collected into a process model.

The secret behind this person’s experience is that he interviewed his wife while she was cooking dinner. The non-profit was a local parent-teacher organization and the process was how to raise more funds. However, you’ll notice that by selecting the most relevant details, it’s possible to frame this experience in a much stronger and compelling way.

Take this lesson to heart – don’t underestimate the value of your opportunities to add to your professional credibility.

Volunteer Idea #2 – Look to Small Businesses

Like non-profits, small businesses are often not in the position to hire a full-time business analyst but are definitely in need of BA services. One of our course participants volunteered at a local pharmacy, the owner of which happened to be well-connected in her target industry. After about 10 hours of pro bono work, she’d secured a valuable item to add to the work history section of her resume and talk about in job interviews.

One of our course participants volunteered to help her local pharmacy to figure out why there were so many errors and issues when they filled prescriptions. After about 10 hours of pro bono work, she had documented the as is business process and identified the source of many of the errors. Her work was so well respected that the owner of the pharmacy asked her to continue to help them resolve the problems.

Needing to transition to paid work, she respectfully declined. However, the owner was well-connected in her target industry and proved to be a valuable reference for her. A few weeks later, she was able to leverage this new business analyst experience to get past the initial interview screen. Here’s what she had to say about the experience:

“I was able to leverage your course, my pharmacy (pro bono) experience and their request for me to come back for process improvement assistance to get the in-person interview! I wanted you to know, even if I don’t get the ultimate job offer, that you’ve made a difference in my life and I thank you.”

Find Volunteer Positions by Leveraging ALL of Your Connections

What I’ve seen work, again and again, is for our course participants to get creative, and leverage every connection they have available. Think of past co-workers, organizations you believe in and support, and organizations of which you are a customer. And don’t overlook friends and family.

• Amelia McHenry volunteered through her husband’s company to analyze a disaster recovery process, and then for her husband’s side gig as a musician to analyze data maps for their album shipments.
• Todd Fleming volunteered for his prior organization (even after a layoff), an opportunity that led to paying contract work for the same company that had laid him off!
• Becky Goll volunteered to help her roommate improve processes for her remote CPA business, right in the middle of the lockdown starting in March 2020, and this also led to paying contract work for her.

Here’s the Really Important Thing

When you first approach an organization about volunteering as a business analyst, they might not understand your offer. If you say “do you need a BA?” And they say “no.”

That might seem like the end of the story, but it’s not.

Just like a lot of companies out there, those desperately needing volunteers don’t necessarily understand the business analyst role. That means they don’t understand your offer.

Instead, ask probing questions to get to some of the pain points you might help them solve using business analysis techniques. (And in the process, you’ll already be using some elicitation.) Then offer to help them solve a specific problem.

Use Your Coursework and Certification Plans as an “Excuse”

The reality is that people want to help people who are helping themselves. When you mention that you have invested in a course, and are required to apply what you are learning as part of a training program, you’ll find more people are receptive to your requests. For one thing, they know you are serious about your offer because you’ve made an investment in yourself. For another, they know you’ll be supported and leveraging on-the-job learning, and so that helps them trust and believe in your work.

What I’ve seen for participants like Becky and Todd, is that this way of volunteering also creates a clear boundary between what you’ll do as a volunteer, which can help open up paying work. When you limit the scope of your volunteer work to what’s required for the course, it’s a natural next step for the organization to want more, and that’s when you can offer to continue to support them on a contract basis.

And There’s One More Thing Not To Do

Since you are volunteering, it can be tempting to wait for the “perfect” position instead of jumping into a “good enough” role and creating a business analyst position out of the opportunity. Just like most BA professionals morphed their way into business analyst positions, the volunteer position market is similar. An open mind and a drive to apply the BA fundamentals will open opportunities.

But first, you have to get started.

Learn More About Expanding Your BA Experience

Join our Quick Start to Success workshop for new and aspiring business analysts (it’s free). You’ll discover more about the BA processes and techniques you can leverage through volunteering and see even more opportunities to expand your business analyst experience.

Click here to get the free Quick Start to Success workshop

What follows is the list of the most critical business analysis skills for new business analysts to bring to the table – organized into the categories of core skills, business analysis skills, soft skills, and skills that can be required for specific types of BA jobs. I also recorded a video for you sharing my thoughts on these key business analyst skills.

Before I forget, I want to be sure you know that in addition to our online business analyst training courses and business analyst certification we also offer an absolutely free workshop – Quick Start to Success as a Business Analyst training (it’s free) that’s designed to help you, the mid-career professional, kick-start your business analysis career. This workshop provides an introduction to what a business analyst does and a deeper dive into what skills you need to be successful as a business analyst. 

>> Click here to get the Quick Start to Success Business Analyst Training <<

Now, onto the skills.

Core Skills that are Essential for Success as a Business Analyst

Typically, if business analysis is a good career choice, you’ll be able to tick off these skills (or be extremely excited to go to work right away on improving these skills just because they sound interesting).

Communication Skills

Business analysts must be good communicators. This means they can facilitate working meetings, ask good questions, listen to the answers (really listen), and absorb what’s being said. In today’s world, communication does not always happen face-to-face. The ability to be a strong communicator in a virtual setting (via conference calls or web meetings) is equally important. They are good at engaging stakeholders and cultivating active participation in the requirements process.

As a new business analyst, you may not have experience in a variety of requirements documentation (that comes with time and a variety of project experiences) but it’s quite possible that your strong general documentation and writing skills will get you started.

Problem-Solving Skills

No project is without problems. In fact, the entire project is a solution to a problem. At the highest level, BAs facilitate a shared understanding of the problem, the possible solutions, and determine the scope of the project. You’ll also find BAs in the midst of facilitating teams to solve technical challenges, especially when they involve negotiation between multiple business or technical stakeholders. Often we start this by analyzing the business process.

Critical Thinking Skills

Business analysts are responsible for evaluating multiple options before helping a team settle on a solution. While discovering the problem to be solved, business analysts must listen to stakeholder needs but also critically consider those needs and ask probing questions until the real need is surfaced and understood. This is what makes critical thinking and evaluation skills important for new business analysts.

While communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills are core to being a good BA, they are not all that’s required. Let’s look at the skills specific to the business analysis profession next.

Business Analysis Skills

The following skills are specific to the business analyst role, but even as a new business analyst or someone looking to enter the profession. At Bridging the Gap, we organize the key business analysis skills into The Business Analyst Blueprint®.

(You’ll learn all these skills in The Business Analyst Blueprint® certification program, where you can earn your Applied Certification in Business Analysis.)

Analysis & Communication Techniques are Both Key Sets of Business Analyst Skills

The first thing you’ll notice about The Business Analyst Blueprint is that the techniques are organized into Analysis Techniques and Communication Techniques. The Analysis Techniques are the models and templates we use as business analysts to analyze and think through the requirements. But these requirements do not get created in a vacuum. We must elicit or discover them from our stakeholders. This is why knowing the right Communication Techniques to use as a business analyst are equally important.

The key Communication Techniques for collaborating with stakeholders are:

• Discovery Session – to discover information related to the process or requirements from business stakeholders, so the requirements represent their needs.
• Requirements Review Session – to validate the requirements that have been captured are clear and correct.

We also consider the glossary and user stories to be communication techniques, because their primary purpose is to capture and communicate requirements-related information to various stakeholder groups.

The Key Business Analysis Techniques

The second thing you’ll notice about The Business Analyst Blueprint is that there is not just one set of analysis techniques. One of the challenges that plague way too many projects is “missing requirements.” We miss requirements either when we don’t involve the right stakeholders (i.e., apply the right communication skills) or overlook key areas of requirements because we are only looking at one view.

The Business Analyst Blueprint® – our business analyst certification program – walks you the 3 key levels of analysis that are important to fully understanding a problem and solution domain, when software is being implemented as part of the solution. These are:

• The Business-Level, or how the business work flows operationally, often completed by analyzing the business process (a textual model) and creating business process flow diagrams (a visual model).
• The Software-Level, or how the software system supports the business workflows, often completed through functional requirements models like use cases and wireframes.
• The Information-Level, or how data and information are stored and maintained by an organization, completed by data modeling techniques including an entity relationship diagram (ERD), data dictionary, data map, and system context diagram.

When you use multiple techniques, particularly powerful analytical and visual models, you will find that you naturally see gaps that others gloss over and identify the downstream impact of a change or new solution.

The Business Analysis Process Framework

The third thing you’ll notice about The Blueprint is that there is a foundational framework underlying the techniques. This is the business analysis process, or the end-to-end approach you apply to be successful and effective on a typical business process improvement and software project.

As you leverage this process framework, you’ll gain increased recognition for the value of business analysis, and you’ll start to get pulled into more interesting projects, and be engaged earlier in the process. Here’s a video about the business analysis process framework.

And, to complete a self-assessment against these skills, we have an absolutely free business analyst skills assessment for you.

Download the FREE Business Analyst Skills Assessment

In this FREE assessment, you will:

• Discover the essential skills to succeed as a BA.
• Gain clarity on your strengths and transferable skills.
• Define an action plan to expand your business analyst skill set.

>> Download the Assessment <<

Business Analyst Tools

Now that we covered the techniques and framework, let’s look at the tools you use to implement these techniques. As a new business analyst, the ability to use basic office tools such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint should be sufficient to get you into the profession. Also, a common visual modeling tool is Microsoft Visio.

Other technical skills include the ability to use more sophisticated modeling tools, Enterprise Architect, requirements management tools, such as DOORS or Caliber, or project and defect management tools (there are really too many to list these days). It’s unlikely you’ll find these to be required skills for a large number of positions and they will be skills you learn on the job.

And as important as it is to have specific business analyst skills, no list of BA skills would be complete without the soft skills required to be successful as a BA. Let’s discuss those next.

Key Soft Skills for Business Analysts

Like the core skills, you might find that you already have many of these skills in your repertoire. However, these skills are listed separately because they may not be intrinsic to the roles you’ve had in the past. You may need to actively seek out improving in these areas as you move into your first business analyst role.

Relationship-Building Skills

First and foremost on the list of soft skills is the ability to forge strong relationships, often called stakeholder relationships. A stakeholder is simply anyone who has something to contribute to your project, and often you’ll work with many stakeholders from both the business and the technical teams.

This skill involves building trust and often means stepping into a leadership role on a project team to bridge gaps.

Self-Managing

While BAs are not project managers, the most successful BAs manage the business analysis effort. This means that the BA is proactive and dependency-aware. It also means they manage themselves to commitments and deadlines, a skill set which can involve influence, delegation, and issue management.

A Thick Skin

BAs receive a barrage of feedback – on their documentation and proposed solutions. To succeed as a business analyst you need to be able to separate feedback on your documents and ideas from feedback on you personally.

A Paradoxical Relationship with Ambiguity

Deep down, business analysts despise ambiguity. Ambiguities in requirements specifications lead to unexpected defects. Ambiguities in conversation lead to unnecessary conflict. At every stage of a project, you’ll find a BA clarifying and working out ambiguities.

Yet, at the beginning of a project, before the problem is fully understood and the solution is decided upon, a BA must be able to embrace the ambiguity and work effectively through ambiguity. Managing ambiguity means we embrace new information and learning as it surfaces, even if it surfaces later than we’d like.

And so we’ve reached the end of the important skills for a new business analyst. But no discussion of this topic would be complete without dealing with the 800-pound gorillas in the profession.

In what follows, I’ll walk you through 42 reasons a career in business analysis could be a good fit for your skills, experiences, and qualifications.

And here’s a video speaking to the “top 3” reasons.

You Want To Unleash Your Passion For

#1. Problem Solving. If you are like me, you get very frustrated when being dragged through a poorly thought-out process. (Yes, as irrational as I know it is, I’ve found myself talking irritably to automated phone prompts that leave me at a meaningless dead end.)

#2. Making the World a Better Place. If you can solve even just a few problems and help a few people understand each other better, you’ll have done your good work for the day.

#3. Seeing Through Great Ideas. You might not be the one with the best idea, but you know a great idea when you see one. And you are motivated to see through that idea when everyone else’s attention has moved on to the next great thing.

#4. Helping People Communicate. You always seem to sense when people are talking at each other but not communicating with each other. And you are at your happiest when jumping into the discussion to clarify things.

You Are

#5. A bit of a know-it-all. You just seem to get it, but you don’t let it go to your head.

#6. A bit like Columbo. You always have just “one more question.” And yes, it often seems like a dumb one. (It’s not.)

#7. A bit of a preservationist. The idea of reading through meeting notes from 6 months ago might not take you into the upper orbs, but it does get you a wee bit excited, especially when you find the precise bullet point that reminds everyone why you threw that idea out last time, saving an hour of repetitive discussion.

#8. A bit like a “people whisperer.” You understand what others are saying when most of the others seem to be a bit dumbfounded. (You can just keep the secret that it’s all in asking the dumb questions to yourself.)

#9. A bit like a 2-year-old. Always asking why, why, why.

#10. A bit difficult or obstinate, although you might not admit it. You are always looking for the best and staying true to the best.

(And if you are checking more off than you are eliminating at this point, you are probably want to get in on our free workshop for getting started as a business analyst.)

You Want

#11. To build on your deep business experience, whether as a subject matter expert, technical writer, project manager, salesperson, or recruiter, just to name a few possibilities. All of this experience you have adds up to something and has prepared you to be a great business analyst.

#12. To build on your technical expertise, whether as a programmer, software architect, or quality assurance engineer.

#13. To do something big and make an impact, but you don’t want to be a manager. Or, like me, you’ve been a manager and decided it wasn’t the best fit for you.

#14. To drink from a fire hose. The idea of learning a lot of new stuff in a relatively short period of time is exciting.

#15. The money. Given that the average salary of a business analyst in the U.S. is over 80K/year, many professionals are attracted by the prospect of a nice pay increase once they solidify their BA career.

You’d Rather Not

#16. Be in the conflict. Sure, you could take a side but you would much rather step aside and help conflicting stakeholders weigh the pros and cons and reach an amicable conclusion instead.

#17. Waste resources. Something inside cringes from the inside out when you see an army of your company’s staffing resources working on the wrong thing.

#18. Mess things up.

#19. Be outsourced. Because BAs need to be close to the business, their roles tend to be safer from outsourcing and off-shoring initiatives. That’s why we see a lot of developers and quality assurance professionals looking into business analysis careers.

#20. Do whatever it is you are doing now, which is not business analysis.

#21. Manage the implementation of the project. You like finding the solution to the business problem but are content to leave the implementation details to someone else.

#22. Be on call. While many IT roles require some degree of weekend or evening work, a typical business analyst role allows you to turn off your cell phone and keep a fairly standard workday.

You Like To

#23. Write on the whiteboard. We BAs get up and draw on the whiteboard…a lot!

#24. Facilitate meetings. Especially working, productive meetings where everyone leaves feeling like their time was well spent.

#25. Spend a fair amount of time working independently, maybe as much as two-thirds of your day. (As I mention in How to Start a Business Analyst Career, business analysts tend to spend about 2/3 of their time working independently and 1/3 of their time in meetings and interacting with stakeholders.)

#26. But you also like to work with people. If you had to spend the other third of your day all alone working on some technical problem or doing repetitive work, you might just pack up your things and quit.

#27. Change things. And make sure that when you make a change, there are no unexpected negative impacts.

#28. Learn how things work. You are naturally curious and like to figure things out.

#29. Continuously improve. No matter how good things look today, you know you and your organization can do better. (This is called business process improvement.)

You Are Willing To

#30. Learn to present big ideas to executives, since that’s where the future of business analysis is headed.

#31. Help drive change in organizations, whether that means sitting down with the customer service rep to understand their process or working with the VP to reorganize their department.

#32. See the big picture. You don’t get lost in the forest. You pick your head up often to see where you are at and guide your team through it.

#33. See the details. But you know that some trees are important, or important to some people. So you don’t lose track of important details either.

You Like People And

#34. You like the idea of working with lots of different people, at all levels of the organization.

#35. You want to help others by making their work more enjoyable and productive.

#36. You want to help others solve problems.

#37. People tend to come to you with their problems, because they know you’ll find a way to help.

#38. You have deep respect for what every person brings to a project.

You Care About Your Future

#39. You know competencies matter. Even if the BA profession shriveled up and died tomorrow, (it’s not) the competencies you’ll build as a business analyst will make you more valuable to our increasingly inter-connected and fast-changing organizations.

#40. You want to build timeless skills. You might want to take some time off in a few years (to raise children, take care of parents, take a long sabbatical) and you want to be able to jump back into a profession with a relatively timeless skill set.

#41. Job Security. You are looking for some job security and see the evidence everywhere that business analysis is a growing profession. (You are smart, it is.)

#42. You are searching for a new job and have realized that most of what you’ve done in the past sounds a lot like what keeps showing up in business analyst role descriptions. It’s time to jump on the bus! (And you probably want to read more about the business analyst job search process too.)

>>Here’s what to do next:

Be sure to join to receive our absolutely free workshop – Quick Start to Success as a Business Analyst.

>> Click here to join the free workshop <<

Today I’m going to share 8 business analyst resume secrets you absolutely need to know – and they are especially relevant if, like so many business analysts, you don’t have the BA job title.

1. Your Business Analyst Resume Does Not Need to Catalog Your Work History

Many professionals fall into the trap of thinking they need to include a complete catalog of their work experiences and skills in their resume. The first secret you need to be “in” on when putting together your resume is that your resume is not a catalog, it’s a sales document.

This means you can be selectively honest about the skills and experience you include and emphasize in your resume, and you should organize your resume so that it presents your qualifications in the best possible way.

Provided you are applying to business analyst jobs you are reasonably well qualified for, something we talk about in our business analyst job search process, the next 7 secrets will help you create a resume that sells your qualifications in a way that doesn’t make you uncomfortable.

2. Create a Specific Summary So Your Resume Isn’t Quickly Sent to the “No” Pile

Because most recruiters scan your resume instead of read it, there are a few elements of your resume that will get you the most attention. The first one of these is your objective or summary statement.  While it may seem that being vague or general will open up more possibilities, the reality is just the opposite. Highlight your business analysis accomplishments and make it crystal clear that you are qualified for the types of BA jobs to which you are applying.

This can also be a great place to include the phrase “certified business analyst”, whether that’s a certification from IIBA like the CBAP, or the Applied Certification in Business Analysis (ACBA) that we offer through Bridging the Gap.

Because many recruiters skip right past the objective on your resume, you need to make sure that other parts of your resume draw them in too. Let’s move on to those other parts.

3. Tweak Your Job Titles to Get Your Resume Read

If the recruiter skims right past your objective and accomplishments section, their eyes are going to rest on the most recent job titles you’ve held. These are typically in bold (if not, they probably should be) and stand out.

Do your job titles present you as a candidate that is qualified for the types of jobs to which you are applying? If your most recent job title is listed as “Network Engineer,” “Software Developer” or “Customer Support,” you are most likely to get calls for jobs with similar titles.

Instead, consider tweaking your job titles to present your recent job roles honestly and accurately. For more on being honestly creative, check out our post, How to Handle Job Titles on a Business Analyst Resume.

4. Highlight Your Most Relevant Skills and Still Be Honest

Remember how we said that your resume is a sales document? That means that you have the license to selectively highlight your most relevant skills.

One way to do this is to focus on the projects where you held the most BA responsibilities – this enables you to get beyond being a “jack of all trades”  and focus on your business analysis career experiences. And it does not mean “overselling” yourself – it’s just a matter of selectively telling the truth.

(By the way, you’ll learn about a whole host of transferable skills in the best-selling book How to Start a Business Analyst Career.)

Out of all the business analyst resumes I review, by and large, this is where most professionals need to invest the most time

Here are some of the mistakes I see.

• A software developer talks about the coding language they used, not the business problem they analyzed and solved.
• A customer support person details their primary responsibilities and the “special project” they participated in as an SME/BA is relegated to a single bullet point that goes unnoticed.
• A prior manager is so “accomplishments focused” that they overshadow their abilities to roll up their sleeves and do business analysis work such as role definition, business process analysis, managing change, and obtaining buy-in across multiple departments.

5. Use Business Analysis Terminology to Demonstrate Your Capabilities

Let me let you in on another secret. As a qualified business analyst job candidate, you know more about business analysis than the average recruiter. While you know that “process flows” and “workflow diagrams” mean the same thing, the person doing the first-pass review of your resume might not. This means that you’ll hear back from the most opportunities if you use the right terminology to talk about your experiences in your resume. These are called transferable business analysis skills.

Here’s an example from my own resume: As a QA Engineer I coordinated multiple business groups to review a particular application before it went live to our customers. At the time, we called this activity “data testing.” Later I learned the formal term was “user acceptance testing.” I now use “user acceptance testing” on my resume. It’s accurate and honest and presents me as more qualified for certain business analysis positions.

Once you have selected your most relevant skills and the right terminology for them, you’ll want to craft bullet points that clearly communicate those skills and build instant credibility. And that leads us to secret #6.

6. Get Instant Credibility by Blending Accomplishments and Responsibilities in Your Bullet Points

I’m often asked whether to highlight your accomplishments (what you achieved for your project or organization) or your responsibilities (what you did for your organization) in your work history section.

My answer: Both.

In your resume’s bullet points, you want to show how you used a business analysis skill and achieved something significant by applying that skill. So you essentially back-up an accomplishment with a qualification, using the right terms you’ve selected above.

You can add to your credibility by using a variety of concrete details to talk about your contributions. Even if you don’t have access to precise project results, you can include a variety of numbers and details that help give shape to your experiences, thereby helping your reader see what kinds of things you might be able to do for their organization.

7. Address Any Employment Gaps Clearly

Some of the resume gurus will tell you to hide an employment gap in your resume by reorganizing it in a functional resume format. In all the work I’ve done with new business analysts and transitioning professionals, I’ve never seen this approach work. Assume the person reading your resume is a relatively intelligent human being who is not going to miss a gap because you’ve reorganized your work history in a confusing way. Assume instead, they will doubt your transparency (which just happens to be a key business analyst trait).

Giving others the opportunity to make false assumptions about you and your work, will only get your resume into the “no” pile. Proactively address your employment gap on your resume. Tell an honest story that shows you are ready, able, and willing to do the work of a business analyst.

8. Someone Else Cannot Write Your Resume For You

Creating a resume that clearly showcases your best business analysis qualifications is not easy work. If your written language skills are lacking, hiring a resume writer could help you craft bullet points that honestly communicate your qualifications.

But keep in mind that as a business analyst you will be writing a lot of documentation, so your resume is an artifact that demonstrates your ability to fulfill a key business analysis competency, just like the business analyst job interview is a time to demonstrate you can ask insightful questions.

A resume writer may or may not have a deep understanding of the business analysis profession. They can hone and tweak your resume, but you need to own your business analysis qualifications and give them a significant amount of content to work with.

Be Ready for Your Business Analyst Job Interview

Once you have your resume ready to go, the next thing to be prepared for is the job interviews!

>> Click here to download the BA Job Interview Prep Guide <<

In particular, what’s different is how you position your skills to a potential employer. I’ve been on both sides of the business analyst job interview process multiple times – I’ve hired several BAs and, while I was contracting, I interviewed for several BA positions.

In this video, I share my insider tips on how to prove or show your business analysis skills in an interview.

For those who like to read instead of watch, here’s the full text of the video:

Today we’re going to talk about job interviews, specifically, how do you sell your skills in a business analyst job interview?

Let’s jump right in.

Two Types of BA Job Interview Questions

In my experience, there are two kinds of questions where employers are looking to understand your skills and the competencies that you bring to the table. The first is a knowledge-based question, which would be along the lines of,

“Can you tell me what a business process is?”

“Can you tell me what a use case is?”

These are general questions about a specific skill that feels like they’re asking you to tell them what you know about that skill.

The second is a behavioral interview question, which is, “Tell me about a time when…”

“Tell me about a time when you used a use case.”

“Tell me about a time when you analyzed a business process.”

This is a different kind of question because they’re asking for you to talk about your experience.

Now, here’s the catch. I really think that for both kinds of questions, what employers are really looking for or what an individual is really looking for is to understand that you can do the things that they need you to do to be successful in that job role. That means, they want to hear about your experience.

You could simply answer,

“Oh, a business process. That’s a step-by-step workflow of how a business user completes a task.”

Great. You could have learned that out of a textbook. If you answer the question, “Can you tell me what a business process is?” with a textbook answer, no matter how correct it is, it’s not going to feel nearly so awesome and validating and confidence-building as,

“You know, a business process, that’s a step-by-step workflow of how a business user completes a process or adds value to the organization. One time I had this project where we had to analyze five different business processes and they were all related and it was in the accounting department. We looked at their accounts receivable processes and we discovered all these issues about why we weren’t receiving as much money as we should be.”

And now you start talking about how you improved the process and engaged stakeholders in the process and analyzed the process. Who is going to stand apart? The person who has the perfect textbook answer? Which is why nobody else can give you an answer to a job interview question because that textbook answer isn’t what people are looking for.

They ’re going to be like, what I really want to know is that this person can do business process analysis or do use case modeling or do whatever it is that I’m asking them about. That experience, that sharing of a specific example is going to build that rapport, is going to build that confidence that they have in you and your skill set.

Be thinking about how you can share those examples in an interview.

This Also Works for Questions about “Soft” Skills

This approach works for all kinds of topics too. Another typical interview question that a business analyst might face is,

“Tell me how you handle difficult stakeholders.” or

“What do you do if nobody shows up to your meeting?”

Again, you can give that theoretical hypothetical answer like,

“Oh, if I have a difficult stakeholder, I’m going to try to build a relationship. I’m going to work with them 1:1.”

That’s all good stuff, all things that you want to be saying in a certain way, but what’s going to be more powerful is,

“There’s this project where I had this really challenging stakeholder and I didn’t think I was going to be able to break through it. Here are some of the reasons that they were challenging to work with. Here are some of the problems that caused and the requirements process. Here’s what I did and here is what our end result is.”

Just that flavor of how that shifts the conversation from what you hypothetically would do, to what you’ve actually done.

As much as possible in a job interview, I think, especially if you’re having issues getting to the second interview or getting the job offer once you get a second interview, be thinking about how can you share those experiences and how can you demonstrate that you have those skills that the employer is looking for. This is going to make a difference in terms of how they come away from the interview and their experience with you as a potential candidate.

One Last Tip – Do Your Research

I knew there was one more important thing I wanted to cover, and that is how to figure out what job interview questions they might ask.

You want to start with a job description. Most people do this, but there have been times when I’ve heard people say, “Yeah, it was the job posting, but I just didn’t think they’d ask about it.” No, if it’s in the job posting, make sure you know all the terms in the job posting, what they mean, what the alternative variations of those terms are. Do the research on the terminology so that you can say, “Yes.”

Adam Haesler has a great case study about saying “Yes” in a job interview instead of, “No, I don’t know how to do that.” How can I say yes? And to what degree can I say yes? That starts with knowing the terminology so when they ask you a question and use that term, you can say, “Yes.”

For example: “Yes, I have done a wireframe. We actually call them prototypes, and here is the kind of user interface model I created.”

You want to say yes, and that requires knowing the terminology.

The second place, though, to get the terminology is in the LinkedIn descriptions or the LinkedIn profiles of other business analysts, or whoever has that job title that you’re interviewing for, inside their LinkedIn profiles, what words do they use to talk about their responsibilities, and what they contribute to the organization?

It’s another area to research. Not all the time do job postings have the most current information. Sometimes they’re old. Sometimes they’re created by somebody that’s not actually doing the hiring. There are a lot of reasons they can have outdated information. LinkedIn would just be another resource. Not, necessarily, a more definitive resource, because sometimes people don’t always update their profiles either, but another resource to understand the terminology that is being used by the business analyst inside that organization. Just a quick insider tip for you.

Get the Interview Prep Guide

I do have an interview prep guide, completely free. If you want to go through our process at Bridging the Gap of how to prepare for a job interview, be sure to download the interview prep guide. It will walk you step-by-step through how to put together your stories, how to think about the research that you do, what steps you need to go through to walk into that interview with confidence and ability to handle the unexpected.

That’s the final piece I’ll tell you. No matter how much preparation you do, no matter how well researched you are, you’re going to have unexpected things come up in a business analyst job interview, and you’re going to have unexpected things come up in a business analyst job role. Showing that you can handle that with grace and ease and confidence is part of the battle of being successful in a business analyst job interview.

I hope these tips help you. Share your successes. Let us know how this goes. I hope your next business analyst job interview goes absolutely awesome and that you get that position and it’s what you were hoping it would be.

Click here to get the free interview prep guide

1. Look for the small handful of employers in any local area that hire entry-level business analysts.
2. Pursue a transitional role to gain professional experience, and then grow your way into a mid-level business analyst role.

Additional Resources for Entry-Level Business Analysts

Business Analyst Career Planning Course

How Eric Landed a BA Job Just 7 Months Out of College

Here are 13 jobs that can lead to a business analyst job

Get the Book

In How to Start a Business Analyst Career, we discuss all types of business analyst job roles in greater depth and you’ll learn how to assess and expand your business analysis skills and experience.

This book will help you find your best path forward into a business analyst career. More than that, you will know exactly what to do next to expand your business analysis opportunities.

Click here to learn more about How to Start a Business Analyst Career

The good news is that business analysis skills are relatively timeless, and so re-entering the workforce after a career break is definitely possible! But you need a strategy, and approach, and also a good dose of confidence.

That’s what this video is all about.

Hi, my name is Laura Brandenburg from Bridging the Gap. Today, we’re going to talk about what to do when you’re returning to the profession after a long career break. We’ve had people in our community and in our courses who have taken an extended maternity leave while their children were young, who took time off to care for parents, who just took a leave of absence from work to travel or do something fun with their lives, and now, for whatever reason, feel like it’s time to go back. It’s time to restart their career and get back to where they were professionally.

I want to share a few tips. This often can feel like you’re starting over all over again, like you have to start from the ground up. What you want to do is leverage the strengths that you have, the experience that you have and bring all of that forward into this “restart.”

Let’s jump in with some of the tips.

Career Break Tip #1 – What Do You Want?

The first thing I want you to do is get clear on what it is you want. So often we set goals based on what we think is possible. We might think, “I want a job that’s kind of like what I was doing in corporate before I left five years ago. I want to be doing something like that.” We use that as the frame for our goals. Then maybe it doesn’t inspire us. Maybe you want something different.

Even if you have not been in a professional role for the last few years, you have grown as a person. You have been exposed to new environments, new people, new ideas, new ways of living, new everything.

Give yourself permission to ask,

• “What do I want?”
• “What do I really want out of this next step?”
• “What priorities have shifted for me?”
• “What’s important to me about how I show up to work?”
• “Do I want to work part-time, do I want to work full-time, do I want to work from home, do I want to have that flexibility?”
• “Is it more important that I’m just craving being back in an office with a regular schedule?”

Whatever that looks like for you. Nothing is wrong there. Everything is right, but it is getting in touch with what you want and what you want that next step to be.

Career Break Tip #2 – Start Networking

Now, start networking. Start going to the places where people in those kinds of roles would be showing up. Within business analysis, this is your local IIBA® chapter meetings. Go. Start talking to people. Learn what’s happening in the profession. Rebuild your community.

Start reaching out to your past colleagues and let them know that you’re thinking about restarting. You’re thinking about getting back into a role or a similar role to how they worked with you before. Would you be able to call on them as a reference, if needed. “By the way, do you happen to know any opportunities of people that are hiring things that you’ve seen me do well at in the past?”

It never hurts, it’s always valuable to kindle and rekindle connections. Start on LinkedIn and look at people in your past companies and start reconnecting and engaging with them.

Career Break Tip #3 – Experience and Skills

You also want to determine, for that goal that you want, what experience and skills that you have that gets you on that path. What I see people do that gets them stuck is they look at, “Well, for the last three years I’ve been doing this, and this is nothing like where I want to be.” They get stuck thinking about what the last three to five years looked like instead of going back through the whole trajectory of their career and bringing forward all that skill, all of those skills of all of that experience.

The reality about being a business analyst is that your skills are relatively timeless. Your ability to solve business problems and your analytical thinking, the structures that you would use to do that kind of work, the way that you handle complex communication challenges and navigate organizational change and resistance, that skill set does not go away.

You may have even had experiences since you left corporate that make you even better at that, that you have to handle some challenging negotiations or resolve some conflicts within your family, or negotiate your new job role, your new role for your life, whatever that looked like for you. You are the sum of everything that you did before and all the enhanced experiences you had during your “break.” Bring all of that forward.

With that in mind, there might be some nuances. There are tools; maybe you’ve never worked in an agile environment, and that’s becoming the norm. Maybe the tools that are out in the marketplace are a little bit new, so you can refresh your skills or you can broaden and add something new to your skill set, but you don’t have to feel like you start from scratch.

Career Break Tip #4 – Be Ready to Hit the Ground Running

What employers do want to know, though, when they’re hiring a new employee after a break is that you’re ready to hit the ground running. You need to have that inner confidence that you could pick up your role in that same capability, in that same capacity that you did before you left corporate (if you want to go back to that same kind of role).

You have to be fresh in that experience. If you don’t feel like that ability to hit the ground running, if you don’t feel like you have that, that’s where training can help. Training that gives you that refresh that helps you, “Oh, right, I did this, I did that, I did this.” It gives you that structure to apply. It gives you the awareness, the re-emergence in industry-standard best practices. This is where volunteering to do some business analysis in an organization can help as well. Look at the non-profits or the organizations, friend groups.

We were in a session of The Business Analyst Blueprint® program where we were talking a lot of participants are choosing event management as their project of choice. We were like, “Oh my gosh, I could have totally put an event management process together for my weekly girls’ group.” I could have used that as an opportunity to practice some process analysis and to refresh my skills so that I had that confidence that comes with, not that I did that five years ago, but I just did it yesterday. That’s where volunteering can help fill that gap and it can also give you something to put on your actual resume as work experience.

Career Break Tip #5 – Get Your Story Straight

Finally, one last tip, and that’s just to get your story straight. People are going to ask you about your break. That’s going to come up in an job interview. It might even come up as the very first thing on a phone interview as part of a phone screen.

Don’t just hope you come up with a good answer. Have a clear explanation and don’t apologize for it.

“I took time off to do this and now I am ready to be back in the workplace. Here is what I’ve done to make sure my skills are current. Here are the kinds of things that I’m ready to do and I’m really looking forward to getting back in because…”

And really sell the “because.” This is going to help them feel confident that you really want this, that you don’t want to stay on your break, and that you’re ready to hit the ground running.

I just will share one last thing. There was one BA that I hired after her career break. I will tell you how she showed up in the interview. It was so present, her experience. We were talking about all of the things that she had done as a business analyst, and she had taken a long time off to care for her aging parents, and I didn’t even realize it.

I feel like I’m a pretty smart person, and I’m pretty insightful. She talked so clearly about her experience doing business analysis work as if it were yesterday. She had nuances to it of what this person did and how this person did it, the challenges she faced, and how she overcame it that it didn’t even occur to me to ask her, “Well, when did that happen?” Because it felt like it had happened last week.

If you can bring that sort of presence into your interview with the kinds of experiences that you’ve had, you might still get the question, but it’s going to come in a different light. They’re going to see you as ready to hit the ground running, ready to be the successful business analyst you know you can be.

What’s Next?

If you do want a career refresh, I have a quick free training for you. Just click below, it’s called Quick Start to Success as a Business Analyst. We’d love to have you join it. We go through the key skills to be successful as a business analyst, what the business analysis process looks like, and gives you a deeper insight into the profession. Great way to start to hit that refresh button so you can start rebuilding your business analyst career starting today.

Again, I’m Laura Brandenburg from Bridging the Gap. We help mid-career professionals start business analyst careers. I’m so happy to be helping you today.

>> Get Your Quick Start to Success

Earn the respect you deserve and get the insider details on how to get into a business analyst career quickly, with our free Quick Start to Success training. You’ll learn how to avoid the most common pitfalls faced by new business analysts and the step-by-step business analysis process to create predictable, consistent project success.

>> Click here to register for the free training today <<

Finding your next job opportunity might mean changing industries, sectors, or domains – especially if the bulk of your experience is an area brought down by the pandemic.

So how do you do transfer your business analysis skills across industries? For example, from non-profit work to a corporate setting? Or vice versa?

That’s what this video is all about.

To learn more about the essential business analysis skills, be sure to check out our Quick Start to Success workshop – it’s absolutely free today.

>> Click here to sign up for the workshop <<

As someone who just turned 41, I honestly didn’t want to go any more deeply into this topic. I didn’t feel like I had a good answer, and I didn’t feel fully informed about the challenge.

And then I realized that while I don’t have a full answer to the challenge of ageism in the workplace, I can contribute to a part of the story. And my contribution is what it was like for me, as a 28-year-old-new manager, to hire a talented man in his 60s who had at least 2 decades of experience in a profession I was just figuring out.

So that’s where we’re going in this week’s video! Please watch the video (or read the transcript) and leave a comment below with your contribution to this important topic.

Hi, I’m Laura Brandenburg from Bridging the Gap. One of the questions I receive often is, “Am I too old to be a business analyst?” I also hear stories that I believe are true that there’s a judgment or perception, particularly, of older workers in an IT environment that tends to be younger.

Now, I just turned 41. I cannot give my firsthand experience of what it’s like to interview in your 50s or 60s and what it takes to be successful in that interview.

But the piece of the story that I want to share with you, the piece that I have to contribute was the process and mindset and somewhat limiting beliefs I had as a 28-year-old manager who hired a 60+-year-old business analyst.

I know that ageism exists in the workplace. I know that there are all kinds of unfairness in the world. I’m not here to solve that problem, but I am here to share my piece of the story to contribute a piece of the puzzle and, hopefully, inspire you to not allow any factor about your life, personality, characteristic as a human being to hold you back from the true success that you really want as a business analyst or any career goal that you might have in your life.

Let me just share a little bit about how this went. I have some notes so I don’t forget to share all the key points because this is an emotional story for me.

My First Fear – That an Older Worker Would Be “Too Experienced”

The first objection I had – I was young and I was a great business analyst. I was like a superhero.

People wanted me on their projects, but I had very little experience managing at that point in my life. I was just like, “Does he have too much experience?” We’re an informal startup. We were in an informal environment and I was nervous that we didn’t need a BA with too much experience because they might not fit in and they might bring too much methodology and too much, “We have to do things this way” to this informal environment. Even just as I said that, I was like that was the most ridiculous thing to think in the world.

And my current 41-year-old self knows that 28-year-old self had some pretty significant limiting beliefs. If anything, we needed somebody with that kind of experience to bring the breadth of experience to this young thriving organization that had huge growth plans. That was the first thing that I brought up.

My manager, the CIO, was like, “You need to interview this guy.” He threw the resume back at me and was like, “Interview him.” I was like, “Okay, let’s do this.”

My Next Fear – That the Older Worker Would Know More Than Me

Then the fear came up of, “Well, maybe he knew more than me.” He probably did know more than me about business analysis. He had a huge deep technical background. Way more experience and education and qualifications than I did for that role. I wasn’t worried about my job or my role. Some people might be. You might interview with a younger manager who’s worried that you’re going to overstep them. That wasn’t the fear that I had.

I was worried about looking like I didn’t know what I was doing. What if this guy comes in and is talking past me and I actually can’t effectively manage him because he knows more than me? That was, again, limiting belief. Fear. Got past it.

The Fears Don’t Stop – What If He Didn’t Want to Work For Me?

The next fear that came up was, “How would he feel working for me?” I put myself in my own 60-year old shoes and was like, “Why would I ever want to work for some young quick start kind of person? I want to work for somebody who has more experience than me.” That was my reality at the time because I was always the youngest person in any role and everybody that had ever managed me was older than me.

I’ve seen, now, how age is less of a factor. It’s about capabilities and your qualities and what your genius work is and what you’re best at in the world. But at that point in time, I had never seen an environment where a significant age gap where somebody older was being managed by someone younger. It just made me feel he was going to feel uncomfortable with me was, again, my limiting belief.

I asked him that question flat out in the second or third; whatever the final interview was. “Are you okay being managed by me or having me as your manager?” He was like, “Yeah, I’m fine with that. Of course.” He was in the third interview putting out what he had into the interview process. Of course he was, but I asked the question and he was like, “Yeah, no problem.” That was, for me, the light bulb went off. Okay, I can do this. He’s okay with it. I need to figure out how to get me okay with it.

Not All Managers Interviewing Older Workers Are Aware of Their Fears

Not every manager might be aware that these fears are coming up for them. It’s probably some version of this, though. To be honest, what was coming out for me was more about my discomfort in being a manager than it was about the age difference or the capabilities. This is only the second person I’ve hired at that point. The first person I hired was older than me but not by so much. It was the thing that was out there and it was easy to see.

Why am I sharing this? It’s not because I want to be a hero about this situation. Obviously, I was not a hero. I worked through a lot of stuff in order to make this happen. It’s not to make the story out to be your story. There might be pieces of it that land with how you have shown up either as a young manager or as an older person seeking employment with a younger manager. You might resonate with some of that.

Even As An Older Worker…It’s Not About You

I just wanted you to see what was behind the scenes because that empowers you to see it’s not just about you. None of what I shared was really about him; it was all about my own stuff.

When you’re thinking about that situation and you’re afraid of the reaction, how can you turn that around? How can you make that person feel super comfortable with you? How can you make that person, use your BA skills, to help them see how you’re going to add value to the organization and bring more to the organization, ask great questions, rely on them, and collaborate, then, with them in an appropriate manager/employee relationship; that you’re ready to embrace that role and you’re excited to work with them, to make them feel comfortable as well?

Try Not to Take Rejection Personally

The other thing is to not take that rejection personally. Job searches are hard. Most likely you’re going to hear more “No” than you hear “Yes.” Very few people fly through life and get every job that they ever apply to and never hear a “No.” It’s kind of like dating. Very few people meet, date, marry, and live forever with the very first person they ever dated. It happens, but it’s very very rare.

Most of us are going to hear “No” somewhere along the path.

But Also Don’t Let Being an Older Worker Be The Excuse

What you do, though, when you make it a factor of a quality that you can’t control is that you give up hope and you let yourself off the hook for taking personal responsibility for what you can change.

You can’t change your age.

You can change how you interview.

You can learn how to interview in a better way. You can learn how to connect with people easily. You can leverage your best skills. You can do all kinds of things that will influence your job search process. If you just say, “It’s never going to work for me because I’m older. I guess I should just throw in the towel,” you’ll never be inspired or motivated to change the things that you can control.

You Can’t Control Everything

I’m not saying there’s no unfairness in the world and that people don’t make decisions on factors that they shouldn’t make decisions on, but all you can do is take charge of the pieces that you can control and move forward in spite of the “No’s,” and learn from the “No’s” when you can, and when you see that it’s truly a judgment, it hurts, but as easily as you can, move forward until you find the person who is going to work through their own limiting beliefs to hire you. Because you have so much to offer.

The piece I haven’t shared yet is that person brought…that experience was so valuable to our organization. I learned so much from him about business analysis. That’s still part of who I am today. You have that gift of experience, knowledge, and acumen that often a younger person doesn’t have because they haven’t seen the depth of the situations and the encounters that you’ve had. Use that as your strength, your experience. Be excited to offer that to the world. I just wish you the best in finding the job that’s the perfect fit for you and finding the right person who sees you for the qualified, excited, engaged individual that you are.

Again, I’m Laura Brandenburg at Bridging the Gap. Thank you for being here. We help mid-career and advanced career professionals start business analyst careers. I don’t think you’re ever too old to be a business analyst. It’s just when is it your time, when are you ready to stop. That’s up to you. If you’re ready to get started, we’re ready to help.

Again, talk to you soon.

The thing is – this was NOT a chance meeting. I had taken specific actions that led to this outcome and dozens of our course participants have followed this same path to success.

Want to learn more? Watch this short video! And then register here for the free 3-part video training.

Are you really a business analyst? Yes, you are.

Learn why today.

For those who like to read instead of watch, here’s the full text of the video:

Today, I want to talk about a topic really close to my heart. It’s about the self-doubt and self-criticism, and the diminishing of our own value that I see in our profession as business analysts. We don’t appreciate ourselves and then we get upset when other people don’t appreciate us. This happens because we are analyzers and we can analyze our own value until we can’t actually see the good, the positive change, and all the great work that we do.

Today’s video is prompted by a question from one of our readers. I’m going to read that and then I’m going to talk about the answer that I have to this person’s question.

“I’ve been a BA for six years now and I still don’t consider myself as a BA. Why? Well, there is a reason for this and it’s based on my personality.

You see, I’m one of those people that always looks at just how much more there is to learn. Because that sea of knowledge is so vast, I consider it to mean that I don’t necessarily know very much at all.

I have seen people come, do something once, promote themselves as an expert, get promoted, and then move on. This is something that I fundamentally cannot do, no matter how much I may want to be able to do so. Taking the above into account, my question is not about learning to be a BA, it is about being able to recognize when you are a BA.

So, without further ado, my question is as follows, are there three to five universal things that you believe if someone can identify these things in their day-to-day activity, then regardless of how they may feel about their skills, they are a BA?”

Analysis plants the seeds of self-doubt

Now, I can answer this question, the direct part of the question head-on, and I will. I will talk about the three things that I think you need to be able to check off to say that you are a business analyst. But that’s not the fundamental challenge here. This question comes up in a variety of different ways from all kinds of people in our community. That fundamental challenge is that we’re looking outside of ourselves for somebody else to say,

“Hey, you, you are a business analyst. You are good enough, or skilled enough, or experienced enough to be a business analyst.”

It just doesn’t happen that way.

Yes, sometimes, there will be a point where someone will give you the job title of business analyst, and then you’ll be like, okay, I guess I’ve arrived. That will happen, but then you’ll go back to work the next day and you’ll be like, “Am I really enough?”

Until you take that inside and say, “Yes, I’m a business analyst,” it doesn’t matter what I or anybody else tells you about your business analyst skills. That’s what I think drives a lot of the certifications in our professions, it drives this learning, learning, learning, learning more in our profession.

It’s why at Bridging the Gap, all of our virtual training comes with a ‘doing’ component. You learn, and you do, because the confidence comes from the doing, and from getting the external feedback from an instructor that says,

“Yes, you did business analysis work. You did good quality business analysis work that passes the standards for this particular program.”

That is about the certificate of completion. It is about the finishing of the course, but it’s more about that confidence building that I think we need so much in our profession. We need more BAs to be more confident. Because when you’re more confident, you show up more fully.

• You ask the tougher questions.
• You show up as a leader on your project instead of a reactor.
• You are going to be the one leading positive change in your organization.

The more confident we can make you, the better your projects are going to be, the greater your organization is going to be overall. It’s important to be able to say,

“Yes, I’m a business analyst.”

3 criteria for being a business analyst

What would those three things be?

For me, it’s:

1. Discover requirements,
2. Analyze requirements, and
3. Create positive change.

Pretty simple.

Simple, but not simple…

Criteria #1 – Discover requirements

This is what, I think, creates this “I never know enough,” because discovering requirements, there’s so much to know. You’re always going to get better at discovering requirements. Interviews, observations, modeling sessions, brainstorming sessions – these are all different techniques that we use to discover the requirements.

The question is, can you sit down with one stakeholder and ask them questions and figure out a better way of doing things? Can you figure out what they really want? What they really need? Then, yes, you’ve met that criteria for being a business analyst.

Will you always be able to learn new techniques, new ways to handle new stakeholders with more finesse, more challenging situations, and how to deal with them with ease and grace? For sure. You’ll always be improving in this area. I’m always improving in this area. Every senior business analyst who cares about their work is improving in how well they can deal with stakeholders and discover requirements.

If you can sit down with one stakeholder and figure things out, then check [it off the list].

Criteria #2 – Analyze requirements

This is when you take what you learn, and put it into some sort of a model.  Put some structure around it so that you can discover gaps so you can go back and do more discovery. This might be a business requirements document, a workflow diagram, a use case, a business process model, an entity relationship diagram. These are all examples. The list goes on and on, and on, and on, and on.

This is where we get tripped up because how can we ever know whatever there is to know? You can’t. There’s always going to be more tools to add to your BA toolbox. The important thing is that you have a toolbox. A set of techniques that you feel confident in, and that help you figure out the requirements for a project, and then check off that box, and say,

“Yes, I’m a business analyst.”

Yes, there will always be a new tool to learn. I’m still learning tools. I’m still bringing new tools into our training programs. It’s not about ever being done or ever learning enough. It’s about learning about saying, “Yes, I’m a business analyst,” because I can do these things.

Criteria #3 – Create positive change

Now, this is the one that trips a lot of us up because we might be able to have the conversations, might be able to analyze the requirements. Are we creating positive change in our organizations?

Are we seeing through that change to the next step?  A lot of times, this is where we have this weird, not weird but, just, we step back to step forward as business analysts. We’re not the project manager (unless we are). We’re driving forward that change. We’re not stepping back at that point.

For a true business analyst, driving change might involve activities like facilitating UAT, or being a sounding board as your developers figure out the implementation solution, or walking through the new process with your stakeholders as the technology, or as the shifts happen.

You are less on the driving, and more on the facilitating and supporting at this stage. It’s so important because if we’re not creating positive change, all the discovery we’ve done, all the requirements we’ve written don’t have the impact that we want to have.

You are a BUSINESS ANALYST

Those are the three things.

• If you’ve done these on a project in the past, you are a business analyst.
• Can you do these on project now? You are a business analyst.

I want you to take a moment if you feel, “but, but, but,” or self-doubt or self-criticism, or “I’m not enough.”

“I’m a business analyst.”

Say, “This is the face of a business analyst.” (Not me. I know I’m a business analyst.) You. I want you to point at your face. “I am a business analyst.” Yes. Write it down if you must every day. Say it aloud in the car. I give you permission to start calling yourself a business analyst today, and not to let these other stories about other people who’ve done more or learned more, or have more expertise than you, hold you back.

The better that you can show up, the more confident you can be in your skills, the better the work that you’re going to be able to do, the more job opportunities that will come to you, and the better the impact, the bigger the impact that you’re going to have in your organization.

That’s my challenge to you.

Thank you for this question. Thank you for being a business analyst. We are here for you at Bridging the Gap to take your skills to the next level.

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This book will help you find your best path forward into a business analyst career. More than that, you will know exactly what to do next to expand your business analysis opportunities.

Click here to learn more about How to Start a Business Analyst Career

I’m so excited to be able to share this case study interview with you. Adam Haesler’s BA career has been evolving for the last 2 years, and he recently landed his first formal business analyst position.

Learn how Adam got more confident in his business analysis skills, mined his career for relevant experiences (even without the job title), volunteered for more business analysis work, and, after sending out hundreds of resumes, landed the second business analyst job he interviewed for.

Connect with Adam on LinkedIn

Listen to (or download) the interview here:

And for those of you who prefer to read instead of listening, here’s a full-text transcript of the interview:

Laura: I’m here today with Adam Haesler, who has just been offered his first official, and we’ll talk a little bit about that and what that means, business analyst position. He’s here to share some of his story with us about how he got to this point in his career.

Laura: Hello, Adam, and welcome.

Adam: Hi, Laura.

Laura: Hey, well thank you so much for joining me today and agreeing to share a little bit about your story. I think we should just jump right in. I know that this has been at least two years in the making for you, right?

Adam: It definitely has been two years.

Laura: Can you just take us back to what things were like for you a couple of years ago. What were you hoping for? Why did you decide to get into business analysis?

Adam: Yeah, for sure.  So, it was very interesting because I felt sort of stuck.  I was in customer service and not really enjoying it. Customer service was sort of meant to be a transitional thing. I had already been doing it previous to where I was working, but it was, you know, it was one of those easy positions to get into. You didn’t need a lot of experience. Just being the type of person that I was, very clear and able to take initiative, and that kind of thing, it was easy to get into. So, you know, it paid the bills.

But I’ve always been fascinated by systems. I had, actually, a couple of years before that, run my own business developing systems on Excel for businesses. It didn’t go very well, but I was still fascinated by them. That idea of having a career in helping businesses develop their systems and improve them for efficiency and optimization of information they could get out of them was always something in the back of my mind and something that I really wanted to be doing as a career, and that I was really passionate about.

What I did was I started just searching online. I can’t ever remember, really, where it started, but I remember getting an email from SFU because I had started into a Business Administration certificate with them and they send you emails about all their other courses that are going on. One of them was business analysis. I thought, “what’s this business analysis thing?”

I went searching online after that and I actually found your book – How to Start a Business Analyst Career. I was like, okay, well, this is perfect. Whatever business analysis is, she’s going to define it for me. So, I went out and bought your book and started reading it. Honestly, I felt like you must have written this book for me because I think it’s the first or the second chapter that talks about all the skills that a person would need to be a business analyst were exactly the type of skills that I had. So, I thought, okay, that’s great. Let’s start moving forward. I don’t care what forward is, let’s just take a step forward. That’s where I was at and that’s where the journey began.

Laura: Yeah, so it sounded as if you had a couple of goals. One, the interesting work of being able to work on businesses with their business systems. You had already started your degree.  SFU – is that a particular university?

Adam: Yeah, that’s Simon Fraser University here in Vancouver. Before this, I had done an undergraduate degree in microbiology, and then come out here to Vancouver for my Master’s Degree, from Ontario and did a Master’s Degree in Biochemistry.  So, nothing to do with what I’m doing now.

Laura: Right.

Adam: So I enrolled in a certificate program at SFU just because they had those for continuing students.  My thing about learning is that I just love it so much that if I could, I’d be doing learning all the time. I just enrolled for something to do, really.

Laura: Okay, gotcha.

Adam: So, you know, you get on people’s email list and they just send you emails about everything, of course.

Laura: Yes, which can be overwhelming at times, too.

Adam: Yeah. In this case, it was a good thing.

Laura: Yeah, so it sounds like something clicked that business analysis was that career to be able to work with business systems, which makes perfect sense. Did you have any hesitations around that? Where were you at around that?

Adam: You know what, I’m going to say no, there were no hesitations.  My drive just became that, it became laser focused that this was what I needed to do for myself, was I needed to get into business analysis.  It just had that perfect fit feeling, especially after reading your book.

Laura: Right.  Was I right that the main goal was the work, or were there other goals that got layered on that for you as well?

Adam: So, I mean, it was definitely the work, the title, and the higher salary, for sure, were motivators.  But it was more so the work that I really wanted to do. I mean if I could live really frugally and yet I was still working on business systems. Even without a title, then, yeah, no, I’d totally do that for sure.

Laura: Okay, fair enough. It’s a good position from a salary perspective as well.

Adam: Yes.

Laura: It’s good to be well compensated for something that we enjoy to do. It’s good.

Adam: Yes, yes, for sure. And I feel like I’ve earned that salary increase over the last two years, especially.

Laura: Yes, so let’s talk about that because it’s not like you didn’t make that decision and then you got the job. There have been a couple of years in between here and there. What was it like? Could you talk us through some of the bigger milestones that you went through during those last two years?

Adam: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, I mean, after I read your book, it was clear that you had a lot of courses which I could take. But one thing that I realized for sure was that although I had all the skills, I didn’t know the terminology. I didn’t know how to communicate on paper with people as far as being a business analyst. So, my big thing was that I needed to get that sort of background on being a business analyst to move forward because it, to me, it sort of seemed like, okay, I’m just going to look like a joke trying to walk into somebody’s office and say, “Oh, I want to be a business analyst. I don’t know anything about the industry or how to do anything in that world, though.

The first thing that I did was I just started taking courses with you. So, I mean, it’s always a hurdle, financially, when you’re on a pretty tight income and you have to start making decisions about, okay, what am I going to spend my money on. But this is where being really laser focused on the fact that I wanted this career became really important for me because it was a motivator that I’ve just got to keep pushing forward.

Since my focus was moving forward on the career, it meant that investing in courses, whether it was your courses or investing my time in webinars or podcasts was what I was going to do with my time and money.

The first course, which was sort of a milestone for me, would have been your course on Mastering Business Analysis, sort of the introductory course.

Laura: Right, the BA Essentials Master Class.

Adam: Yes, yes, that’s right. I was fascinated by that point. When I took that, I was just in love with the whole idea of business analysis and the whole process. I could always see myself doing this. A lot, because of the type of the skills that I would need to use were the type of skills that I was using right away, or right now in my current job where, basically, what I do is I coordinate decoration of garments, so putting people’s logos on their garments that we sell. And this just requires communication between the business owner, who’s actually submitting their purchase order for their stuff and the decorator and working out all the details about the requirements on both sides and what’s reality and what’s not reality, and what can we get done in the timeline that they want.

I was already doing that kind of thing, it’s just not, it wasn’t as detailed as I would like. I meant it was more systemized and already in place and you were really just trying to move things forward as fast as possible. And so, there wasn’t a lot of exploration involved as much as I sort of saw in the business analysis world.

Then, the next major milestone would have been taking your course on data migration. That was really cool too because although I didn’t take it for credit, I had actually done a project back in my business where I was trying to create a system for somebody on inventory, and it sort of required that, not necessarily, knowledge of moving data from one place to another, but that idea of using ERDs would have been very useful.  So, entity relationship diagrams.

Laura: So, you were able to see how you had been doing some…

Adam: How they would be useful. Yeah, and even with the customer, it would have been that much more clear.

Laura: Gotcha. Did you have a way to bring that into the role that you were in then? Were you able to apply some of those?

Adam: No, no, not really. I mean, it was the one course that I took which was probably, actually, a bad decision at the time because it wasn’t relevant enough to move my career forward, which is fine. You know, you make mistakes and you move on.

Laura: Right.

Adam: The next course was your career pack, the three-course pack. I’m trying to remember what they’re all about. One of them is about building your resume, and one of them is about interviews, then there’s a third one, and I, sorry, I can’t remember what it was about.

Laura: Skills. Skills discovery.

Adam: Right.

Laura: Which really supports those other two.

Adam: Yes, right. Okay. This would have been the next big milestone for sure. I know the milestones seem like they were a lot of coursework, but they were a lot of coursework.

Laura: Well, it sounds like with your attitude towards learning, that’s kind of how you think about things, too.

Adam: Yes, it is totally. So, the skills assessment, above all, was probably the best course. I mean it was a long slug, just because the discovery process and the homework that you need to do to go through and revamp your whole resume to make it presentable, like a business analyst type resume was a lot of work but it was very very valuable. I could see the major differences between my resume from before as opposed to my resume after I had done that course pack. And, so, I was extremely thankful for that because I could see how much better I was communicating to the world if I put that resume, the new resume out there.

Laura: Right. There are two pieces of that, right. One is, I’ve done this, which you kind of had said when you read the book. “Oh, I have these skills.” But then the other is, okay, now I’m actually feeling like I can present myself as having done some of these activities and having these skills.

Adam: I think there was a big confidence boost piece there too because it was a mindset shift of, well, I don’t really know if I could be a business analyst. I don’t know if I have the skills. I don’t know if I have the experience, blah, blah, blah to, oh, wait a minute, yes, I do. Look at all the experience. It filled two or three pages worth of resume. Oh boy! Okay. Actually, I have to cut it down.

Laura: That’s awesome.

Adam: Yeah, so then, you know, I mean…

Laura: Did you start sending that resume at that point?

Adam: I think I started a couple, but I was very, I was still a little unsure of myself and whether I had the skills to be able to move forward at that point. This was about one year into my progress, at this point. And I was still a little unsure of myself, so I think I put, maybe, one or two resumes out there and I didn’t get any response back.

At that point, I knew I was still missing a couple of, definitely, experience in the real world, as well as some knowledge in things like making processes and process models and wireframes and that idea of working with developers. That was all new to me. So, I knew that taking your courses on processes and wireframes and use cases would be very beneficial. So, that was the next thing on the docket. But getting some actual experience was the other big thing for me.

So, what ended up happening was I took your course on use cases and wireframes and I believe that was the first course I took for credit. So, I actually had to go out and do some work in the real world with this course, which was a little bit scary, actually, because it meant putting in time on something and maybe even putting in time at work, which is not a very popular idea because it’s not what I was there to do. So, it was a matter of finding time on breaks or on lunches to do this type of stuff. So, I had actually built, what I call, a calculator. We actually have to calculate what are the costs to the customer for decoration, and what are our costs on our end as the business, with the third-party decorator.

So, I built a calculator for this process, but it was still in the early stages. So, what I did was, I used use cases and wireframes as a way to work through a big problem that I was having with that system. I, actually, the course involves you actually going to a stakeholder and working through your use case and wireframes with them and getting sort of an approval from them. So, that whole process lit me up like a fire inside because I realized, wow, this is really what I really want to do. Now, that I see myself in action, I can actually do it.

Laura: Yeah, because you took it all the way from not having that documented to documenting it and you’ve got the stakeholder approval as well it sounds like.

Adam: Yes, exactly.

Laura: It sounds like this is a project that you created, too.  Right. Nobody was coming to you and saying, “Adam, can you create a use case for us on this?”

Adam: Yes, I mean, I definitely was sort of a stakeholder and the developer and everybody. But even still, I was looking at it from all those different perspectives as well. That was kind of cool too, to see things from different perspectives as if I were the developer, or as if I were the business owner, and so on and so forth.

Laura: Correct. That makes so much sense.

Adam: And then, you know, I did the same thing with your process modeling course and it went on a different project that I initiated from the very beginning. My manager came to me and said, “You know what,” so, it was Canada’s 150^th birthday this year and Heritage Canada came out with this logo that they said you can use this logo on your garments.” At the beginning, I was sort of like, oh, okay, well, that’s great. This shouldn’t be a lot of work.

Laura: Famous last words.

Adam: Yeah, no kidding. So, I ended up, I think the project ended up being about three or four months long and it ended up involving stakeholders from almost every different department around the whole company as well as some outside stakeholders, including people from Heritage Canada, and from the decorators. So, I had that experience of actually having to work with people who weren’t getting back to you in a timely manner and just having to figure out how to see their perspective throughout the project, you know, what are their priorities, basically. Because not everybody’s priorities are the same as yours. You have that recollection of that fact even more so than I did just doing customer service where nine times out of 10 people are getting back to you fairly quickly because they want their garments in a fairly quick time.

So, it meant going through from the discovery stage of meeting with my manager and finding out what we needed to do all the way through to figuring out what the value would be that would be presenting our customers with and getting some samples decorated to actually presenting this marketing department so they could put something out. Having a few hiccups along the way and other people getting involved at the last minute and not even knowing that they wanted to be involved from the beginning because, originally, they didn’t care and all of a sudden, it’s, “Oh, we care, we care, we care.”

Laura: Right.

Adam: I had heard you talking about this and I thought, “Ah, that’s never going to happen on this project.” So, yes, and, you know, that project combined with another project where I went to my manager and he was having a problem. There was this issue of shipping a crate to a trade show. It seemed so simple, but he was like, “I’m so frustrated. I’ve got to go and make sure that everything is in this crate. I can’t have somebody else do it for me because 9 times out of 10, I get to the show and there’s something missing, there is a wrench missing, or there’s a stand missing or something. And then we look like fools showing up at this show and we’ve got to ask somebody else for the wrench, or we’ve got to, whatever.”

Laura: Right.

Adam: And, so, I went to him having just taken your Process Models and Process Flows course and I was like, what if we sat down, we figured out what the ideal process is, ideal flow, and we figured out what all the steps were and made a checklist for everything you need to have in that box. Would that be helpful? And he was like, “Oh my gosh, yes, that would be helpful.” You had talked about a lot of this idea of going up to a white board and, basically, just saying, okay, here is where we start and here is where we end. Can you guys fill me in on what’s in between?

I walk into the room with my manager and his assistant and I basically lay out a piece of 11 x 17 paper and I draw two squares; one, we’ve got the empty crate, and then we’ve got the full crate at the trade show. Can you guys fill me in on what the process is? And they just started filling me in. I couldn’t believe it because I didn’t think it would work. I didn’t think they’d talk or, you know, I was scared about so many different things, and yet it worked out so well.

So, yeah, I got to use a few techniques that I had heard you talk about other, I’m not even sure if it was in that course, but in a blog post you had written elsewhere.

Laura: Yeah, it sounds like you used two projects.  You know, you went from the transition was going from kind of being aware that you had these skills and even understanding your past experience, to for the first time, being fully aware that you were using business analysis process and treating it in a more formal way.

Adam: Yes, yes.  So, this was sort of the big turning point in my career moving forward as a business analyst because now I felt like, okay, I’ve got actual projects that I know for sure I can put on my resume and use some of those buzz words like requirements or process models; actually, implement them on my resume and know that I’ve actually used those skills and the techniques in a very formal way. So, not just sort of saying, “Oh yeah, I sort of do that in customer service and this is the way it’s very different.  Going from that to, yes, I’ve done this in a concrete way.  I can say that I have that experience. And I have the actual documents in my hands. So, if need be, I now have a new portfolio. I have documents I can share with a new company with my resume.

Laura: Gotcha. Yeah. But how did that take you? I feel like, are we at the point now where you started applying for jobs again and ended up with the position you have now?

Adam: Yes, it is. For sure.

Laura: Okay.

Adam: So, this was still a bit scary because I was like, okay, now I’ve got to start putting out resumes if I actually want to move forward. I actually have to do that. I had reached a point where we were at a review point with my, one of my other managers at my current job and she was like, “So, what are you doing?” And so on and so forth. How do you want to move forward? I was like, wow, I am looking for this business analyst position. I don’t know if you guys can offer me anything. Otherwise, I am going to start looking.

I presented them with a proposal because she had asked for it and I never heard anything back. So, I started applying to other businesses.  For a little while, I got no responses, but what ended up happening was I got a first interview with a company just because simply, they saw that I had business analysis experience, which was more so from running my business than anything. So, they did a first interview with me, but they were like, “Oh yeah, we’re not interested moving forward.  It was a little bit uplifting.  I had not done a first interview in a very, very long time. We’re talking years and years and years.

What ended up happening was retrospectively I looked at it and I was, okay, if nothing else, it was good experience to get that first interview out of the way.  It was so scary walking into a first interview and being like, oh, man, I have not done a first interview before in a long time.  I don’t know how to be calm in these things.

Laura: That’s a big piece of it, especially when you’re interviewing for a role that you haven’t interviewed for before as well. It’s a certain sense, like the first time is always going to be the clunkiest, and the second time is a little less clunky. And then it gets a little easier.

Adam: Yeah, no, for sure. After that, I mean, months and months and months went by. I’d say about six months went by and, you know, it was a lot of ups and downs. I get some responses saying, no, and 90% was, basically, I just got no response at all.

I was going through those lows where it’s like, geez, I mean, how many more resumes am I going to have to put out? What am I going to have to change? I was just constantly trying new things with my resume, my cover letter, just tweaking it a little bit and sending out, say, 10 resumes, 10 applications like hat, and if I got no response, tweaking it a little bit more and seeing, okay, does that work? Of course, the big problem with sending out applications is you don’t actually get any feedback unless you get a first interview.

Laura: Right. And the success rates, then, when you’re applying through online job boards can be pretty, pretty low.

Adam: It is.

Laura: It is going into a black cloud for sure.

Adam: Yeah, no, for sure.

Laura: Tell me about the one that did work.  What tweak made that happen?

So, what I had done is I guess I had about nine months of doing this and I was like, okay, we need to try something really, really new. We need to find a new job board or we need to start going out and actually, now, working with new people or something.  Not having a lot of free time after work, because I’m a big-time runner as well, so my schedule is very full. I needed a solution that could provide me with that sort of interaction with people on the hiring manager level rather than dealing with recruiters who were scanning my resume really quickly and deciding I wasn’t qualified.

I ended up finding this job board called Angel List, which is a lot of companies who are sort of at that start-up level or have gone through a few rounds of funding. The big thing about them is that they have this messaging system where you actually communicate with somebody on that level of hiring manager or somebody in HR. They actually refused to have you talking with a recruiter. You had to either be in business or a hiring manager. So, it was great. Maybe this will work better because I know that I was always communicating, trying to communicate with recruiters, and it just wasn’t working for me.

What they do is they get you to send out an actual, just sort of little message saying why would you want to join this company, why do you want this position? I was like, alright, well, you know, I found this position with a company, a small tech company here in Vancouver and I was like, oh my gosh, this job is perfect. It was junior business analyst and it was doing, basically, implementation of new features on their application, and I was like, wow, okay, this would be perfect. They didn’t have like, oh, you need three years of experience and you need, specifically, that you’ve been working on use cases for three years. Nothing like that. So, it was very general job description and I was like, oh, okay, I meet all the criteria. I’d be perfect for this job. I just know I could be awesome at this job.

So, I sent out the message and a couple of days go by and I had sent out a message to another company and they had gotten back to me in 24 hours and said, “Oh, we’re not looking for a business analyst,” but I was at least like, thank you. Okay. Now, I’ve gotten responses. Things seem to be moving forward. I was just glad to get a response at all.

Laura: Right, with a real reason.

Adam: Yeah, with a real reason. Exactly. Not some auto reply email or template email. “Oh, thank you for your application. We’ll get back to you if we actually feel like there’s a fit.”

Laura: Right.

Adam: And, so, anyway, two days go by and I get a response back from this company that I ended up a getting a job with. They were like, okay, well, you know, it sounds like you might be a good fit. Can you please send me your resume? I was like, oh my gosh! Okay.

So, I sent them my resume and I hear back within a day, “can we have a first interview with you?” And I was like, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.” This is really exciting. But at the same time, I was amazed at how sort of comfortable I was with the idea of going into a first interview because I had that first experience, although it was six months ago, I knew a lot more about what I wanted and why. I had done the research on the company itself, gone on to their website, researched everything that they do, about the position, and sort of I had gone to, what do you call it, their customer service chat line and tried to find out could I get an overview of their application somehow. I ended up reaching out to a salesperson, and she got back to me with a couple links to videos of their application. So, I went through those to make sure that I knew what I was talking about as far as their system was concerned.

Then I went into the interview, and this was really key, I was like, you know what, I’m not taking no for an answer. And it wasn’t like I was going to be a jerk about it, but it was just a mindset very different from the first interview where I was just sort of very nervous and I didn’t know how to ask the right questions, and I didn’t have very good composure.

I went into the interview and he asked me all these questions about why did I want to be a business analyst and it was interesting because I sort of stumbled over that question because I didn’t realize that I didn’t really have a very good answer for that. He asked me other questions about reading documentation, technical documentation because that’s a big part of the job. So, I was grasping at experience I had in the past. How did I have the experience that they might be looking for, and I just constantly kept thinking, okay, even if I don’t know the answer to the question, let’s figure out what I do know and present him with that. And it just went on and on and on like that, and, actually, the interview ended up running for half an hour and it was only supposed to be 15 minutes. After that, he was like, okay, I’m pretty sure I want to bring you in but let me just get organized and I’ll get back to you next week. I was like, holy moly! This is so exciting. I can’t believe somebody is actually going to get back to me.

I did a little bit more research on their company once he had gotten back to me and said, “Yeah, we want to bring you in for a second interview.” I went in for the interview. One thing that I did, which I was very proud of myself for, was I kept being honest with my manager about what I was doing. I didn’t go and say to her, “Oh, you know, I’m sick today,” or something like that and just not come in. I said, “You know what, I have an interview today, and this is the timeframe that it’s going to be at. This is what I’m doing. I just want you to know. And she was, actually, very appreciative of that.”

I went in for the interview and it was only, they said, “Oh, yeah, it’ll only be about two hours. It might be between one and two hours. It depends. If you don’t have a lot of time, we can make it like one hour.” I was like, alright. Whatever. I’m just going to tell my manager that I might not be back for a like four hours, just to be sure because it seemed a little weird what he was trying to tell me. I was like, okay.

We walk into the interview and he didn’t say anything about the fact that I might be meeting other people. I had gone online and looked at the different people who were higher up in the company and who was the owner and started doing that research there, just trying to get a little bit of a sense of who they are. I walk into the room and the hiring manager, a UX person, and the actual owner of the company are all sitting there. I was like, oh, okay. I was like, okay, just calm. Everything’s good. It’s fine. We ended up having an interview with those three for two hours and it was so much fun, actually, because I was just like, you know what, just keep doing what you were doing on the phone in your first interview. Just don’t take no for an answer, don’t say I don’t know, present them with what you do know in relation to the question that they’re trying to ask you. Basically, what that does is it presents you such that you understand what your limitations are.

The interview went on and on and on about questions about my experience and a lot of it came down to my experience of working on the Excel spreadsheets for systems for small businesses when I was running my own business because they were just fascinated that I had managed to do that in Excel.

They also got me to go through this exercise, which was, basically, an exercise on presenting on how I work through problems. They basically posed me with a question which was how many gas stations are there in Vancouver? Please figure it out for us, and do it on the white board. I was like, oh, okay. I managed to work through that whole problem and they were very impressed with how I did that, and then they actually asked me to do it again in a different way to back up my findings.

Laura: Wow.

Adam: Anyway, in general, it was just a lot of fun. I remembered, from that experience, that I love going up to the white board. Once I get a white board pen in my hand, I just get a little excited.

Yeah, it was just a lot of fun.

They all leave and the hiring manager says, “Just wait here.” Of course, we’re in this very small room and it’s just stifling hot in there. I’m choking down glass of water after glass of water. Three more people come in who are people who potentially would be working on my team with me. They were developers. I was like, oh my gosh, okay. This sort of feels like we moved into third interview stage or 2.0.

Again, the interview went for another hour with these guys. I was like, okay, alright, fair enough. Those guys leave and they say just wait here for a minute. And then the hiring manager walks back in and I’m like, okay, what is going on here. Because I didn’t, I had this sense of we were moving forward and yet most people would have been shown the door and maybe you would have called back and maybe you wouldn’t. I thought, what is going on here?

So, the hiring manager walks back in and he starts talking as if I’ve already got the job. He starts saying things like, “Oh, yeah, okay, so you’ll be doing this within the role and this is what you’ll be doing, and this is what you’ll need to be able to do your job, and blah, blah, blah.” I’m sitting there with the most confused face thinking, wait a minute; you haven’t said that I’ve got the job yet.

Anyway, we eventually get to the point where I realize, okay, I come to the recognition that he’s basically saying he wants to make me an offer. I had an offer in my hand by the end of day and I signed the contract by next Monday, because this interview was on a Friday. I went home on top of the world. I left that interview, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie, The Pursuit of Happiness, but when Will Smith walks out of the board room with those guys, at the end of the movie and he’s just in tears when we walk into the streets of New York. That’s the way I felt. I was, literally, in tears walking around Vancouver because I had realized I had reached a point where I was being respected at the level that I wanted to be. And I had, in my hands, a piece of paper that said, you know what, you are a business analyst and somebody’s actually willing to give you that title.

So, yeah, the weekend was great. I took the weekend to think it over and then I signed the documents on Monday morning. I gave them my references and they got back to me on Tuesday afternoon and said that I had the position.

From there on, it’s just been an amazing feeling of success.

Laura: And excitement and so well deserved, Adam.

Adam: Well, thank you.

Laura: Yeah, thank you for, I mean there are so many rich pieces in what you shared from how the interview process can be really crazy and unexpected. That’s just a beautiful share for anyone listening in who’s ever had an interview not go as they expect. That’s just awesome.

And, also, that idea of I’m not going to take no for an answer and I’m going to present what I do know, not what I don’t know, and just being ready to share something no matter what and continuing to engage, which I think, created the conversation that showed everything that you’d done to that point in its best light, I’m sure.

Adam: Yeah, for sure.

Laura: There is just so much great stuff. Thank you so much for sharing.

When you look back at that journey, and you really walked us through it in a lot of different pieces, from kind of being excited but unclear, to really starting to appreciate your skills, to being frustrated because you were kind of applying, applying, applying and nothing was working out, and then you had this opportunity and you really capitalized on it. Is there anything, looking back, that you would want to make sure this is the thing, if somebody else is where you were two years ago, or where you were six months ago, what’s that thing that you would want them to know about your experience or to take with them on their journey?

Adam: It’s really a matter of just constantly reevaluating the job descriptions. The way I looked at the job descriptions was they were a representation of what the market wanted you to have. Something I didn’t get into was a lot of the stuff that I learned outside of your courses. A lot of the job descriptions came with this element of we want you to have SQL and so on and so forth and computer languages. It wasn’t so much that you race out and you try and get yourself skilled in everything that’s on all job descriptions, but that you’re going out and you’re evaluating what the masses want.

What I found was that, in general, almost everybody wanted us, at least in Vancouver, to have some skills in data analysis and SQL just kept coming up. How to just, basically, basic programming in SQL. SQL is a very easy language to actually learn. I went out and I said, okay, let’s go out and learn how to use SQL. I did a couple of different courses that were really cheap, finding online platforms that were offering SQL as a language to learn and just diving right in and learning that. If there were a lot of job descriptions coming up with things like, oh, we want you to know use cases or we want you to know how to use process models, those things came up too and were sort of the big motivator for me, actually, taking those courses of yours because it was like, okay, well, I can see how those are valuable and it seems like a good portion of the market really wants that. If I’m actually going to get a job, then I need those skills and I need to get them somehow.

And, so, basically, the bottom line is constantly trying to put your best bet forward. That comes out in that idea of not saying I don’t know as well.

Laura: Right, and I love that strategy, too, about it’s not every qualification in every job, it’s the one that you see coming up again and again and again.

Adam: Yes, exactly.

Laura: It can be somewhat overwhelming, but takes out some of that overwhelm of, oh my gosh, do I need all the terms in this one plus all the terms in that one, plus all the terms in that one. Look at the intersection and keep expanding from that intersection.

Adam: And the other thing I would say to try and narrow it down a little bit is I really focused on my criteria for what I was looking for. I had very specific criteria for the type of business that I wanted to work for. The job description needed to read a certain way, that they had a certain culture. There needed to be certain elements to the actual work that needed to be done. If it said things like, “Oh, you know you’re going to be doing a lot of data analysis, that wasn’t really going to be for me because that wasn’t how I saw business analysis because more so, for me, it was more so about working on the systems and implementing them. Working towards jobs that had that element of you need to know how to a process model, or you need to know use cases and wireframes. Those were the ones that stuck out for me. And then from those, it was a matter of, okay, are they saying they have the kind of culture that I want or are they saying nothing about culture and therefore, I’m going to throw those away.

Not being afraid to throw away a potential job opportunity was a real key thing to narrowing down my job search. Instead of applying to 100 a week to maybe applying to two to three a week.

Laura: That makes a lot of sense.

Adam: You just have to keep pushing and keep trying new things for your job search.

Laura: Great, great, wise words. Well, thank you, thank you. Adam.

Adam: Thank you.

About The Business Analyst Blueprint®

When you join The Business Analyst Blueprint® certification program, you’ll learn all 12 of the industry-standard techniques and the business analysis process framework – to build your confidence in the best practices of business analysis.

You’ll create validated work samples and be a credentialed business analyst as a recipient of the Applied Certification in Business Analysis (ACBA).

>> Click here for more information about The Blueprint <<

In this interview, Pieter Pretorius from South Africa shares how he went from an operations role to a business analyst, by leveraging an opportunity to be a subject matter expert on a project to get familiar with the techniques of business analysis. Pieter’s story shows us how important that first step is – stepping up and getting involved in any sort of change project in your organization – and then relentlessly improving yourself and your skills.

Laura: Why did you decide to pursue a business analysis career?

Pieter: I obsessed about being part of a team that brings about change to the “world”, rather than struggling with day-to-day challenges and performing the same activities every day. I wanted to be part of the A-Team that solves the “problems”.

Laura: What was your job search process like? What challenges did you face along the way and how did you overcome them?

Pieter: In South Africa, there is a real need for quality business analysts with experience, something that I have plenty of. Searching for a business analyst job in South Africa is not that hard, but you need to ensure that you pick the “correct” company you want to work for. Remember that you want to build a business analyst career, and many companies offer business analyst positions but your day-to-day activities are everything but business analysis.

Laura: How did you end up in your first BA position? And what’s it been like so far?

Pieter: I was in operations and was assigned as a subject matter expert (SME) to a change project in my business environment. I interacted a lot with business analysts and was fascinated with how they went about bringing change to our environment (for the better). An opening was coming up in the change team for a BA and I told myself this is something I wanted and nothing will stop me from grabbing that position. The rest is history.

In all honesty, being a business analyst is fun and hard work. You constantly learn and you constantly have to change your mindset and the way you approach a project. Everything you do is unique to that situation. But you meet so many people and you really build a network.

Laura: What do you consider as the keys to your success?

Pieter:

• Being passionate about business analysis.
• Always pushing myself to be better.
• Delivering quality work, rather than quantity.
• Striving to know and understand the business/client environments.
• Asking questions when I did not know, rather than making assumptions.
• Building a network of professionals who I know I can go to, to ask questions about a specific subject.
• Building trusting relationships with stakeholders (i.e. if you say you are going to do something, do it).
• Always learning and striving to know more.

Laura: What recommendations would you make to others looking to follow a path like yours?

Pieter: Get involved in change projects in your environment.

• As an SME (subject matter expert) you can provide input to the expected change and you will be engaging with the business analyst on a regular basis. You will be in a great position to observe and learn tasks and techniques performed by the business analyst.
• Or simply as an observer where you can watch and learn the tasks and techniques performed by the business analyst.

There are also many great websites out there where you can read and learn about business analysis if you are not in the position to do one of the two points above.

>>Read More Success Stories

Tracy’s story is one of many BA career transition success stories here at Bridging the Gap. We’re honored to have had many readers tell us more about how they leveraged their professional experience to get started in business analyst job roles.

Click here to find more BA career success stories

In this interview, Tracy Smitheram shares her story of moving from a finance career to business analysis. One limiting belief that a lot of aspiring BAs get caught up in is the idea that in order to be a BA you have to break ties with your past career, or switch industries, or become an expert in many different types of domains early on. Tracy shows us that the reverse is true – you can leverage your past experience to expand your business analysis skills and experience, and even continue to leverage it to find a business analyst role in a new country.

Laura: Why did you decide to pursue a business analysis career?

Tracy: I started my professional career in finance. Initially more traditional roles but over time I was gravitating towards more challenging finance roles such as process improvement, and working closely with the technology areas of the business.

A key change occurred when a friend encouraged me to apply for a role as a functional analyst for a financial reporting tool. I absolutely loved working as a functional analyst and the role introduced me to business analysis. Suddenly I realised that there was a whole world out there that involved everything that I loved to do. I was sold and have been pursuing a career in business analysis ever since.

Laura: What was your job search process like? What challenges did you face along the way and how did you overcome them?

Tracy: I had hoped to move from my functional analyst role into a business analyst role but as the best advice suggested, my first opportunity came via the company that I was already working for.

Major changes in the company I worked for provided the opportunity to work on an ERP project and lead three streams of work. Working on an ERP project has made a huge difference. Not only was I working as a business analyst but IT Recruitment agencies were starting to contact me via LinkedIn about roles.

The biggest challenge I encountered is that I don’t fit the typical mould for a technology business analyst. In Australia and New Zealand, IT recruitment tends to be about ticking boxes – quite a different experience to finance recruitment where the recruiter gets to know the candidate, which gives you more of an opportunity to sell your point of difference.

The only way to overcome this obstacle has been to persevere and be patient and realise that I was more likely to find hybrid BA roles with employers who were looking for business analysts with a finance background.

Laura: How did you end up in your first BA position? And what’s it been like so far?

Tracy: My first unofficial BA position was through the company I was working for but to make things interesting I had decided to move from Australia back home to New Zealand. This meant I was faced with finding a BA position in a country I hadn’t worked in for 9.5 years.

As I am still transitioning from finance to business analysis and I had arrived back in a typically quiet recruitment time, I was preparing myself for a lengthy job search.

But timing was very much on my side as the first recruitment company I spoke to had the perfect role. A company was looking for a business analyst with a finance background for an immediate start short-term contract. I was successful in securing the BA position and in just over a week I will be starting my first official BA role.

Laura: What do you consider as the keys to your success?

Tracy: One factor in my success was working with a career coach, who had extensive experience as a senior BA, to both rewrite my CV and ensure that my LindedIn profile resonated with my CV. He also helped me to feel more confident and to believe in myself, that I would be a brilliant business analyst.

Reading about business analysis, whether in books or online forums and asking lots of questions of my colleagues was important. Coming from a finance background, I needed to learn business analysis terminology to be able to convey my transferable experience in a more appropriate way.

Another important factor was doing an introductory course for business analysis. I had completed the first two lessons of Bridging the Gap’s BA Essentials Master Class when I interviewed for my business analyst position. The course helped me to answer questions in my job interview about how I would approach the initial phases of BA work.

Laura: What recommendations would you make to others looking to follow a path like yours?

Tracy: Join the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). They offer a lot of resources and the local chapters are an excellent way to meet and network with other business analysts.

Utilise all the great resources online. A lot of it is free so you can increase your business analysis knowledge before you start investing in your BA career and more expensive courses.

With a finance background, I have found that I am better off working with those recruitment agencies that cover both finance and IT roles as they may have a hybrid finance/business analyst role coming through the finance or IT recruitment areas.

Be open to opportunities – you never know when they make take you closer to your dream role.

>>Read More Success Stories

Tracy’s story is one of many BA career transition success stories here at Bridging the Gap. We’re honored to have had many readers tell us more about how they leveraged their professional experience to get started in business analyst job roles.

Click here to find more BA career success stories

The litmus test comes right from the best-selling book, How to Start a Business Analyst Career – but you can listen in for free here or read through the entire test below.

A recap of the Business Analyst Litmus Test

This exercise will help you explore whether business analysis is a suitable career choice for you. You can take this test in any way you like. I suggest writing a few sentences in your notebook or in a document saved on your computer to respond to each question.

1. Do you frequently find yourself in meetings? If so, do you like them? What do you like about the meetings you do attend? If you don’t like them, why?
2. How do you deal with situations where people are clearly not communicating? Do you naturally find yourself paraphrasing others in order to help them communicate?
3. Do you like to write? Is your writing precise and clear?
4. Are you comfortable working independently at your desk or computer for between two and three hours at a time?
5. When you use a new tool or website, do you think of ways to make it better?
6. In situations of conflict, do you find that you can maintain a neutral or at least a balanced position and see both sides of the argument?
7. Are you comfortable drawing on a whiteboard? Do you get excited about seeing people align around a concept or idea?
8. Do you find yourself intuitively understanding new systems or processes and dissecting the rules that make them work? Are you driven to understand why things work the way they do?
9. Would you say that you have a thorough understanding of the organizations of which you have been a part? Do you know who is responsible for what and how things are accomplished? (Examples could include a community organization, an educational institution, a club, or a company.)
10. Do you tend to enjoy the early part of projects, when there are a lot of ideas, possibility, and uncertainty? Do you like to help drive more clarity and concreteness as you transform the realm of possibility into what actually will get done?
11. Do you like to ask questions? Do you seem to have a knack for asking the right question at the right time?
12. Do people at work confide in you? Do people at work come to you to help them think through a problem or make a decision?
13. Do you like to solve problems? Especially the really tough ones? Do you see these as occasions to strut your mental prowess and not as annoyances?
14. Do you enjoy learning? Do you pick up new skills and techniques quickly?
15. Do you like to support collaboration between the people you work with? Do you get more people involved in problems and solutions instead of fewer?

If you can answer yes to most of the above questions, business analysis may be a career in which you would find fulfillment. It is not a guarantee. This is not a scientific test. But it is based on my personal experience, what I love about the role, and my discussions with other business analysts who are happy with their career choice.

If you cannot answer yes to most of these questions, this might not be the right career choice for you. But it also may mean that you lack some of the prerequisite professional experience to really know for sure. You will benefit from reading a few more chapters of How to Start a Business Analyst Career to explore the profession in more depth.

Laura: Why did you decide to pursue a business analysis career?

Damon: My career goals included (among other things that weren’t as practical for my situation, such as being a full-time river guide, or a Major League baseball player) combining creativity with technology to help solve real-world business problems. This was a broad definition, to be sure, but always remained in the back of my mind as I completed college in accounting and began my first post-college job as a tax auditor.

While doing tax audits, I noticed that my favorite part of the job was finding ways to be more efficient by creating macros in Microsoft Excel that would improve the speed of my audits.  Audits, themselves, were unfulfilling.  I then would help fellow auditors on using the tools I created and found that I really enjoyed the gratification of teaching others tools for success as well.

After 3 years of auditing, I decided to move my career into a position where I could exercise more of the creative side and found a job doing web-based software demonstrations.  I quickly learned that I had a knack for determining the underlying business process goals, and then mapping the company’s needs to a custom solution, and also explaining the limitations of the technology and negotiating an alternative solution to successfully accommodate said limitations.

With this new found talent, I decided to look into what types of jobs would allow me to work to find business process problems and then brainstorm ways to solve them.  That led me to discover Bridging the Gap after Googling, “discovering what the business problem really is”, and after reading the Business Analyst Manifesto, a light bulb went off and I had found my calling!

Laura: How did you end up in your first BA position? And what’s it been like so far?

Damon: I sort of grew into/created the business analyst position after spending 2-plus years working with customers and implementing custom solutions for a small, but growing software company.  As an aside, while in this role, I also combined my consulting experience with furthering my education and earned an Associate’s Degree in Computer Information Systems.

Eventually, over hundreds of consultations, I had become a product and market expert which allowed me to evolve into an advocate for process and product improvement.  So, when the company decided to develop an upgraded version of their software product, I took it upon myself to conduct a gap analysis between what we had vs. what the market demanded.  By that time, along with my A.S. degree (mentioned above), I had also completed some online business analysis courses through Bridging the Gap and essentially migrated from my consulting role into a BA role (without the title).

Then, fortunately for me, the company decided to bring in a project manager to organize and move the new product development forward.  He influenced the company to create a BA position for me, and I gained the title.

After spending almost 3 years as a business analyst getting their new product from initial ideas into a full blown released product, the company was bought by a private investment firm and a lot changed, including my day-to-day work as a business analyst.  I fell into a psychological space where I didn’t know if what I was doing provided any value (as I’ve come to learn, this is a space where BAs can get to quite easily in their early years).  So I left the BA position and the company to pursue web development.

In hindsight, breaking away from BA work and into actual software coding turned out to be an invaluable experience for furthering my business analysis career, because it taught me just how important a BA is on a software project.  In my developer role, the company didn’t utilize any formal business analysis processes, and it showed.  Many of my teammates would become very frustrated by a lack of clear requirements for their projects, and often the projects would (inexplicably – wink, wink) miss the mark.

From there, I decided that I wanted to get back into business analysis with a company that understood its value, and hung out my shingle (updated my resume), which led me to where I am now: working as a mid-level business systems analyst at a healthcare company.

I’m excited to continue to grow and develop in the complex, but exciting world of business analysis.

Laura: What do you consider as the keys to your success?

Damon: Being analytical and always asking questions, but then challenging the answers with opposing questions (sometimes all the way to paralysis by analysis) has helped me with getting to the root problems.

Also, having a self-motivated drive to figure things out.  Not so much in the sense of solving a puzzle using software code (that’s definitely the key to becoming an excellent software developer), but more in line with, “Who do I need to ask to find this out, who would this affect most?” or, “What may be the real reason product A is being outsold by products B and C?”, and then not stopping your inquiry until you’ve truly found out.

Finally, I’ve found that being comfortable with a lot of ambiguity has been important.  This is the hardest part of actual BA work, I think.  Having a blue personality (referencing the color code personality ranges) which means I rarely have to be in charge of things helps with this need.  If working in ambiguity is too hard to handle, a BA career will drive you nuts.

Laura: What recommendations would you make to others looking to follow a path like yours?

Damon: Learn about business processes, either through formal education or on-the-job experience.  Pay attention to the not-so-obvious items that make a business successful. There’s an art to the science of business and learning how to spot those subtle details in any business (call it the “special sauce”) goes a long way in starting your BA mindset.

Also, another thing that’s helped me is being willing to try new things without knowing exactly how they will turn out.  Basically, getting comfortable being outside your “comfort zone”.  A lot of the time, BA work is in the “problem space” where there isn’t an answer or solution so it can be a little uncomfortable for problem solvers.  So far, my experience as a BA has been to find and then articulate the actual problems so that others can execute on solutions.

Finally, I have an introvert personality, so I read multiple books about communicating effectively, from conversation skills to writing better emails.  And this is a continuous exercise for me.  Communication skills are critical for BA work, especially when you need to ask questions and gather details that aren’t exactly comfortable for someone to share since it could cause a perceived disruption to their comfort zone or job security (Crucial Conversations by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler is highly recommended).

Laura: Thank you so much for sharing your story! And I wish you all kinds of success in your business analyst career!

>>Read More Success Stories

Reno’s story is one of many BA career transition success stories here at Bridging the Gap. We’re honored to have had many readers tell us more about how they leveraged their professional experience to get started in business analyst job roles.

Click here to find more BA career success stories

The Skills Software Developers Bring to a Business Analyst Position

Because of their technical know-how and familiarity with software development, many people-oriented software developers opt to transition into business analysis roles. When talking to software developers who are now business analysts, you’ll often hear them say something like, “I was the technical person who didn’t mind talking to people, so they put me in charge of talking to the users about what they wanted.”

The biggest transferable skills software developers bring into business analysis is that they’ve worked on a typical project and they tend to understand the possibilities of technology, which makes it easier for them to understand what technical solutions to a business need might look like.

They also tend to be highly analytical, and this helps them with the requirements process. They may even have experience creating certain types of requirements documentation, albeit often what they feel is an informal process.

That’s OK – it’s perfectly possible to present yourself of going requirements specifications even if you’ve only created informal documentation.

Opportunities for Software Developers to Expand their Business Analyst Experience

To grow into a business analyst role, software developers need to explore the following types of opportunities:

• Reach out proactively to business stakeholders and end users to understand the big picture process and how the software will solve a problem or meet an underlying business need.
• Learn to communicate in business terms and save the technical jargon for conversations with other software developers.
• Be sure to ask questions to discover what the business wants and needs the software to do, rather than make assumptions based on what it’s easiest to make the software do. Developers can tend to get caught in solution mode, and it’s important to understand the true business problem before coming up with solutions.

In general, as a software developer you need to take steps toward the business side of the project, even if you are planning to work as a BA on an IT project.

Case Study: From Software Development to Business Analyst – Landing Paid Contract Work Along the Way

Todd Fleming is from Somers Montana, which is near Kalispell, Montana, and leveraged his investment in The Business Analyst Blueprint® to land paid contract work with a past employer, and the opportunity to build up his on-the-job business analyst experience.

> Click here to read the transcript <<

Case Study: From Software Developer to Business Analyst to BTG Instructor

Learn how Disha Trivedi transitioned into a business analyst career from software development, and the career trajectory that’s led her to being an instructor with Bridging the Gap.

More Case Studies of Software Developers Becoming Business Analysts!

To further explore how the transition from software development to business analysis works, check out these career transition success stories:

From Software Developer to Business Analyst – Wendy Stookesberry created momentum in her business analyst career by volunteering to do a business analysis task and eventually earned an internal promotion into business analysis.

Building BA Experience as a Software Developer – Dave’s story shows us how a little persistence and creativity can go a long way. Dave’s organization does not have a BA practice and he has many software development responsibilities to attend to, yet he has managed to expand his experience and begin qualifying himself for more BA roles.

From Software Developer in an Informal Environment to Business Analyst – Michiel shares the ups and the downs, and his strategies for staying focused on his goals even during what was a difficult transition path.

>> Find Your Path Into Business Analysis

After reading and working through the exercises in How to Start a Business Analyst Career, you’ll know how to assess and expand your business analysis skills and experience.

This book will help you find your best path forward into a business analyst career. More than that, you will know exactly what to do next to expand your business analysis opportunities.

Click here to learn more about How to Start a Business Analyst Career

The Skills Customer Service Professionals Bring to a Business Analyst Position

Customer service professionals tend to be excellent communicators and relationship builders, and this prepares them to handle the more challenging aspects of discovering requirements and negotiating what’s in and out of scope inside a project. They also probably have a lot of experience solving problems and coming up with creative solutions.

Experienced and senior-level customer service professionals also develop a deep experience in a specific industry or tool set, which can prepare them to take on a variety of specialist roles within business analysis.

Opportunities for Customer Service Professionals to Expand Their Business Analyst Experience

To grow into a business analyst role, customer service professionals need to explore the following types of opportunities:

• Get involved in project work as a subject matter expert so they can see how projects flow, and volunteer to take on business analysis tasks.
• Look for more expansive and long-term, big-picture solutions to problems reported by customers, instead of work-arounds that meet short-term, urgent needs.
• Hone written communication skills by documenting meeting notes and practicing requirements documentation.

In general, as a customer service professional you need to look beyond the day-to-day and hour-to-hour issues and take steps towards bigger picture solutions to long-term problems.

Case Study: From Customer Service to Business Analysis

Learn how Adam got more confident in his business analysis skills, mined his career for relevant experiences (even without the job title), volunteered for more business analysis work, and, after sending out hundreds of resumes, landed the second business analyst job he interviewed for.

>Click here to learn how Adam moved from Customer Service to Business Analysis<<

Case Study: From Support Analyst to Business Analyst
in 4 Weeks at the British Red Cross

“During The Business Analyst Blueprint®, I held a workshop with people in the organization so that we could collaboratively document the business process, and then improve it. As a result of this words spread in the different teams. Not even the teams that I, necessarily, worked in, but the teams that are containing the people who I helped the workshop with. People were saying, “Oh, this is really good. It’s really good.”

And what happened was that I contacted the program manager for the project off the bunch of project lists that were related, and he introduced me to another, to a project manager who was thrilled when she heard that I wanted to do business analysis. She was looking for someone to help her. As a result, my manager approved that part of my role would be business analysis going forward. So, it wouldn’t just be support analysis, which was great because that’s what I wanted.”

– Roshni Dominic

>> Click here to listen to Roshni’s case study <<

More Case Studies of Support Professionals Moving Into Business Analysis!

To further explore how the transition from customer service to business analysis works, check out these career transition success stories:

• From Desktop Support Technician to Business Analyst: A Journey-In-Progress – Rob shares how he started thinking and acting forward towards his business analysis career goals while working in desktop support.
• From Sales Support to Quality Assurance to Business Analysis – Martin shares how pursuing a transitional role can help you move into a business analyst career.

>>How to Learn the Foundational Business Analyst Skills

When you join The Business Analyst Blueprint® certification program, you’ll gain real world experience in the industry-standard techniques and business analysis processes.

>> Click here for more information about The Blueprint <<

The Skills Project Managers Bring to a Business Analyst Position

Project managers tend to be strong communicators and have a lot of experience building stakeholder relationships with everyone from senior-level project sponsors to direct end users. Project managers also often have experience scoping projects and doing some analysis.

Oftentimes a project manager will find they’ve been filling both the project management and business analyst roles, and so their transition is one of formalizing their business analyst skill set and experience, and learning to focus more on the business analysis aspect of their role.

Opportunities for Project Managers to Expand Their Business Analyst Experience

To grow into a business analyst role, project managers need to explore the following types of opportunities:

• Invest more time on the business problem to be solved and business value to be realized by the project, instead of moving swiftly into planning, budgeting, and implementation.
• Helping stakeholders discover, analyze, and prioritize new requirements by getting into more of the details of what the business process and software solution requirements will be.
• Practice creating detailed requirements documentation, which you might currently be delegating to the subject matter experts or technical leads on your project team.

In general, as a project management professional you need to learn to focus more energy on the problem and solution, and less energy on planning out how the solution will be created and delivered.

From Project Manager to Business Analyst: Landing Paid Contract Work and Building a Work Portfolio During COVID-19 with No Technical Background

Becky Goll left her project management role late in 2019. In 2020, she tackled the challenge of a pandemic and leveraged her participation in The Business Analyst Blueprint to land paid contract work during shelter-in-place orders, even while she was recently unemployed. She left the program with a work portfolio she can show to future employers

>> Click here to read the transcript <<

>>How to Learn the Foundational Business Analyst Skills

When you join The Business Analyst Blueprint® training program, you’ll gain real world experience in the industry-standard techniques and business analysis processes.

>> Click here for more information about The Blueprint <<

The Skills Software Testers Bring to a Business Analyst Position

Because of their experience reviewing requirements documentation, many software testers know exactly what it takes to make a good specification. In fact, software testers are often the ones to catch ambiguity in the requirements that help a business analyst add even more clarity.

Software testers also have been exposed to projects and have experience writing in a clear way through defect reports. Testing and coming up with a test plan requires clear critical thinking too. And don’t overlook the fact that your test planning process can be an exercise in business process development.

The Opportunities for Software Testers to Expand Their Business Analyst Experience

To grow into a business analyst role, software testers need to explore the following types of opportunities:

• Interact more directly with business stakeholders, for example, by sitting in on requirements meetings or facilitating user acceptance testing. Learn how to elicit information and move from ambiguity to clarity.
• Tackle solutions to significant defects, which gives you an opportunity to get ahead of the process and essentially be the business analyst on a project inside a project.
• Go beyond facilitating meetings like test plan reviews and defect triage meetings, to facilitating meetings to solve critical project problems.

In general, as a software testing professional you need to find ways to get involved earlier in the project lifecycle so you are ahead of the business analysis process and doing more of the upfront work to discover problems, facilitate discussions, and define requirements.

Case Study: From Quality Assurance Engineer to ServiceNow Business Analyst

For Manuel Ninapaitan, it all started with updating his title in his email signature – which he had the confidence to do while in The Business Analyst Blueprint® program. Soon his manager asked him to take on a BA-like project. And a year later he was in his first official business analyst job role.

> Click here to read the transcript <<

More Case Studies: From Software Testing to Business Analysis

To further explore how the transition from software testing to business analysis works, check out these career transition success stories:

• From Quality Assurance to Business Analyst – Learn how Bridging the Gap founder Laura Brandenburg approached her QA role with a BA hat, which serendipitously led to a BA role.
• From Sales Support to Quality Assurance to Business Analysis – Martin shares how pursuing a quality assurance transitional role can help you move into a business analyst career.

>>How to Learn the Foundational Business Analyst Skills

When you join The Business Analyst Blueprint® certification program, you’ll gain real world experience in the industry-standard techniques and business analysis processes.

>> Click here for more information about The Blueprint <<

(By the way, if you are interested in learning about your best path forward into a business analyst career, check out our FREE Quick Start to Success workshop.)

The Skills Technical Writers Bring to a Business Analyst Position

Because of their strong written communication skills, it’s common to see technical writers transition into business analysis roles. Technical writers tend to be very comfortable with the requirements documentation and visual modeling aspects of the business analyst role.

They tend to be analytical, and rely on their critical thinking and analysis skills to discover the information they need to incorporate into their documentation. Some of the documentation they create may even be very similar to the types of requirements specifications a business analyst creates.

Opportunities for Technical Writers to Expand their Business Analyst Experience

To grow into a business analyst role, technical writers need to explore the following types of opportunities:

• Build more collaboration into their process, for example, by facilitating working meetings to review your technical specifications or receive direct feedback from end users about your specifications.
• Start defining needs and requirements for the technical specifications you do, essentially treating your writing work as a project inside a project where you are the business analyst.
• Champion a project, such as a new way to provide help documentation or solve another problem you’ve gained visibility into through your technical writing work.

In general, as a technical writer, you need to start transferring ownership of your work from you to a team, as that’s where the juicy BA type of work happens.

Case Study: From Technical Writer to Lead Business Analyst and a $20K Salary Increase

Amelia McHenry went from reaching the ceiling of her Technical Writer role to a Lead Business Analyst Role making $90K/year in Brentwood, Tennessee. This move represented a $20K salary bump in less than a year. You can learn about her path into business analyst by watching her case study interview below.

Click here to read the transcript <<

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Also, I find it inspiring that his job offer came as a direct result of him taking a big chance and stepping into the spotlight. We never know exactly when or how our yes will come. What we can do is put ourselves out there, do our best, and follow up.

If you’d like to connect with Woo, find him here on LinkedIn.

Without further ado, let’s here from Woo!

Laura: Can you tell us about yourself?

Woo: I’m a year into my first official BA role. Prior to this, I spent two years working on stretch assignments to build my knowledge and to develop a portfolio of work. During these two years, I also spent several evenings reading after work, going to numerous trainings on weekends, and running an independent study group. It all paid off. Today, I’m part of a pioneering Agile team at Lockheed Martin, where I’m extremely blessed to be working with some incredibly talented people.

Laura: Why did you decide to pursue a business analysis career?

Woo: We are uniquely positioned to touch so many parts of an organization. While our jobs may be to understand the goals, discover the rules, and engage the players, what I find most interesting is that each project is different, each stakeholder unique, and each solution its own adventure. For someone who gets bored of routine and likes new challenges, it is the ideal role.

Laura: What was your job search process like?  What challenges did you face along the way and how did you overcome them?

Woo: My biggest challenge was my professional background. I do not have the background of most BAs, who come from tech roles, consulting, or expertise in a domain. Ironically, I do not even have a tech or business degree.

In fact, I believe that my liberal arts backgrounds and non-traditional path has actually helped me as an Analyst. My first career was in film production, which meant working on short term projects with new people each time, towards a common goal. It required planning together and being on the same page when it came to the process. Later in life, while working in human services, I learned how to read people, elicit information, write proposals, and to recommend actions. Sound familiar?

When it comes to careering, I’m a big believer in building on who we already are. My strengths are leading teams towards decisions, building road maps, and devising creative ways to solve problems. I did not know how to leverage these skills into a sustainable path, until three years ago. While exploring Project Management, I also came across business analysis and had that “aha” moment that many of us BAs do upon discovering the trade. It was like discovering fire.

At that point, I faced a major challenge — my company did not have BA roles and most did not even know what a BA was. I knew that I had to step out of the box and reinvent myself.

To gain some initial experience, I joined an organization called the BDPA, which sponsored “Learn By Doing” projects aimed at college students and aspiring technology professionals. These projects provided an opportunity to play the BA role on actual web applications. After six months of eliciting and grappling with requirements, building my first artifacts, and getting strong feedback, I was hooked! To this day, I am extremely thankful to Jacqueline Sanders and David Blackman, my mentors at the time, who opened my eyes to a whole new world.

The following year, I took it a step further by creating “stretch” projects in my workplace. The key was to create win-win projects that helped my supervisor with creating new services and improving processes, while allowing me to hone my project leadership and business analysis skills. The team was extremely supportive, and I can still hear them saying, “Oh boy, here comes another diagram…”

During this time, I also began reading books and attending online trainings on everything BA-related. One of the first books I read was How to Start a Business Analyst Career (surprise!) which helped me to see that there were many types of BAs as well as several paths towards becoming one. I also read Barbara Carkenord’s Seven Steps to Mastering Business Analysis, and believe it or not, the BABOK Guide, from cover to cover. The last one was a bit of an exercise in masochism, but hey, I was motivated!

Aside from the projects and the reading, the most critical thing I did was to become active in the local BA community. After joining the IIBA chapter in Atlanta, I actively volunteered at their events, took part in every training, and applied for their first BA Mentorship Program. I was extremely fortunate to be paired with my next mentor, Yelena Rubinchik, who provided priceless feedback about the projects at my workplace.

Towards the end of that year, I started to go on my first BA job interviews through contacts made at the IIBA. For the most part, the interviews went well, but there was one that I bombed quite badly. To this day, it is the hardest interview I’ve ever been on, but one that I am grateful for. I learned through the failure, and it helped me to step up my game for the ones that followed.

There came a brief moment when I openly began to wonder when the first opportunity would arrive. I had experienced a few near misses after getting to the final rounds of interviews. What kept me going was the amount of time I had invested, and all the wonderful people who believed in me and had invested their time in me as well. Mentally, I kept reminding myself that it was a matter of “when” and not “if” I would get my first opportunity. A year ago, the sun finally broke through.

Laura: How did you end up in your first BA position? And what’s it been like so far?

Woo: I am extremely blessed to have met several wonderful mentors in my young career. One of them is Wanda Spain (the current President of the Greater Atlanta Chapter of the IIBA), who has developed some outstanding professional development programs for the local BA community — the Atlanta Chapter recently won the Professional Development Award in 2014 from the National IIBA. I owe Wanda for my first role. Here’s why:

During the time I first started to go on interviews, the local IIBA was sponsoring an event called “Business Analysis with the Stars.” It was based on the TV show “Dancing with the Stars.” Three BAs were paired with three locally respected BA leaders, and we were given 30 minutes to devise a BA approach towards a given scenario. Judging us would be three “celebrity” BAs which included a couple of authors in our field.

Wanda, being the awesome mentor she is, challenged me. She nudged me into being one of the three contestants. This meant getting my work dissected in front of over a hundred people live, and it was being podcasted live as well!

Truthfully speaking, I was terrified. On the other hand, I knew that I had nothing to lose.

Long story short, I did extremely well, and almost even won. A few months later, at a chapter meeting, a tall, bespectacled gentleman whom I’d never seen before, stood up and announced an opening on his Scrum team. When I approached him about the role, he remembered my performance from “Business Analysis with the Stars.” His name was Russell Miller, and today, he is my project leader. The moral of the story: nothing risked, nothing gained.

My first year as a BA has been both challenging and rewarding. The challenge comes in having to learn several domains, including aviation guidelines, engineering principles, software development, not to mention the application of agile principles. The reward is that I am constantly learning something new, while contributing towards the development of new products.

I had a really good rookie year, but now, more is being placed on my shoulders. I’m expected to initiate and anticipate more, and spend less time thinking and reacting. I had to unlearn waterfall habits in my first year on a Scrum team, but at the same time, I’m applying traditional BA techniques to situations that the “Scrum Guide” does not account for, such as in project initiation and more frequently, during customer engagements and facilitating team activities. At the end of the day, it is still up to us BAs to create a shared, common understanding, no matter what type of framework is being employed.

Laura: What do you consider as the keys to your success?

Woo: I’m still learning how to be a “success” in this field, but some personal principles I try to stick by:

• Continue to learn. This means spending at least one night a week (if in the field) or at least two (if attempting to get in), to learn new skills or to brush up on existing ones. There is so much to learn.
• Be You. Early in our careers, we try to emulate the success and techniques of other BAs. Just as no two projects are the same, neither are two BAs. Be open to learning new techniques, but also lean on what you are good at. The truth is, you don’t know everything, so in the meantime, trust what you already know.
• Be Able to Answer This: “My Value Is…” We BAs are more than order-takers. Be able to explain what you personally bring to the equation.

Laura: What recommendations would you make to others looking to follow a path like yours?

Woo: For anyone who wants to be a BA, please remember this:  Those performing this role were no better or smarter than you when they first started out. They simply created an opportunity for themselves.

In terms of going after this career, be deliberate about what you want. This means going that extra mile to differentiate yourself. Rather than simply taking a course, create a project. Rather than just reading a blog, seek out a successful BA and meet them for lunch to learn from them.  Host CBAP study groups, get involved, volunteer your time towards projects (non-profits need you!).  Our actions speak louder than words, and if your actions are loud enough, people will give you opportunities.

Last, and definitely not least, be thankful! Whatever good fortune we have in life does not come through our own hands. It comes because someone believed in us, someone fought for us, someone took a chance on us. So many people touch us along the way. Without their encouragement, their mentorship, and the opportunities they provide, who knows where we would be?

At my first IIBA meeting, I met Barbara Carkenord, the author of Seven Steps to Mastering Business Analysis. I didn’t know who she was at the time or how revered the book was. I just remembered meeting a gentle spirit who was extremely smart and kind, and encouraging me to pursue this career. The next day, I went ahead and bought her book.

Reading that book changed my life, because for the first time since embarking on my journey, I saw that there was an actual science behind many of the traits that I was good at, and that this science had spawned into a burgeoning profession that impacted products, systems, and human experiences in so many countless ways. I wanted to be part of this movement, and I haven’t looked back since.

Laura: A heartfelt thank you, Woo, for sharing your story, the ups and the downs. I know many readers will benefit from your honest and detailed journey. I can’t wait to see where you go inside and beyond business analysis!

And although she didn’t mention it directly in her interview, I want you to know that this approach landed her two job offers within a month or two of starting her job search. The transferable skills process does take a little time, but it can also pay enormous dividends.

Laura: Why did you decide to pursue a business analysis career?

Sarika: My interest in business analysis began with the first project I did during my undergraduate studies. My focus for the project was on writing best software programs without understanding business rules and validations. It proved to be a nightmare on the day of the demo to the department head, who was also the project sponsor. This project initiated me on business analysis path.

As I progressed in my career, I began enjoying understanding the big picture for executing a project in terms of its business ROI. Specifically, I found my calling in gathering requirements, analysing process improvements, and training team members to understand the business significance of a project.

Laura: What was your job search process like? What challenges did you face along the way and how did you overcome them?

Sarika: I had taken a career break of almost two years to look after my child. Once I decided to resume work, I researched the commonly asked BA questions and found myself stumped on a few questions like, “How many years of BA experience do you have?” and, “Which areas of business analysis have you performed so far?”

So I started surfing again on how to transition to BA role from IT. Bingo! I found your site and thereby answers to my predicament.

I updated my resume taking cues from BA Job Search Pack and uploaded it on popular Job Search sites. Also, I reached out to ex-employers and close friends to refer my resume. It was almost 10 days before I got any responses. This was affecting my morale gradually. But thanks to my close friends’ referrals in their network, I received two interview calls in 2-3 days.

I prepared for the interviews by being thorough in the business analysis knowledge areas projected in my resume. The tip of  relating experiences to questions posed by the interviewer really worked for me. I was able to relate my transferable business analysis experiences in IT Application Development & Maintenance during the interviews, which helped me to be confident during the entire process.

Laura: How did you end up in your first BA position? 

Sarika: I faced 3-4 rounds of interview for each job application. The first two rounds of interviews focused on understanding my technical know-how in terms of processes and artifacts. Also, I was presented with a business scenario and asked to perform requirements elicitation by listing functional and non-functional requirements.

Laura: What do you consider as the keys to your success?

Sarika: I am aware of my  strengths in business analysis knowledge areas. So when I studied the job description for the openings, I was able to map these strengths to the requirements of the recruiter.

For example, I have experience in writing user stories in agile methodology, which was one of the requirement in a job description. With this mapping in my mind, I was able to lead interview questions around my strong skill areas.

Laura: What recommendations would you make to others looking to follow a path like yours?

Sarika: My recommendation is to be one hundred percent aware of the business analyst skills under your belt even though you may not have held the job title. This gives confidence to handle job interviews and also determine the nature of the business analyst journey you would like to embark on.

Congratulations, Sarika! And thank you so much for sharing your story!

With out further ado, let’s hear from Martin, who has graciously shared in-depth detail about how his business analysis career came to be.

Laura: You have experience in quality assurance, project management, and business analysis. Can you tell us a little bit about the roles you’ve held previously and how one led to another?

Martin: Well, this is going to be a long story. I am working in a company which delivers innovative enterprise solutions that enable businesses creating value and driving growth, the name is Tricada Intronik.  My first job title in July 2009 was Sales Support Engineer. It was a role that was responsible for preparing and communicating technical aspects in the selling process. It lasted for 2 years. I spent my time learning the company’s products in the technical aspect: What it is, how it works, what users can do with it, how to do it, etc.

In that period, I was directly trained by my CEO about the basics of requirements modelling. This training gave me the knowledge about UML notations in requirements modelling, what perspectives carried within each diagram, how to use it, when to use it, and also real experience to use this knowledge. I was frequently assigned to attend meetings with stakeholders and document the requirements through the model.

For the record, I have not graduated with an Informatics-based major. I hold a Bachelor of Science in Physics. That’s why I need to learn exactly everything from the beginning.

My CEO assigned me to do software testing tasks: design test method, define test case, execute it, automate it and document the result. He thought that, since I am the one who knows the requirements, I should be the one to test whether the software will meet the requirement or not.  Since then, I joined Quality Assurance, and at the same time, was still responsible for the requirements modelling task.

My company initiated a new software product, the Restaurant Online Ordering System. I was assigned two roles: Business Analyst and Software Tester. For 3 years and 9 months, I was responsible for eliciting requirements, crafting requirements documentation, communicating requirements, resolving disputes, designing test processes, testing implemented software, and documenting the testing results.

My project manager also delegated some of the project management tasks to me. Thanks to that, I was able to talk more with my fellow team members. I found it hard to understand the problem they experienced without having knowledge about the software implementation. So, I took extra time to learn about software implementation (Java, PHP, and SQL) and software deployment.

Because of that my CEO assigned me the responsibilities to prepare testing environments and production environments of the software. My tasks are growing larger in number. I requested additional resources for software testing and then began leading my own testing team.

One day, my CEO came and asked me what I wanted in my career. I answered that I want to be a project manager. I want to lead my own team in delivering a product, software or service. Two years later my CEO gave me a chance to lead a project. The job title changed into Project Manager and I successfully delivered the project.

Recently, my CEO promoted my colleague into VP of Product & Development. He restructured the Product & Development Department and created smaller departments which focused in specific knowledge areas. One of which was the Requirement and Feedback department. I was chosen to be head of the department.

I now have two job titles at the same time: Project Manager and Head of Requirement and Feedback Dept.

Laura: Why did you decide to pursue a business analysis career specifically?

Martin: During these 5 years and 9 months as a software modeler and software tester, I was modelling software requirements and testing them. Those tasks grew my interest in Business Analysis. The passion came from reading articles how business analysis impacts quality of software.

If the role of the business analyst was poorly defined from the beginning, I would never have done this work.

My company has a lot of programmers and software designers but lacks a business analyst expert. This leads to changing requirements and disputes over the requirements. The fact that I can contribute to the most pressing issues within my company thrilled me. I started to take a deeper look at business analysis. During this period, I searched references and books about business analysis.

Two of the books I read often are BABOK® Guide and Mastering the Requirement Process (Suzanne Robertson and James Robertson). In early 2014, when I Googled about what business analysis is all about, I found articles from Bridging the Gap.

Since then, Bridging the Gap became one of the main resources for me to consult about Business Analysis. All of the articles I found answered my questions about what business analysis is all about, what we need to be a good business analyst, what points business analysts struggle with, etc. Plus, I love how you write in an easy and fun way.

My competence as a BA is growing a lot thanks to the Essential Elicitation Skills and Crafting Better Requirements trainings. The opportunity to have an online training added with live sessions fit in perfectly with my circumstances.

Laura: Now you are moving into a new role to lead a new department called Requirements and Feedback. Can you tell us a little bit about what this role entails?

Martin: The department itself is concerned with the elicitation, analysis, specification, and validation of software requirements as well as the management of requirements and customer feedback during the whole life cycle of the products.

My role is to make sure all business analysts in the department perform well. That entails development of member competence, defining standard deliverables, allocation of business analysis resources for each project, and managing the load of each business analyst.

Laura: How did you create this opportunity?

Martin: I have not asked my VP why he chose me, but I believe there are several reasons:

• I communicated clearly, honestly and in respectful way with the company, about what I want in my career and what I expect from the company regarding my career. I also asked for my company’s approval and support. In this way, my company was aware of my expectations and I was assured that the company would benefit from it.
• I am constantly learning better ways to do business analysis related tasks through open-minded discussions, articles, training (as participant or as provider) and books.
• I made myself available for any possible business analysis – as well as tasks that relate to business analysis.
• I frequently shared what I learned about business with my VP long before he was promoted. Upon those interactions, I believe a trust grew between us and be became more aware of my capabilities.
• I sought feedback on my deliverables from my stakeholders to discover any gaps and then make improvements. For example, since my VP was a software architect and team leader of the software team, I frequently asked him for feedback on my deliverables based on a software programmer’s perspective.

Laura: What do you consider as keys to your career success?

Martin: Several keys are:

• Work not only for ourselves, but for others. It may not apply to others but it definitely applies to me. There was a time that the office became so horrible. If I didn’t have anyone who depends on me economically, I’d would have resigned a long time ago. Of course, I have personal goals which I can obtain if I have a good career, but for me, personal goals are not enough to drive me forward.
• Passion, or to be accurate, let yourself be passionate about what your work is. At first, I took this job because I needed the money. I don’t want to do a job for the sake of the job, I want to do a job which is meaningful.  Rather than take the risky move by quitting my job and finding a new one that I may have passion for, I learned to be passionate with the one in front of my eyes. By learning the benefit of my work and how meaningful it is for stakeholders, I was able to become proud of my work. This insight drives me to deliver “perfection” in every deliverable possible.
• If I didn’t make myself available for the extra miles, I believe I would not have the opportunities that I have today. Doing something beyond my job description helped me understand how my deliverables can be beneficial to others. Therefore, I can discover gaps and make improvements. There is always something to learn when we take on a new job.
• Work hard, work smart. Nothing can replace hard work. To excel at something, we must spend time, patience and resources on it. That’s what I do. But, to be efficient and gain more with less effort, we have to be smart. Don’t make the mistakes of others, but learn from them. If you should make a mistake, make sure it is new mistake which leads to something new to be learned and can be shared with others.
• For others this may be irrelevant. But to me, it is. I am a Christian and as Christian we are obliged to do everything whole-heartedly, as for the Lord and not for men. Somehow work colleagues can get on my nerves and people who depend on me are disappointed. This is the reason why I keep going to do everything my best in the worst possible situation: My faith to Jesus Christ and all his teachings and promises.

Laura: What recommendations would you make to others looking to follow a path like yours?

Martin: It is quite simple. If you want to follow someone, walk the path that he or she has walked. Do what he or she did. Invest in what he or she invested in. Live with the values he or she lived with. That works every time. I’ve written everything I’ve done to get to this point. Just do what I did.

Laura: Thanks so much for sharing your story Martin and congratulations on your new role in management. I wish you all kinds of success growing and leading a business analyst team!

>>Read More Success Stories

GR’s story is one of many BA career transition success stories here at Bridging the Gap. We’re honored to have had many readers tell us more about how they leveraged their professional experience to get started in business analyst job roles.

Click here to find more BA career success stories

I recently started a new role as a Business Analyst at a financial institution. The first thirty days was full of questions and uncertainties. I was briefed with an introduction to the overall company organization, functions and projects. My manager gave me a handful of printouts and intranet sites to work on. They were really insightful as a sneak peak to how projects were managed, as well as what incidents and requests were normally handled.

One of my biggest challenges was learning the business domain. Like every other company, every stakeholder I spoke to used specific industry jargon and abbreviations. For example, we call the consultants who have deep industry knowledge “SME” (Subject Matter experts). In my previous company, they were “vendor”, “consultants”, “engineers”, or simply “IT”.

A note that I learned from my management courses was to adapt to your audience to get your message across. With this in mind, I basically spent most of my first week learning all internal processes, finding out best practice, and knowing who the key players are. I tried to memorize as many standard processes as possible.

My first project was one of many complex system integration projects running in the company. It was to establish standards and draw a line between IT operational and business applications tasks.  Business users would typically contact any IT personnel directly.  In order to segregate duties, I created new work flows on how an issue is classified, raised and resolved.

One of my challenges was to use a new analysis tool for data extraction and analysis of issues.  I had never used the third party tool before so I decided to research it online. After studying several tutorials, I created a few reports based on the system data and modeled the reports to my managers. I was able to leverage the large quantities of data as raw material to make better decisions.

Thirty days into the role, I got used to the processes, businesses, and culture. I realized that I was constantly asked to articulate, present or compile the same report in different flavors. This is because some stakeholders needed more visibility of raw data while others just needed a plain summary.  Some of the reports were direct but others required a complete breakdown of each data.  However, they shared a common goal – to understand the situation.

In order to be prepared for more questions, I invested more time in digging deeper into the processes. IT and business now understand the segregation of tasks. Issues follow the correct channel to be classified, filtered and escalated. This deliverable is a stepping stone to my consequent projects. My final deliverable is that all services/processes will follow the company standards.

Before I knew it, 60 days passed and my assignment was completed successfully. Although I spent a lot of time and energy on other aspects of work such as communication and report generation, mental preparation is the most important of all when you start a new job. Don’t give into periods of self-doubt. Remember all the hard work you have put in. It will keep you going.

Thanks Emily for sharing your story. We wish you all the best continued success in your new role!

>>Read More Career Transition Stories

Want even more inspiration? We’ve documented dozens of business analysis career transition stories here on Brigding the Gap.

Click here to browse our complete repository of stories

In this article, we’ll look at what you should be thinking about accomplishing during your first 60 days on a new business analyst job. (This article is part 4 of a 4-part series about starting a new business analyst job.)

Make a Solid Contribution

When starting a new business analyst job, you want to ensure you are perceived as a dedicated professional who is helping the organization. While you will rarely control what project you are assigned to or even the tasks you are asked to do, you can control your attitude and commitment. Whether it’s supporting another business analyst on the team, chipping in on a project, or getting your own project off to a good start, you want to focus on making a contribution. When you care and give it your all, people will notice your work and begin to trust you as a valued contributor.

In your initial days with a new organization, it’s not uncommon to pick up a project in the middle of the business analysis process. It can be tempting to rework the requirements documentation and reconfirm all of the decisions. If it’s clear that stakeholders don’t agree on the requirements and that the requirements themselves are unclear, this approach can be the best choice. However, take care not to make it your default option. Redoing work that’s already perceived to have been done is not necessarily the best way to make a solid contribution.

It’s also not uncommon to be assigned to a project that’s already in the implementation phase. In this case, you’ll be clarifying requirements, learning about the systems and processes, and perhaps assisting with the test effort.

Get Feedback on Your Work

Along with making a contribution, you need to know whether that contribution is the right one and what you can do to be even more effective in this particular organization. And that’s why it’s so important to get feedback on your work.

• From business stakeholders, ask for feedback regarding whether they feel their needs are being heard, what they think of the meetings you facilitate, and if there’s anything you could do to make the requirements documentation easier for them to comprehend.
• From technology stakeholders, ask if you are getting them involved at the right times, bringing up the most relevant issues, and if the requirements documentation helps them take the next step in the implementation process.
• From your manager, ask if you are fulfilling their expectations, if they are receiving positive feedback from the team, and if there’s anything you could do to help even more.

These conversations aren’t necessarily scheduled out in advance. Getting feedback is often a process of interpreting indirect feedback and asking direct questions at appropriate times. By asking questions, you open the door to receiving even more feedback, which will enable you to make an even more valuable contribution over time.

Beware that sometimes the feedback you receive involves a misperception of your role as a business analyst. For example, a business stakeholder might want you to provide more in the way of scheduling information, but you see that as the project manager’s role. After double-confirming with your manager that this is not a task you should be responsible for, clarify expectations with your business stakeholder about your role and see if you can help them receive the information they need from the PM.

Educating others on the business analyst role is a big part of helping the value of business analysis be well-understood within an organization.

Plan Your First Year

Once you have established credibility with your team and your manager, it’s a good time to start looking longer-term as to how this job opportunity fits into your long-term business analyst career.

Consider the following questions:

• What skills would you like to work on?
• What types of projects or stakeholders would you like to be exposed to?
• How do you want your role to mature and expand?
• What types of improvements would you be interested in taking ownership of?
• How can you make an even bigger impact to your organization?

These questions will lead you to a list of performance goals that you can discuss with your manager. Get them down on paper and create a schedule to check your progress frequently throughout the year.

What’s Next?

By making a solid contribution, incorporating feedback, and planning your first year, you’ll be well set to ensuring this job moves your business analysis career forward in a meaningful way. From here, you’ll be ready to begin building your business analyst career path.

Click here to learn more about building your business analyst career path

>> Learn the Business Analysis Process

An essential element of succeeding in a new business analyst job role is understanding the business analysis process. We walk you through an 8-step business analysis process in the 4-week self-study session of the BA Essentials Master Class. You’ll learn a step-by-step business process that you can customize for your organization and project situations, how to create a timeline for a new business analyst assignment, and be prepared to handle the more common issues BAs face on new projects.

Click here to learn more about the BA Essentials Master Class

In this article, we’ll look at how to make the most of your first week. (This article is part 3 of a 4-part series about starting a new business analyst job.)

Learn Communication Logistics

Business analysts are communicators, and as communicators we rely on a host of technologies and services to help us keep in touch with stakeholders. By the end of the first week, you’ll want to be able to handle the technical side of any necessary communications. Here’s a checklist to start from (of course, the specifics will be different by organization):

• Send and receive email – Customize your email signature (be sure to implement any organizational standards), learn about any groups or lists that you might email to or should be on, and know how to email new people in your organization, preferably using a directory.
• Send and receive phone calls/voicemail – Set up your outgoing voicemail message, know when you have new voicemails and how to obtain them, and know how to call someone using the company directory.
• Schedule meetings – Understand all logistics related to scheduling meetings including booking conference rooms, scheduling conference calls, and using web sharing software for virtual meetings.
• Informal Communication – Understand what other communication methods your team uses, such as instant message or Skype, and set up any appropriate accounts.
• Intranet – Understand how information is shared publicly throughout the organization and review the information that’s available.

Get Up To Speed On Your Organization/Project

By the end of your first week, ideally you’ll have enough understanding of the organization’s or project’s background that you could make a meaningful contribution to the project. (Sometimes managers decide not to assign new business analysts to a task right away, in which case you may not have an actual activity to do to make a contribution, but you should feel you could jump in when the opportunity presents itself.)

Minimally, you’ll have completed the following:

• Reviewed any background information provided to you and annotated it with questions.
• Reviewed sample requirements documentation and/or templates (if they exist) or have ready-at-hand templates to suggest to your team if they do not exist.
• Received access to any technology systems and software you’ll need to analyze or use in your initial role. (In certain organizations, getting access can take some follow-up, so be sure to be proactive about what you need.)

Ideally, you’ll also have completed the following:

• Met with one or more subject matter experts to ask follow-up questions (here’s a checklist of questions to ask about a new business domain) or receive demos of key processes or software.
• Met with your manager or a fellow business analyst to get a deeper view into the business analysis process. This step might also include a deeper review of any technology tools used by the BA team.
• Explored any systems your business stakeholders use to understand generally how they work and so you are able to confirm requirements or derive relevant questions about the current state of the software.

Suggest a Next Step or Make a Contribution

While some managers want new business analysts to have more than enough time to get their bearings, it’s important to be proactive and begin making a contribution, even if it’s small. This shows you are engaged and moving.

If you’ve been assigned one or more tasks, then working through those tasks and getting the information you need to be successful in those tasks should be your top priority.

If you haven’t been assigned a task yet, here are some ideas:

• Put together a short business analysis plan showing how you expect to contribute to the team.
• Plan a meeting to discuss business objectives or whatever you deem to be the next step in the business analysis process for your project.
• Compile the results of what you’ve learned so far along with a series of next steps to discuss with your manager or project manager.

As you make suggestions and contributions, seek out and be open to feedback. While you bring expertise in business analysis, expectations vary among organizations. Ask for advice and review your plans with your manager, project manager, and key stakeholders.

What’s Next?

As you can see, your first week is going to be a busy time but it’s also going to lay the foundation for a successful employment situation as a business analyst. Once you get through your first week, it’s time to start planning your first month or two. We cover that topic in the next article in this series.

Click here to read more about what to do in your first 60 days

>> Learn the Business Analysis Process

An essential element of succeeding in a new business analyst job role is understanding the business analysis process. We walk you through an 8-step business analysis process in the BA Essentials Master Class. You’ll learn a step-by-step business process that you can customize for your organization and project situations, how to create a timeline for a new business analyst assignment, and be prepared to handle the more common issues BAs face on new projects.

Click here to learn more about the BA Essentials Master Class

First of all, let me congratulate you on this new opportunity.

Now, let’s turn our attention to how to prepare for your first day. (This article is part 2 of a 4-part series about starting a new business analyst job.)

Show Up On Time

While you already have the job, you are still confirming your first impression. Showing up on time is one of the most important ways to continue to create credibility with your new employer. Plan your commute and even consider taking a trial run during your commute time if you are uncertain about the traffic or public transportation logistics. Be sure you’ve got parking logistics figured out. Leave a little extra time to handle the unexpected.

When you get to the office, expect someone to meet you and help you get a sense of space within the office. (This is something we cover in Part 1: What to Expect on Your First Day).

Dress Professionally

On your first day, you’ll probably be meeting a lot of people. And, again, you are still continuing to make a first impression. If the office is casual, you don’t need to wear your interview suit, but one or two steps up from your nicest pair of jeans wouldn’t hurt.

My motto is that it’s always preferable to be over-dressed rather than under-dressed. As a business analyst, you may be introduced to senior level stakeholders, perhaps even the CEO, and you may not have seen normal workday attire from a broad range of stakeholders during your interview. You can always scale back to more casual clothing after you’ve established a broad sense of what appropriate attire is like in this organization.

(And another note on attire: Take your cues from your business stakeholders, not your technology stakeholders. Developers can get away with more casual attire as they tend to have less stakeholder interaction. I often look to the mid-level manager stakeholders from the business for cues as to what’s appropriate. If your short-term professional goals aim even higher, consider modeling even higher level stakeholders.)

Bring the Essentials

You’re a business analyst and you probably like to be prepared. You may not have a lot of specifics about how your first day will go, so bring a briefcase or backpack with some essentials to cover multiple scenarios.

• Bring your lunch but be ready to leave it in the fridge if you get invited out. (This means a lunch that will still taste good on day 2 or 3 is preferable, as is something that doesn’t have a big aroma or require heating up.)
• Bring a water bottle and/or coffee mug, pre-filled so you are not dependent on office supplies to get your hydration or caffeine needs met.
• Bring pens and a notebook just in case you don’t immediately receive office supplies and want to take down any notes.
• And, finally, discretely bring professional reading just in case your first day or two includes a lot of downtime. Preferably this will be reading specific to any new skills you expect to need in this job, which we’ll get to next. Bring this out only after you’ve exhausted all other possible tasks.

Learn a Bit More About the Organization and Skills

While most of your learning is going to occur on the job, it doesn’t hurt to invest in filling any knowledge or skill gaps ahead of your first day.

Minimally, invest some additional time learning what you can about the organization. After your job interview, the information you find online and through the company’s website should make more sense and you’ll absorb more of it.

If there are any skills required or discussed during the interview that are unfamiliar to you, look them up online and get a broad overview of the skill. If you know you’ll be required to use the skill within the first week or two, consider investing in a book about it and beginning to read up. Another strategy is to reach out to your professional network for background information and skill development resources.

Rest Up

Once you are prepared, the most important thing you can do on your first day is to bring your A-game. You want to be ready to be your best you and take in as much new information as possible – this means names, terms, spaces, etc.

If scheduling and budgeting allow, plan for at least a few days off between jobs – even if that’s only the weekend. This can also be a nice time to take a full week off from work and get some things done at home or spend extra time with family so you feel refreshed going into your new opportunity.

Even if a few days or a week is not possible, plan for a low-key day ahead of your start day and do what you can to get a good night’s sleep.

You are already hired. You are prepared. They are excited about you starting. Rest up so you can give them the best possible you.

What’s Next?

Once you make it through the first day, it’s time to start thinking about what to accomplish in week 1 of your new job. We cover that topic in the next article in this series.

Click here to read more about how to make the most of your first week

>> Learn the Business Analysis Process

An essential element of succeeding in a new business analyst job role is understanding the business analysis process. We walk you through an 8-step business analysis process in the BA Essentials Master Class. You’ll learn a step-by-step business process that you can customize for your organization and project situations, how to create a timeline for a new business analyst assignment, and be prepared to handle the more common issues BAs face on new projects.

Click here to learn more about the BA Essentials Master Class

First of all, let me congratulate you on this new opportunity.

Now, let’s turn our attention to what you can expect on your first day. (This article is part 1 of a 4-part series about starting a new business analyst job.)

Given a Sense of Space

Most likely, someone will meet you when you arrive at the office and give you a tour of the office essentials. This person might be your hiring manager, project manager, or a representative from the human resources department. The tour should point out the basics – the bathrooms, the kitchens, the stairs and elevators, and the various entrances and exits you can use.

You may be given a parking pass and/or badge to get in and out of the building.

Finally, you’ll be shown your desk, where supplies are (or given supplies) and set up with a computer and access to key systems such as your email. (This is standard protocol, but if you are hired into an informal or fast-paced environment, don’t be surprised if some of these space basics are not yet ready for you. In one organization we worked in, we were hiring so fast that our coordinators couldn’t keep up with building new chairs. Regrettably often an employee’s first task was to build their own chair.)

Given Appropriate Technology

Today’s business analysts use technology every day to do their jobs. The basic technology components include a phone and a computer with access to key systems such as email and any software you’ll be expected to use. Often a technical support representative will stop by your desk early in the day to show you the ins and outs of your computer and the phone system, so you are ready to perform basic communication tasks.

Introduced to Key Stakeholders

Your manager, project manager, or a fellow business analyst may also introduce you to key stakeholders. These are often quick meet and greets so they know your face and your role. You may reconnect with one or more people you met during the job interview. As this tour happens, you’ll begin to get a better sense of the office space and see who sits where and what teams exist.

Be open and welcoming and express your excitement at helping them on their projects. As time allows, jot down names and role names so you can begin to place who’s who on your projects and in the organization, and be more likely to remember everyone’s name when you see them next.

If there happens to be a team meeting or other project team event, you might be invited to attend to meet everyone at once and begin to see how the project is working. Expect to be an observer, not a contributor, to the meetings that happen in the first day or two of your employment.

Given Background Information

In addition to meeting the key stakeholders, it’s important to receive some orientation information on the project and your role. This may come in the form of a 1-1 meeting with your manager or someone senior on the team. Alternatively, you’ll be given background information to review. Often it’s a combination of both.

Not all organizations are great at imparting information about their organization. Be prepared to ask questions and fill in knowledge gaps with your own research.

Here’s a checklist of questions to ask about a new business domain

Given Company/Employee Information

If you are being hired directly as a full-time employee, you can expect that sometime in your first day or two you’ll meet with a human resource representative to fill out any necessary forms, make benefits-related choices, and learn more about the basics of working for this organization. You might receive an employee handbook that contains general information about what to expect while working for this organization and guidelines you are expected to follow.

If you are hired as a contractor, a representative from your recruiting organization may provide similar information on how they expect you to handle yourself as a contractor.

What’s Next?

So, now you know what to expect. What should you do to prepare for your first day? We cover that topic in the next article in this series.

Click here to read about how to prepare for your first day on a business analyst job

>> Learn the Business Analysis Process

An essential element of succeeding in a new business analyst job role is understanding the business analysis process. We walk you through an 8-step business analysis process in the BA Essentials Master Class. You’ll learn a step-by-step business process that you can customize for your organization and project situations, how to create a timeline for a new business analyst assignment, and be prepared to handle the more common issues BAs face on new projects.

Click here to learn more about the BA Essentials Master Class

One of the many paths into your first BA role is proposing a new business analyst role in your current organization.  In this article, we’ll do a deeper dive into what that process looks like.

Step 1: Understand Your Organization’s Current State

There are 3 primary criteria that need to be in place within your organization for a new BA role to be created:

1. There needs to be a clear benefit or problem to be solved by adding business analysis competencies to your organization.
2. There needs to be enough project or process work to fill the plate of a full-time business analyst.
3. There needs to be management support for the new role.

While it’s relatively rare for #1 not to be true within an organization, because nearly all organizations are dealing with some level of change, it’s not uncommon for individuals in other roles to pick up the key business analyst responsibilities. For example, the product manager may work on the high-level business requirements and the technical lead may turn these into detailed system specifications. If this approach works for your projects, a formal BA role may not fill a needed gap in the short term and it will be difficult to make a case for a new role.

The second criteria is often not fulfilled in small organizations or organizations with very little to invest in upgraded systems and processes. In this scenario, you could instead propose a part-time BA role or a BA role that’s combined with other responsibilities, such as project management, quality assurance, or even business operations.

And, finally, all too often an organization meets #1 and #2, but not #3, meaning that there is an opportunity and enough work, but management doesn’t realize it. In this scenario, you must educate your management team about what kinds of problems a BA could solve and what kinds of projects a BA could work on.

The rest of this article assumes that your organization meets the first two criteria and that you need to help management buy in to creating a new role. (If this isn’t the case, you can continue to expand your business analysis experience while staying on the lookout for golden BA opportunities, which we’ll talk about at the end of the article.)

If you’re wondering whether or not you have the skills required to step into a full-time BA role, take our free Business Analyst Skills Assessment to gain clarity on your strengths and transferable skills. 

Step 2: Identify a Valuable BA Role

Now that you understand the context in which a business analyst role would fit, take some time to identify the core role to be filled by a business analyst in your organization. Identify the key responsibilities and skill sets needed, and even consider what types of projects the business analyst would contribute to.

Essentially, you want to write your own business analyst job description.

Business analyst roles vary widely across the industry. When putting together an ideal BA role for your organization, it’s more important that the skills and responsibilities be perceived as immediately valuable to the organization than they fit into an idea vision of a business analyst role you might find proposed elsewhere. You can leverage our Business Analyst Skills Assessment – a free download – as a starting point, but limit the initial set of responsibilities to those of immediate value internally.

Once in a business analyst role, you can always take on more Senior BA responsibilities.

Step 3: Propose the Role to Management

Proposed job description in hand, sit down with your manager or a manager you think would be receptive to creating such a role on his or her team and walk through your ideas. Discuss the problems or opportunities you’ve seen. Detail how the person filling the BA role could help solve these problems. Speak to tangible examples of where business analysis activities have already helped create value in your organization.

Your actions in this step will be better received if you’ve already begun to incorporate business analyst activities into your work. One of the reasons The Business Analyst Blueprint certification program focus on applying BA practices regardless of your job title, is that actions speak louder than words. If your stakeholders can see the impact of business analysis in action, they’ll be more likely to embrace the idea of someone filling this role on an ongoing basis.

As an outcome from this step, you are looking for the manager to create a new job role on their team. In some less formal organizations, you might begin doing the work before the role is “official.”  In other organizations, the role will be officially created and open to both internal and external candidates, in which case you’ll need to apply for it like any other job applicant. Let’s talk about that step next.

Step 4: Apply For the Role

Just because you succeed in getting a new role created doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily be the one chosen to fill it. You may need to apply and you may be up against well-qualified internal and external candidates.

By taking our free Business Analyst Skill Assessment, you’ll gain a better understanding of where you stand as a business analyst and discover an action plan to expand your skillset.  

Update your resume, prepare for the job interview, and be prepared to position yourself as qualified and ready to fill these new job responsibilities. In particular, speak to your experience doing similar business analysis activities in the past for this organization, your knowledge of and relationship with internal stakeholders, and the value of your organizational knowledge and expertise. This is also a good time to share any professional development you’ve done to grow your own business analysis skills and your intentions for continuing to expand your skill set.

Along the Way: Watch Out For Golden Opportunities

These 4 steps don’t always work in the short term. Even if your organization will benefit greatly from increased business analysis competencies, there can be external factors such as a lack of budget, overwhelm of work for your current job, or management resistance that impact your ability to propose and be positioned in a new internal business analyst role. If you hear “no” the first time, don’t give up, but do keep your eyes open for opportunities to make your case a second, third, or fourth time.

Golden opportunities that can break down the barriers to creating a new business analyst role include:

• Your organization starts a new project, bigger than your organization has taken on recently, such as a new software system, integration of a newly acquired product or company, or the re-engineering of a critical business process. Volunteer to help on the new project and look specifically for assignments related to business analysis.
• A key individual filling many BA responsibilities (but without the BA job title) decides to leave the company or take an extended leave. Volunteer to fill in for the gap left by this individual in the short term, especially the BA responsibilities. If the same position is reopened, consider applying for the open vacancy.
• Your organization begins growing unexpectedly and needs to quickly deal with “issues” related to increased customers, sales, or channels. Volunteer to sit on tasks forces, SWAT teams, or any new projects started to deal with the issues. Take on as many BA responsibilities as you can.

By demonstrating the value of business analysis activities to meet short-term needs, you’ll often be able to create long-term needs within your organization that eventually lead to a more formal business analyst role.

And while you are waiting for the golden opportunity to fill a business analyst role, be sure to continue to fill new business analyst responsibilities and practice using new skills wherever you can. You’ll be both solidifying your expertise in business analysis and demonstrating how these capabilities and skill sets will add value to your organization.

>> Get Your Quick Start to Success

Earn the respect you deserve and get the insider details on how to get into a business analyst career quickly, with our free Quick Start to Success workshop. You’ll learn how to avoid the most common pitfalls faced by new business analysts and the step-by-step business analysis process to create predictable, consistent project success.

>> Click here to register for the free workshop today <<

“Degree in computer science (or equivalent) preferred.”

While this requirement can be in place for many reasons, it falsely leads many BAs and those looking to get started as BAs to wonder if they will ever be able to get in or advance within the profession without a computer science degree.

The list of business analysts without technology backgrounds or computer science degrees is long indeed. Here are a few stories from our list of BA career transitions.

• From Benefits Manager to Business Analyst (Felicia Arambula)
• From Operations Support Analyst to Business Analyst (Natalya Polkhovsky)
• From Financial Services Representative to Business Analyst (by Becoming a SME) (April Phan)

In fact, contrary to popular belief, you don’t even need a computer science degree to become a software developer. At least that’s what my husband (who has a degree in economics and currently consults in Salesforce.com development) has figured out.

But you are not here to become a developer. You are here to become a BA. I’m here to tell you that yes, your path is achievable and doable even if you don’t have a computer science degree.

Here’s why you can become a BA without a Computer Science degree

The vast majority of hiring managers are much more interested in your career experience than your degrees. Degrees are listed as simple ways to filter people out, but they don’t tend to hold up during the hiring process. In fact, it’s my contention that many business analyst job descriptions are created using the job description from the software developer or quality assurance engineer as a starting point. This requirement then gets left in by default, not by design.

Even so, preferred requirements for specific types of degrees are rarely show-stopper job requirements and “or equivalent” can means a lot of things. I’d consider a Computer Science degree to be equivalent to the following:

• 4+ years working on IT projects or writing technical documentation.
• A degree in a related field, even if it’s tangential, such as information science, management, business,  etc.
• Course work in a related field, whether or not it’s part of a formal degree program. This could mean a few computer programming classes taken in college, a continuing ed course in IT concepts, or formal professional development training in business analysis, like the virtual courses we offer here.

For me, unless I see specific technical requirements in the job posting, I assume my Masters in Library and Information Science is equivalent. Despite the title, the most technical class I took in this program was an introductory HTML class. The second-most technical class was an introduction to Microsoft Office. Everything else dealt with the business side of running a library system and how to conceptually organize information, like the class on creating back-of-the-book indexes.

And let’s not forget this requirement is usually “preferred”

And even if you aren’t comfortable that you can pull together an “equivalent,” there’s the preferred part of most job requirements. Most often this requirement is listed as preferred not required. There’s a big difference between the two.

Yes, you will find a counter-example. I am sure there is a hiring manager out there who will not even interview a BA without a computer science degree and when you stumble into that situation, a recruiter is sure to tell you about it. This will justifiably test your confidence in your career plan.

The thing is, you can find hiring managers who have all sorts of false assumptions about what a good business analyst looks like. It’s important not to let a single hiring manager or feedback from one or two recruiters dictate your professional development path.

Let’s look at why a reasonable hiring manager wouldn’t care if you have a computer science degree

• Do you need a computer science degree to learn how to communicate effectively with people?
• Do you need a computer science degree to learn how to write a requirements document? (To be fair, you might learn how to do this in a computer science program, but it’s definitely not the only way to acquire this skill. I learned it on the job with A LOT of personalized mentoring. Others are more comfortable taking anbusiness analysis training course to develop their skills)
• Do you need a computer science degree to learn how to analyze information and draw conclusions? (Again, to be fair, this could be a take-away from a strong computer science program, but I happened to pick up a lot in this area in my philosophy classes, especially Introduction to Logic.)

These are the core skills of a business analyst. They are what you need to demonstrate competence in. And competence comes through experience.

Not degrees, certificates, or certifications.

Instead of back-tracking and pursuing a degree in computer science, your time and energy will be much better invested in positioning your skills and experience so you can show how you are qualified for business analyst job roles.

Because the rational, level-headed hiring managers out there – the kind you want to work for – are not going to want to talk about your degree, except maybe in a very superficial way. In a business analyst job interview they are going to want to hear in depth about your experience. Luckily, that’s something you can control and prepare for without investing tens of thousands of dollars and putting your career plans on hold for 4 years.

>>Start Your BA Career

Leverage a step-by-step process to start your business analyst career, regardless of your career background. How to Start a Business Analyst Career will walk you through the BA job role in detail, help you identify transferable business analyst skills, and hone your BA job search process. It’s available in print, PDF, Kindle, and Nook formats.

Click here to learn more about How to Start a Business Analyst Career

In December 2012, John was laid off from this one and only employer.  In starting a job search and reading job descriptions, he realized there was a whole world of business analysis he never knew existed.  During one phone screening, his years of experience meant nothing because he had never written a use case.  John realized he had a lot of catching up to do.

John started attending the local chapter of IIBA to make contacts and began to learn techniques and tools presented at the chapter meetings.  He read articles around the internet about context diagrams, a glossary, expressing business rules, and other deliverables from business analysis.  He took courses to learn how to write use cases and create wireframes.

In July 2013, John landed a new job as a Business Analyst.  His reading and training allowed him to speak intelligently about the elicitation technique and resulting documentation.

John was gracious enough to answer a few questions for us and share more about his story.

Why did you decide to pursue a business analysis career?

I never decided to pursue a business analyst career.  Even though I majored in Computer Science in college long ago, I knew that operating systems and compilers were not my goal.  I wanted these computers to do things for people.

My migration into analysis was a natural progression from doing well as a programmer/tester, then system designer.  Performing well at these tasks meant I was asked to talk directly with the business contacts about the systems changes to make.  Although business reasons were involved, the focus of the analysis was on how to alter the software to meet the business need.

 What was your job search process like? What challenges did you face along the way and how did you overcome them?

After working for 35 ½ years with my one and only employer, I was laid off. It felt like walking into another world as I started reading job descriptions.  Long ago, I read Edward Yourdon and created data flow diagrams, but what were context diagrams, RUP, JAD, BPMN, and use cases?

To bring my knowledge up to the 21^st century, I began attending the local chapter of IIBA (which I never knew existed), reading everything I could find on the internet and through LinkedIn groups, and took a couple of online webinars and courses, such as Use Cases and Wireframes.

How did you end up in your first BA position? And what’s it been like so far?

I landed a new job in July 2013, which is a deliberate Business Analyst position.  I am starting on some simple projects to learn how the company operates and how they like to see the deliverables.  Ironically, my ultimate responsibility will be to manage the BA practice in the company.  I will help other Business Analysts in elicitation techniques and building the documentation according to standards, documents I didn’t know existed a year ago.

What do you consider as the keys to your success?

I believe I have two key skills that helped me to become productive and useful quickly.

• One is that I seem to be able to learn business functions and software tools quickly.  On a simple scale, any word processor will have functions for indentation, copy/paste, bullets, and tables.  Billing function will have details for every company.  Yet somewhere, it’s still quantity times unit price = billed value.
• The other ability is to build a rapport with team members or business experts.  “I know the basics of your business, but you are the expert for the details.  Would you teach me as we discuss this project?”  And I make sure I learn so I become a partner with them.

What recommendations would you make to others looking to follow a path like yours?

Pay attention to the world around you.  Particularly if you are employed, look beyond your company at how others perform business analysis and run development lifecycles.  My first and second employers are opposite in their strength of standards and lack of discipline.

If you are employed and seeking to move into a business analysis role, see what you can do within your company.  You have the advantage of people who know your reputation and the potential they see in you.  Use that to ask for opportunities to try an assignment with a mentor.

Thanks John for sharing your story!

After working with thousands of business analyst professionals, I can almost guarantee that the answer is YES!

We’ve seen professionals from all different job roles and industries leverage their past experience to start business analyst careers.

What determines your success is whether or not you have the underlying competencies in communication and problem solving, and are willing to invest in learning the foundational business analyst skills.

Profiles of  Some Common Backgrounds for Business Analysis

Each individual’s path into business analysis is unique and depends heavily on their skills and career experience. However, there are some broad generalizations that can be made about specific career path backgrounds, what transferable business analysis skills you are most likely to have, and what opportunities will help you quicken your path into business analysis.

We’ve profiled a few of the more common paths we see among our program participants in detail, and you can go to those tutorials by clicking below.

From Technical Writing to Business Analyst

From Software Developer to Business Analyst

From Customer Service to Business Analyst

From Project Manager to Business Analyst

From Software Tester to Business Analyst

And if you don’t see your path – not to worry! We’ve got dozens of more career backgrounds covered by specific case studies with actual business analysts who made the transition.

I hope you find a story that resonates with you and inspires you to take the next step on your journey. Even if there is not someone listed with your exact career background, you’ll be reassured by the wide variety of career backgrounds represented.

(Before I forget, if you are interested in learning about your best path forward into a business analyst career, check out our FREE Quick Start to Success workshop.)

Without further ado, onto the stories!

From Administrative Assistant to Business Analyst

Jami Moore transitioned from Administrative Assistant to Business Analyst by shadowing BAs, volunteering for stretch assignments, and finding a career sponsor. She then moved to a new company in a business analyst role, and that’s when her career really took off!

>> Click here to read the transcript <<

From Technical Writer to Lead Business Analyst and a $20K Salary Increase

Amelia McHenry went from reaching the ceiling of her Technical Writer role to a Lead Business Analyst Role making $90K/year in Brentwood, Tennessee. This move represented a $20K salary bump in less than a year.

> Click here to read the transcript <<

Unemployed in the UK with a Background in Compliance – Lands 2 BA Job Offers

Perry McGuire held the title of business analyst, but was not fulfilling the full scope of business analyst work he found in his local job postings in Jersey, one of the British Islands. By going through each of the skill sets in The Business Analyst Blueprint® and applying them through volunteer work at a local non-profit, Perry boosted his practical business analyst skills and increased his confidence to apply for a broader range of business analyst positions.

> Click here to listen to Perry’s story <<

From Research Assistant to Business Analyst in Just a Few Months

Thomas Clarke leveraged his participation in the BA Essentials Master Class from Bridging the Gap to learn how to apply more structure to his work, and engage with more confidence.

In this case study, Thomas reveals lots of juicy tidbits about how he made this transformation happen so quickly, and what the keys were to his success. It’s a short and sweet 15-minute interview – well worth your time to check out!

From Support Analyst to Business Analyst
in 4 Weeks at the British Red Cross

“During The Business Analyst Blueprint®, I held a workshop with people in the organization so that we could collaboratively document the business process, and then improve it. As a result of this words spread in the different teams. Not even the teams that I, necessarily, worked in, but the teams that are containing the people who I helped the workshop with. People were saying, “Oh, this is really good. It’s really good.”

And what happened was that I contacted the program manager for the project off the bunch of project lists that were related, and he introduced me to another, to a project manager who was thrilled when she heard that I wanted to do business analysis. She was looking for someone to help her. As a result, my manager approved that part of my role would be business analysis going forward. So, it wouldn’t just be support analysis, which was great because that’s what I wanted.”

– Roshni Dominic

>> Click here to listen to Roshni’s case study <<

From Software Development to Business Analyst – Landing Paid Contract Work Along the Way

Todd Fleming is from Somers Montana, which is near Kalispell, Montana, and leveraged his investment in The Business Analyst Blueprint® to land paid contract work with a past employer, and the opportunity to build up his on-the-job business analyst experience.

> Click here to read the transcript <<

From Quality Assurance Engineer to ServiceNow Business Analyst

For Manuel Ninapaitan, it all started with updating his title in his email signature – which he had the confidence to do while in The Business Analyst Blueprint® program. Soon his manager asked him to take on a BA-like project. And a year later he was in his first official business analyst job role.

> Click here to read the transcript <<

From Economist to IT Business Analyst

Kira Judge, from Saskatchewan, Canada, is a Senior Business Analyst with a background as an economist and business intelligence. She shares her journey to finding new confidence as a business analyst, and owning the value she provides to her organization, by building the technical skills that she needed in The Business Analyst Blueprint® program.

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From Software Developer to Business Analyst to BTG Instructor

Learn how Disha Trivedi transitioned into a business analyst career from software development, and the career trajectory that’s led her to being an instructor with Bridging the Gap.

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And There’s More…Career Backgrounds Galore!

While we don’t have videos and images for these success stories, we have many more interviews with business analysts who have shared their transition stories. Browse through them all to find one that resonates with you.

From Quality Assurance to Business Analyst (Laura Brandenburg)

From Sales Support to Quality Assurance to Business Analysis (Martin Pakpahan)

From Operations Support Analyst to Business Analyst (Natalya Polkhovsky)

From Applications Support Specialist to Business Analyst (Aniket Sharma)

Building BA Experience as a Software Developer (Dave Wolf)

From Programmer to Business Analyst: How to Snap Back from a Layoff after 35 Years with One Company (John Jones)

From Software Developer in an Informal Environment to Business Analyst (Michiel Erasmus)

From Software Developer to Business Analyst (Wendy Stookesberry)

From Desktop Support Technician to Business Analyst: A Journey-In-Progress (Rob Jowaises)

Landing a BA Job Just 7 Months Out of College (Eric)

Turning a Business Systems Analyst Internship into a Job Offer (Nelson Colon)

>>How to Learn the Foundational Business Analyst Skills

When you join The Business Analyst Blueprint® program, you’ll gain real world experience in the industry-standard techniques and business analysis processes. You’ll create work samples vetted by experienced instructors.

>> Click here for more information about The Blueprint <<

Let’s look at what you can expect from your business analyst job search, figure out where you are in the process, and decide what steps will get you hired.

Step 1 – Position Yourself to Get Hired as a BA

The first step in the job search process is to figure out what kinds of business analyst jobs you are qualified for and how to position your skills and career experiences for those types of jobs. After all, if you don’t know what BA qualifications you have, how can you decide what BA jobs to apply for?

The good news is that you probably have a lot more BA experience than you think and so are qualified for a broader set of business analyst roles than they you are currently considering.

Finding your transferable business analyst skills ensures that you have more career options and job opportunities. It also makes updating your resume and preparing for job interviews a lot easier, so that’s a nice bonus.

For an in-depth coverage of transferable business analyst skills, be sure to check out Laura’s best-selling book How to Start a Business Analyst Career.

Step 2 – Put Together a Resume that Highlights Your Business Analyst Skills

You can be well-qualified for a particular type of role, but if your resume doesn’t showcase those qualifications, you will not get a call back. Recruiters don’t read between the lines and they never make assumptions in your favor.

Your business analyst resume needs to spell out exactly what you are qualified to do and be structured in such a way that it doesn’t make your recruiter guess.

It also needs to look like a resume that’s relevant to a business analyst job, which means it’s not laden with too much technology jargon or management-level accomplishments  (without the detail to back them up). Your resume needs to clearly demonstrate that you can (and have) contributed to past projects in a business analysis role (even if you’ve never held the business analyst job title).

Step 3 – Apply to BA Jobs

With an understanding of your key business analyst skills and a resume that highlights your skills and experience, you are ready to apply to business analyst jobs. With your skills assessment in hand, you’ll be able to focus on the jobs that are a relatively close match to your skill set. If you’ve been applying to hundreds of jobs and not hearing back, this tactical change could increase the proportion of opportunities you hear back from significantly.

A “relatively close match” means that you find evidence of at least 80% of the skills from the job posting in your resume. This percentage gives you some room to stretch beyond your qualifications and also the chance to be in the right place at the right time, should a particular employer lighten up on their laundry list of qualifications, such as for specific technical skills or industry expertise.

Three rules of thumb are particularly important when applying to jobs:

• Since the person reviewing your resume may not understand business analysis as well as you do (especially once you’ve gone through a skills discovery process), you’ll want to be careful with terminology. You know that “process flows” and “workflow diagrams” can be used interchangeably and that “use cases” are a type of “functional requirements”, but does your reviewer? Tweaking terms can help get you to the 80% match.
• As you match up qualifications, you will probably discover that you have other relevant skills that aren’t yet incorporated into your resume. There is nothing wrong with customizing your resume specifically for this position to highlight relevant skills. And if that new skill comes up again and again, it probably makes sense to add it to your main resume.
• Even with a good match, you may not hear back from a job application. This can happen for reasons that have nothing to do with your qualifications, such as the job being filled before you apply or the job requirements changing. It could also mean that one of the qualifications you didn’t provide evidence against was a critical one as so the recruiter decided you weren’t a good fit for the position.

This step in the process can be emotionally trying. It involves a lot of iterating on your resume, defining of your skill set, and persistence. A strong professional network can really help accelerate your job search even further as you are more likely to hear back about an opportunity when you can secure a personal recommendation or introduction.

Step 4 – Interview for the Job with Confidence

If you are focusing on the right business analyst jobs, you will start to hear back about opportunities and get asked to interview for the job. Before getting an offer, you can expect to interview with multiple people. Often a recruiter will do a first pass phone interview and then you might meet with several people from the hiring organization including the hiring manager.

You can expect to be asked a series of open-ended behavioral interview questions related to the job qualifications. And even if they aren’t listed, soft skills are almost always considered to be very important, so preparing to speak to how you handle challenging stakeholders, tight deadlines, and complex problems is a good idea.

A little bit of confidence goes a long way in doing well during the interview and ensuring you honestly and thoroughly communicate your qualifications for the position. And a little bit of preparation and practice goes a long way in building up your confidence.

Step 5 – Make an Informed Decision about the Offer

Once you make it through the job interview process and receive a job offer, you’ll have a decision to make.

• Do the terms of the offer (including salary and benefits) work for you?
• Will you be happy working in the environment?
• Is this a step forward in your career?

Thinking forward to an eventual job offer can help ensure you ask the right questions during the job interview process itself.

Find Your Place in the Process

If you are looking for a new business analyst job, consider where you are at in this job search process and starting working forward towards the next step.

If you’ve been searching for awhile and aren’t seeing much traction, start from the beginning. I find that many people skip steps 1 and 2 and then get frustrated when they don’t hear back from jobs in step 3. This is often because they aren’t fully communicating their relevant skills and experience in their resume.

Get the Book

In How to Start a Business Analyst Career, you’ll learn how to assess and expand your business analysis skills and experience.

This book will help you find your best path forward into a business analyst career. More than that, you will know exactly what to do next to expand your business analysis opportunities.

Click here to learn more about How to Start a Business Analyst Career

In this article, I describe the jobs that we most often see people in before they find their first BA job. For each role, we’ll also look at how to turn this job into a transitional opportunity on your path to business analysis.

• First, we’ll look at a set of roles that have relatively easier entry paths, which are a good fit if you are coming from a role that is very distant from business analysis or are newly entering the job market.
• Then we’ll look at roles that have their own hefty experience requirements but that provide nice segues into business analysis. They are good options if you are already qualified or close to qualified to fill them.
• Finally, we’ll wrap things up with some tips for choosing what option makes the most sense to you.

(Before we get started, I want to say a few words about our approach to making a BA career transition, which is represented in the Business Analyst Career Roadmap. Here at Bridging the Gap we advise focusing on work experience and skill development together. Since work experience is often the most important factor in hiring a BA, this is what we see work for most professionals. You will find that a lot of other providers advise you to put your money making on hold and focus on training for a year or more and then go back into the job market. If that path doesn’t work for you financially or doesn’t suit your career ambitions, then you are in the right place.)

With that out of the way, let’s look at some options when it comes to transitional roles that could lead you to business analysis.

7 Easier-to-Qualify for Jobs that Can Lead to a BA Job

This first set of roles do have some experience and expertise requirements, but they tend to be lighter than a typical mid-level BA role. If you have at least a few years of professional background, at least one or two is likely to be a good fit for your current qualifications.

Let’s look at them one-by-one.

#1 – Test Analyst

A test analyst is responsible for executing test cases against a software system before it goes live to the business or to customers. Typically a test analyst doesn’t do as much in terms of test planning (see the Quality Assurance Engineer role below for more on that) and so the job requirements can be rather lenient. If you regularly find problems with software you use every day and can write up a description to that problem in a very easy-to-fix way, then you will meet the main requirements.

In a test analyst role, you’ll gain exposure to software and the project lifecycle. You’ll be starting on a path that can lead to a short-term promotion to a Quality Assurance Engineer, which can lead to business analysis.

#2 – Project Coordinator/Analyst

A project coordinator assists a project manager in administrating a project. This role can often involve a wide variety of responsibilities, which is what can make it a great way to work into a BA role. You might be collating time sheets, reviewing vendor invoices, capturing meeting notes, and updating project schedules, among other tasks assigned to you by the project manager.

Sometimes the project manager you work for is filling a combined business analysis/project management role, and if they happen to like the business analyst responsibilities the least, they could assign you some actual BA tasks. (Of course, the reverse could just as easily be true and they could keep all the BA tasks for themselves.)

#3 – Admin to a CIO, CTO or Other Tech Executive

A close relation to the project coordinator is the administrative assistant to a CIO (Chief Information Officer), CTO (Chief Technology Officer), or other technology executive. These roles also involve a wide variety of responsibilities, as your tasks will include whatever your executive needs help with on a given day or week. Responsibilities could range from booking travel to helping prepare presentations for the board of directors.

In this role, you often gain a lot of exposure not just to projects, but to the executive thinking behind projects, which can serve you very well when you are working with higher level stakeholders as a business analyst.

The challenge with this role is that you might be too busy keeping up with your executive’s schedule to carve out time for your own professional development. Also, within your organization you could very well be typecast into an “admin” role, making it difficult to secure an internal promotion to business analysis.

#4 – Any Sort of Analyst

It might seem trite, but getting into any role with the ‘analyst’ job title can help you move towards a business analyst. In fact, given how inconsistently job titles are used, the job might actually be rather close to a business analyst role.

Here are some common example titles and typical responsibilities:

• Marketing Analyst – Responsible for analyzing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns or generating data that can be used as part of the sales and marketing process.
• Sales Analyst – Responsible for analyzing sales-related systems, sales reports, or sales processes.
• Operations Analyst – Responsible for analyzing operational processes, generating reports, or supporting the operations by performing manual tasks.
• Reporting Analyst – Responsible for designing new reports, creating reports, and running existing reports.

#5 – Customer Service or Technical Support

Customer service and technical support professionals are on the phone with customers helping them resolve issues and solve problems. They bring a lot of relevant experience to the BA role. First and foremost, they learn how to ask good questions and listen to the answers. They often need to explain complex technical issues or arcane business rules to customers who would rather not understand them. And they need to solve the immediate problem.

Sometimes they get involved in representing the customer to solve more systemic problems, which can lead them into a subject matter expert role. Let’s talk about what that looks like.

#6 – Subject Matter Expert

A subject matter expert provides specific business, industry, or functional domain knowledge on a project. Often they work very closely with the business analyst, being interviewed about what they need and want out of the project and how the process works today. This role typically involves reviewing requirements documentation, participating in demos, and conducting or coordinating user acceptance testing. (Here’s a good discussion about the difference between a subject matter expert and a business analyst.)

As you demonstrate your competence as a subject matter expert, you can ask to be assigned more responsibilities on the project team, perhaps taking notes for the BA or creating early drafts of documentation.

This was part of my personal transition path. I was in a subject matter expert role before I was offered a Quality Assurance role. I stepped up during the acceptance testing phase and got noticed as someone who understood software and the test process, which got me my “in” to the IT team.

The challenge with being a subject matter expert, is that you aren’t likely to see this as a job title. It’s more likely to be a role you step into while you are employed in a different job. So let’s look at that set of opportunities next.

#7 – Any Role With BA Responsibilities or in a Company with a BA Practice

While the above list of roles are specific job titles and roles you might watch out for, any role with a slice of BA responsibilities or in an organization that has a BA team could provide a path to a BA role. In the case where I was a subject matter expert, my job title was “Associate Editor.”  Then I worked my way into getting assigned to a technology project.

In general, organizations that have a BA practice will provide you with the most opportunities as you’ll have a specific type of business analyst job you can work towards and your knowledge of the stakeholders, systems, and processes will likely be viewed as an asset should an internal BA position open up. But you can also look at the most process-oriented or technology-oriented role you qualify for and start there.

While any one of these seven transitional roles might make sense to you, it may be that you are already in a role that has a more direct path to business analysis. Let’s look at those next.

6 Just-As-Difficult-to-Qualify for Jobs that Provide a Direct Path to a BA Job

In addition to jobs that are easier to get into than your typical business analyst job, there are transitional roles that have their own hefty experience and expertise requirements, but can lead directly to business analysis. If you are in one of these roles already or are qualified for one of these roles, your best bet would most likely be to stay in this role and begin working more  business analysis responsibilities into what you are already doing.

#8 – Project Manager

Very often, project management and business analysis roles are combined into one, more commonly under the job title of “project manager.” Project managers can move towards a more BA-focused role by focusing on the business needs, requirements process, business process, and product (as opposed to project) scope.

#9 – Software Developer

A software developer in a small organization or informal environment often does not have the benefit of working with a business analyst and in those scenarios may already do the business analysis. Other times, these responsibilities fall to the technical lead or software development manager. In a more formal environment, the software developer is often involved in reviewing requirements specifications, creating design documentation, and managing change requests.

A software developer can move towards a business analyst role by conducting customer demos, reviewing or updating requirements documentation, incorporating requirements models into technical design documentation, asking open-ended questions about business needs and requirements, or becoming part of the test and implementation process.

#10 – Systems Analyst

Systems Analyst is a confusing job title. As a role, it’s generally taken to identify someone who is responsible for the technical design of a software system but may not do actual coding. However, unlike a true business analyst role, this person needs to have a fairly deep and sometimes fairly broad understanding of technology. (Here’s a good discussion of the difference between a business analyst and a systems analyst.)

Systems analysis can be a good transitional role for the software developer who already has this background as it gets you away from the implementation and into the analysis. Then you can work yourself into activities that get you closer to the business perspective on a project or system.

#11 – Business/Functional Manager

Any manager of a functional department or team is likely to have some BA responsibilities. In this role, you are likely responsible for operational processes of your team and continuously revising and improving them.

A manager can move towards a business analyst role by documenting and analyzing their team’s existing roles and processes, interviewing the team’s stakeholders to understand the broader context of their work, and initiating process improvement or expansion projects. If your team expands to take on a new area of responsibility, treat it as a project for which you are the lead business analyst.

#12 – Quality Assurance Engineer

A quality assurance engineer will often be responsible for test case development and overall test planning. They may have specific responsibilities related to the creation or maintenance of a test environment and tend to have more in-depth technical skills than a Test Analyst, perhaps even to the extent of managing tools for test automation and performance testing.

A QA engineer is likely to build strong bonds with business users over time. A QA engineer can move towards a BA role by looking at their test plans as business processes, facilitating user acceptance testing and helping create business-focused test plans, and managing the changes that surface during the test cycle, some of which may be new requirements that require elicitation, analysis, and specification.

#13 – Technical Writer

A technical writer creates documentation to support a business process or software solution. Often the documentation is a user guide or training manual, but other times this can include detailed system documentation, visual models, or business processes. Technical writers tend to have very relevant experiences in documenting requirements specifications.

A technical writer can work towards a business analyst role by getting involved in other parts of the project lifecycle, such as stakeholder interviews, problem-solving meetings, or user acceptance testing. Sometimes after completing a skills assessment, technical writers (like a lot of project managers) realize that they are already qualified for many business analyst roles.

Finding Your Path to BA

We’ve just looked at 13 possible roles and how they can move you closer to business analysis. By no means would I expect you to qualify for all 13 jobs. If one or two jobs stood out to you as, “I’m qualified to do that!”, then consider it your best working option for the short term.

As you consider your options, here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• If you are unemployed, look at roles that are the best match for your current qualifications. They will be easier to get into short term. Since getting work experience is the biggest factor in successfully moving towards a BA role, any job will give you more opportunities than you have now.
• If you are employed, first consider whether or not you are already in a transitional role and can expand your BA experience and skill set by taking on relevant BA responsibilities.
• If you are employed but not finding opportunities to practice BA tasks, then look at roles you are confident you could do, but that are also a stretch. Stretch roles will further expand your business analyst skills and give you more responsibilities. They will also help you build a history of career progression which will look great when you are ready to apply for your first business analyst job.

And never forget that there is no one path to business analysis. Your professional experience counts in this career transition path and the sooner you can move towards building relevant career experiences, the sooner you’ll achieve your business analyst career goal.

>> Find Your Path Into Business Analysis

After reading and working through the exercises in How to Start a Business Analyst Career, you’ll know how to assess and expand your business analysis skills and experience.

This book will help you find your best path forward into a business analyst career. More than that, you will know exactly what to do next to expand your business analysis opportunities.

Click here to learn more about How to Start a Business Analyst Career

I’ve been on both sides of the business analyst job interview process multiple times. Here’s what you can expect and how you can prepare.

(Before I forget, I want to be sure you know that you can download my free BA Job Interview Prep Guide and receive more detailed information on preparing for your business analyst job interview.)

The BA Job Interview Process

For most positions, you can expect a series of two to three different interview sessions. The first interview session will often be a phone screen. The second and third session may involve multiple interviewees in a group (or in back-to-back meetings). You might meet with the hiring manager, a peer business analyst, and perhaps stakeholders from the business and technical team. In selected cases, a representative from upper management is also involved.

Take some time to consider the perspectives of your interviewers. Research them on LinkedIn and see what you can learn about their backgrounds.

How Recruiters Get Involved in the Job Interview Process

Your first interview might be with a recruiter, either a recruiter from a third party agency or an internal recruiter from the organization’s human resources department. They often don’t understand the business analyst role as well as the hiring manager does and so may be looking for specific skills or other personality qualities.

You can improve your chances of making it through this initial phone screen by researching the skills laid out in the job posting and preparing to speak to specific times when you’ve used the skill or a similar skill.

The Types of Job Interview Questions You’ll be Asked

Business analyst job interviews tend to be situational in nature and this means that you’ll be asked questions about your past experience as it relates to business analysis. (These are also called behavioral interview questions.) On other websites you’ll find lists of 100s of questions and preparing a canned answer for each of them is laborious to say the least.

I instead advocate being generally prepared to speak to how your experience relates to the qualifications for the job. Even if you’ve never held the business analyst job title, it’s likely that your past experience is relevant, otherwise you wouldn’t have landed an interview in the first place.

(In the Mastering the Business Analyst Job Interview course we cover preparing for interview questions in detail.)

Simulations and Work Samples in a Job Interview

As a former hiring manager and an experienced business analyst, I still found interviewing business analysts one of the most difficult parts of my job. Interviewing project managers and quality assurance professionals was much, much easier. That’s often why managers look for additional ways to verify their assumptions about a particular business analyst job candidate.

It’s not unlikely that before you are offered a job, you’ll be asked for work samples or requested to do some sort of business analysis simulation exercise, whether that’s drafting a requirements artifact or facilitating a short requirements session.

(For more information about what you can do to cultivate a manager’s confidence in you as a BA job candidate, you might also read about our BA job search process.)

Your Questions Are Just As Important As Your Answers

You should be given the opportunity to ask question during the job interview, either throughout the interview or at the end. After all, the purpose of the job interview is to find if there is a mutual fit between the hiring organization and the job candidate. I’m sure you have doubts or concerns about the position and the interview is a good time to address them.

As asking questions is a core business analysis skill (being the primary component of elicitation), not having relevant and interesting questions to ask will be a red flag.

>>Go Into Your Next Interview with Confidence

Pick up the BA Job Interview Prep Guide that walks you through the essential steps you need to take to prepare for your first or next business analyst job interview.

Click here to get your copy of the BA Job Interview Prep Guide

In what follows, I’ll walk you through 5 examples of how professionals without the business analyst job title have done business analysis work and explain how they can use the BA jargon to talk about their experience. You’ll learn from their discovery process so you can feel reassured about your experience, confident in your skills, and get on a faster path to finding your next BA role.

#1 – A Developer Demos Software

A software developer finishes the first iteration of a solution. The developer demos the software to the business community, walking through how a user might use the system and answering questions about how the software works. A business user notices that a particular feature is missing. The software developer asks a few questions to understand what’s needed. The developer follows up with a summary of the new requests via email and an estimate.

The software developer just completed the following business analyst tasks:

• In demoing the software, the developer uses a version of the protoype technique – which essentially means using a draft version of the solution to identify new needs and requirements. (This draft could be wireframes or actual working software, the process is the same.)
• In asking questions, the developer conducts an interview, the most commonly used elicitation technique.
• In writing up the requested enhancements, the developer conducts requirements analysis and the email is a form of a requirements specification.

#2 – A Technical Writer Creates Help Files

A technical writer is tasked with creating help files for a new software system. She meets with the project sponsor to understand the scope and depth of the desired help files and proposes an approach for creating the requested documentation. As functionality is released to a test environment, the technical writer reviews it and creates skeleton documentation. Finding gaps in her understanding, she engages the business community to understand how they intend to use the tool. The final output is a standard help file, along with several diagrams and work-flows mapping the business process to the new software functionality.

The technical writer just completed the following business analysis tasks:

• In meeting with the sponsor to understand their desires for the help files, she completed a business needs analysis and scoping exercise.
• In reviewing functionality in the test environment, she completed interface analysis – the process of eliciting information by reviewing the interface of a system.
• In engaging the business community to understand how they intend to use the tool, she completed business process analysis. The workflow diagrams she created as part of the help files are business process models.

(By the way, if you think you might have some transferable business analysis skills, you might want to check out our Business Analyst Template Toolkit. The work samples will give you a quick view of what types of deliverables a business analyst creates and the templates will help you get started doing more business analysis.)

#3 – A Subject Matter Expert Gets Involved on a Project

A Customer Service Representative (CSR) is assigned to represent their team on a new project to enhance existing customer-facing functionality. The CSR brings a list of customer complaints to the kick-off meeting and collaborates with the business analyst to figure out the root cause of the complaints. They agree some of the complaints aren’t very clear or actionable, so the CSR schedules time with the customer to more fully understand the issues they reported, gets concrete examples, and also discovers why these problems cause so much frustration. Before the changes are released, the CSR schedules a demo with the entire CSR team and trains them on the new functionality so they can answer any customer questions.

The CSR just completed the following business analysis tasks:

• In compiling a list of customer complaints, the CSR conducted a business needs analysis, which is part of the enterprise analysis knowledge area of business analysis. The list of complaints they provide would also be an example of a draft requirements specification.
• In collaborating with the BA to find the root cause of the complaints, the CSR conducted analysis and problem solving activities.
• In following up on unclear issues, the CSR conducted interviews, a very common elicitation technique.
• In demoing the new solution to CSRs, the CSR used the prototype technique and also was involved in change management – essentially helping the employees who are impacted by the project understand what changes are coming and how it impacts their work.

#4 – A Subject Matter Expert Prepares for Her Transition

As her work is being outsourced to a third-party provider within six months, an editorial coordinator is asked to document her processes and train her replacements. She writes up several procedures that become the standard operating procedures for her entire group. She works with others on her team to understand how and why they handle scenarios differently than she does and updates her process documents so they can be consistently applied by their third-party replacements. She creates several work-flow diagrams showing how the process works. She meets 1-1 with individuals from the outsourcing firm and trains them on how to use the system.

The editorial coordinator just completed the following business analysis tasks:

• In documenting the current process, she applied business process analysis techniques.
• In creating workflow diagrams, she used visual communication skills.
• In reconciling various different versions of the same general process, she completed business process streamlining and improvement.
• In training her replacements, she was involved in change management.

#5 – A Quality Assurance Engineer Discovers Software Issues

A Quality Assurance Engineer works in an environment where the software developers design and code without clear requirements.  During testing, a lot of issues tend to come up. Some of these issues are discovered by the QA Engineer – they understand the business and the workflow and so they see gaps. Once initial testing is complete, the QA engineer coordinates a review by the business community. The business community reports the issues to the QA engineer, who will often stop by the user’s desk to walk through the problem, and then logs them in the defect tracking tool.

The QA engineer has just completed the following BA tasks:

• In reporting issues in the defect tracking tool, the QA engineer is analyzing and specifying new requirements or requirements changes.
• In coordinating a review of the application by the business, the QA engineer is facilitating User Acceptance Testing.
• In stopping by a business user’s desk to understand an unclear issue, the QA engineer is using a combination of interviewing and observation to elicit information about expected software functionality.

These 5 examples are 5 of hundreds of potential scenarios I could have drawn from, showing how the BA jargon can be used to talk about your experience even if you’ve never had the job title of “Business Analyst.” If you feel like you are coming up short in your skills discovery process, even though you know you could do the job, take another look at your career background for relevant business analysis skills and experiences. Because your career background could just help you get hired faster.

>>Build Even More Business Analyst Experience

Would you like a starting point for approaching common business analyst work scenarios? Check out the Business Analyst Template Toolkit – all of the requirements templates are fully annotated and editable by you, giving you a great starting point for starting your next business analyst project or formalizing your work samples.

Click here to learn more about the BA Template Toolkit

Step 1 – Pull Together Relevant Background Material

Your career history can be a goldmine. But it’s not always easy to recall all of the relevant skills and experiences you have, especially if some of those experiences are 5, 10, or even 20 years back. Pulling together background material will help make sure you don’t overlook any important gems of experience laying around in what might feel like the ancient history of your career.

The first set of items you’ll want to get your hands on is any work samples you have. Obviously, if you have created specific requirements specifications, you’ll want to include those. But requirements can be embedded in all kinds of documents (proposals, project plans, test plans, marketing plans, issue reports and memos are just a few that come to mind) so you are likely to find more relevant experiences if you widen your net.

Consider the following deliverable formats:

• Word documents,
• Spreadsheets,
• Slide decks,
• Visual models,
• Wiki pages, and
• Anything uploaded to an internal website in any format.

Beyond this, consider your tangible creations that aren’t documents. It’s very possible they can provide evidence of business analysis work as well. For example:

• Detailed emails with meeting summaries, project overviews, or introductions.
• Information captured in project management, issue management, release management, or defect tracking tools.
• Pictures of white board drawings or scratch paper with hand-drawn models, prototypes, and lists.

If you don’t have much in the way of tangible output, consider performance reviews and emails about your work. You might need to use a few brainstorming techniques to take a walk down memory lane and bring up details on the key projects and responsibilities in your work history.

Step 2 – Create a Project List

If you have a lot of documentation or a long career history, you could find yourself with an overwhelming amount of information to wade through. You’ll want an easy-to-skim list to use as you dig through your experiences for transferable skills. I find it makes the most sense to organize this list by project.

Create a project list with these key components:

• Project Name
• Description
• Your Role
• Project Participants
• Supporting Documentation (if any)

You’ll refer back to this list as you start identifying your relevant skills and experiences, which is the next step in the process.

Step 3 – Identify Relevant Skills and Experiences

With your  list of projects and background material in hand, it’s time to start digging for relevant skills and experiences. Essentially you’ll need to evaluate each business analyst skill  or knowledge area separately: run through your project list for examples of when you’ve used that skill and document your experiences using BA terminology.

Your BA experience doesn’t have to be all from one project in order to count. You can mix and match experiences across different projects throughout your career. You might find that on one project you used many BA elicitation skills, such as interviews and observations, and then in another, the Word documents you created were very close to use cases or process models.

You’ll need a trusted resource on the BA fundamentals to complete this step. My book, How to Start a BA Career, has a skills list to reference. Ellen Gottesdiener’s Software Requirements Memory Jogger would also be good for this purpose. The Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® (BABOK® Guide) is a third option.

Step 4 – Get a Clear View of Your BA Skills

After finishing the discovery process, you’ll want to roll up your view of your BA skills. Create a checklist of the skills you have as well as any competency gaps you discovered. And after all that digging, having a clear view of your BA skills laid out in front of you will feel very, very good. (Here’s a great example of how Doug Goldberg diagnoses the transferable business analyst skills of a process improvement professional.)

This answer will give you the clarity you’ve been seeking about your business analysis qualifications and help you decide on your next steps with confidence. You’ll also have a large amount of material to add to your resume or CV and review when preparing for job interviews which could accelerate your job search.

Get the Book

In How to Start a Business Analyst Career, you’ll learn how to assess and expand your business analysis skills and experience.

This book will help you find your best path forward into a business analyst career. More than that, you will know exactly what to do next to expand your business analysis opportunities.

Click here to learn more about How to Start a Business Analyst Career

We’re going to talk about how to know if you are qualified to be a business analyst, but first I’m going to share a funny story with you.

(Before I forget, I want to be sure you know about my Quick Start to Success as a Business Analyst workshop (it’s free) that’s designed to help you, the mid-career professional, kick-start your business analysis career. The course will help you dig deeper into each of the concepts outlined below.)

One evening, I walked down the short flight of stairs after putting our daughter to bed. I smiled at my husband. He was making an odd expression. I continued to look more deeply at him to figure out why.

I walked over to where he was sitting and said, “What’s that goofy face for?”

He says, “You didn’t see it, did you?”

Me: “See what?”

He shifts his eyes back toward the stairs. On the ledge we have right in front of our stairway were a dozen yellow roses – laying out in plain sight.

I couldn’t believe I had completely missed them. For a split second, I even started thinking that just maybe my husband teleported them there, but then I remembered the laws of physics and found my own eyes to be the culprit.

I was looking at my husband and his funny expression instead of what was right in front of me.

This same sort of thing happens to all of us, all of the time. We often don’t see what can be obvious to other people or even what other people expect we should obviously be seeing. In all the work I do with professionals transitioning into the BA profession, the most prevalent problem I see is that they overlook significant relevant and transferable skills from their own career background.

As a result, their answer to the question, “Am I qualified to be a business analyst?” is a resounding “no” when it should be a “yes” or at least a “some of the time”. (And as we’ll see in a bit, some of the time can be a very effective path to business analysis.)

Today, I’d like to help you see the bouquet of roses waiting for you on the ledge at the bottom of the stairs. And to do that we need to look at the concept of transferable skills.

What are Transferable Business Analyst Skills?

Transferable skills are skills that you’ve built through experiences in your past roles. In the context of business analysis, transferable skills are BA techniques you’ve used in non-BA jobs or soft skills you’ve developed in perhaps unrelated roles.

Transferable skills can help you skip past entry-level business analyst positions. This is especially important because there tend to be very few entry-level business analyst positions. And those savored few entry-level positions tend to favor recent college graduates without the salary requirements of an experienced professional.

If you do have even a few years of professional experience, and a fair amount of the 42 reasons to become a business analyst resonate with you, then you have transferable skills. Getting clear and confident about them is part of your path to success as a business analyst and figuring out what roles you qualify for.

But What Business Analyst Qualifications Are Transferable?

When transitioning to business analysis, there are many areas in which to look for your business analyst qualifications. A good first step is to review our list of core business analysis skills that are important for a new business analyst and start mapping your experience to these skill areas.

Here’s a rundown of what you can expect to find during this process:

• The core business analyst skills, those you might find mapped out in our free download – the Business Analyst Skills Assessment – will help you get past the screening process for a business analyst role. Any given hiring manager tends to have a checklist of key qualifications they absolutely want to have met by a potential candidate. And even if your experience is informal, it’s likely that you can map it to a more formal deliverable or analysis technique. Use the BA terms (appropriately) in your resume and in a job interview and you’ll increase your chances of qualifying yourself for a business analyst role.
• Although managers screen for a specific set of core business analyst skills, they often hire for soft skills, such as relationship-building and the ability to communicate with a diverse set of stakeholders from the business and technical communities. Understanding the key soft skills you bring to the table is critical. Being able to speak to specific experiences where you used those soft skills in a BA context (or close to BA context) can increase the number of BA jobs you’ll qualify for.
• Then there will be skills that set you apart as a candidate and qualify you for specific types of BA positions. These vary widely from technical skills, to specific business domain knowledge, to experience with specific types of business applications.

This might feel like a lot to do, but our Business Analyst Skills Assessment (completely free) will walk you through the process step-by-step.

What Do I Do with My List of Business Analyst Qualifications?

Even with a list of transferable business analyst qualifications in hand, a transitioning BA can get understandably frustrated. What business analyst roles do these skills qualify you for? It can often seem as if the grass is greener on the other side of the proverbial fence.

• If you don’t have an IT background, it can seem as if every possible BA job you look at requires some obscure technical skill you have no interest in building.
• If you do have an IT background, but no business experience, it can see as if every possible BA job you look at requires business domain experience.

Sound familiar?

While you will most likely find that the number of roles you aren’t qualified for outweigh the number of roles you do qualify for, your career background will qualify you very strongly for a specific set of business analyst jobs.

For example,

• If you have a technical background, consider BA roles that include systems analysis responsibilities or blend selected IT duties with a business analyst role. Your experience with specific technologies could qualify you for specific BA roles.
• If you have a business background from a specific functional area (such as customer service, human resources, or finance), consider BA roles working on the business applications with which you are familiar or supporting this area of the company. Your familiarity with the terminology and processes for that functional area could qualify you for specific BA roles.
• If you have deep experience in a specific industry, consider business analyst roles in that industry. Your understanding of the industry environment, terminology, and core processes could qualify you for specific BA roles.

To sum things up, the answer to the question about whether or not you are qualified to be a business analyst requires a bit of analysis.  First, you must discover your business analyst skills. Then you want to map them to the types of roles you see in your local job market. Most likely, you will find yourself to be very qualified for some roles, partially qualified for others, and not at all qualified for still others (and this last set will most likely be the biggest, and that’s true even for BAs with formal experience).

With this information in hand, you can decide how and if to move forward in your BA career. And keep in mind, just like those I work with on their career transitions, it’s quite possible and actually very likely that you have more relevant experience than you think, and you won’t realize what those qualifications are until you go through a skills discovery process.

>> Download the Business Analyst Skills Assessment

The easiest way to figure out how qualified you are for a business analyst role is to download the Business Analyst Skills Assessment and start discovering your transferable business analyst skills. The Business Analyst Skills Assessment will also help you gain more confidence and get clarity on your next step.

>>Click here to download the Business Analyst Skills Assessment<<

Recruiter: Thanks for taking some time to meet with me today. I’m working with a client who needs a business analyst to fill in on a new project and hit the ground running. It’s really important that they have experience working with use cases. Your resume says you have experience with use cases. Can you tell me more about that?

Let’s look at answers from our Prospective BAs and how they would do for the position. (These all resemble answers I’ve heard from my consulting clients or in real interviews with professionals who were perfectly well-qualified to create use cases.)

Prospective BA #1:  Use cases? Where does it say that?

Not good. I’m sure the interview would be over in about a minute, maybe less.

Prospective BA #2: Oh, well, I do have experience with use cases, I guess. But they weren’t formal use cases. They were documents that were a whole lot like use cases.

A little better. But not good. You undermined the value of your own experience by downgrading it. You might get one follow-up question from a nice recruiter. (And they aren’t all nice.)

Prospective BA #3: Use cases…er, well, yes…hmmm…let me think a minute here…yes, I remember it now. I was working on a project for my call center and we needed to implement some software updates to support how we managed accounts. I created a use case to capture the current functionality and then updated the use case to show the new functionality we needed. I validated the use case with my manager and other members of the customer service team. I met with the developers to walk through the use case. They asked a lot of clarifying questions and I updated the use case to reflect the answers. As the developers implemented the requirements I used the use case to create test cases and assigned different members of my team to execute the test cases.

Decent. The recruiter’s interest is probably piqued. You’ll get a follow-up question. The difference between decent and good in this case simply involves getting rid of the self-doubt and hesitation at the beginning. 

(You might take a minute and consider how you would answer this question if you were asked right now.)

(Before I forget, I want to be sure you know that you can download my free BA Job Interview Prep Guide and receive more detailed information on preparing for your business analyst job interview.)

How Do I Get Rid of the Hesitation?

It’s quite simple, actually. You use a technique that everyone who has ever excelled at anything uses…from classic pianists to professional football players. It’s so simple yet very often overlooked.

It’s called practice.

Practice?

Yes, you practice answering possible business analyst job interview questions, just like you would practice complicated set of chords or catching passes.

Why Is This Necessary?

When we rewrite our resume to emphasize our most relevant business analysis skills and experiences, it should be expected that we need to practice using these new terms to talk about our experience. After all, until we put the experience into words in our resume, we probably never thought about what we’d done in so much detail or using those words. And if we’re honestly and appropriately word-smithing, the terminology is going to feel a little unnatural.

And that’s perfectly OK. You are not expected to go from talking your old way to talking as a BA overnight.

Just like a football star doesn’t wake up on game day and catch touchdown passes.

Just like a classic pianist doesn’t walk into a concert and play a flawless Beethoven Sonata. (In fact, anecdotal evidence from my musician friends indicates that they practice 4 or more hours each day, even if they are not preparing for a specific gig.)

Being a star or even being good enough doesn’t happen naturally. It takes work. And it’s worth it.

Set Aside the Time

You don’t have to practice for a job interview 4 hours a day, but practicing a total of 4 hours or maybe even 8 wouldn’t necessarily be a bad idea, especially if you are new to the language of business analysis, skill solidifying your business analyst skills, and haven’t interviewed for awhile.

A bit of discipline goes a long way to ensure you are not overlooked for the right opportunity just because you don’t communicate about your qualifications with confidence.

>>Go Into Your Next Interview with Confidence

Pick up the BA Job Interview Prep Guide that walks you through the essential steps you need to take to prepare for your first or next business analyst job interview.

Click here to get your copy of the BA Job Interview Prep Guide

With this much attention on the topic of transferable skills let’s take a deeper dive into those skills and see what skills this includes.  The debate of hard skills vs. soft skills, which are best, has been around almost since the inception of business analysis as a discipline.  You obtain skills by practice and the best way to practice is during the duties of your job.  An old baseball coach of mine would say:

“Practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent”.

His point is how you practice a process is how you will learn to accomplish that process.  If you practice a process {whether swinging a baseball bat or eliciting requirements} wrong, you will always do it wrong.  If you practice it right, you will always do it right.  So as you practice your skills day in and day out during the duties of your job, learn from your mistakes and strive to do better next time.

Now that the pep talk is over, what skills can help you transition into a business analysis skills?  It is difficult to practice those hard skills prior to getting that first business analysis job, but as many those writers mentioned above have noted, and those of us who have transitioned into business analysis careers know, you often perform business analysis tasks prior to getting that Business Analyst job title.  Even then, it is the soft skills underlying and supporting those hard skills that are most transferable from career arena to career arena.  These soft skills are also transferable from industry to industry, or line of business to line of business that assist a Business Analyst to move to a new area with ease.  For those reasons I will concentrate on the transferable soft skills.

Soft Skill #1 – Interpersonal Savvy

Many people would start off by talking about communication (oral and written) and active listening.  I combine these communication skills with Be Approachable, Influencing, Negotiation, Trustworthiness and Ethics. Interpersonal Savvy is about how you communicate and interact with other people.

• How comfortable are you in interacting with other people, especially when you have to influence them or negotiate with them.
• How comfortable are you in working with project teams, business and technical team members.

I include trustworthiness and ethics in these skills because the Business Analyst must build trust among those project team members and other stakeholders and serve as a base for influencing and negotiating power; and of course, acting with the utmost ethics is how you build trust, especially in handling proprietary or confidential information of a particular stakeholder or group of stakeholders.

Soft Skill #2 – Learning

Nobody knows everything, and if you think you do then it is probably time to move on to something else.  Many stay in their comfort zone and stop growing and learning.  Many Business Analysts move from project team to project team, line of business to line of business, or industry to industry; as you move into a new arena learning new processes, people and intricacies.  Often very quickly you have to learn how they do things and terminology.  If part of your job duties is identifying process improvement, you have to learn the current process before you can recommend improvement.

Soft Skill #3 – Teamwork

The Business Analyst does not operate in a vacuum; they often work within a project team.  Even Enterprise Business Analysts work with teams, or at least other people, to develop business cases.   In today’s business environment the team may be geographically dispersed but working within that team remains a necessity to getting work done.  Personal organization is an important skill when working within a team.  You must be ready to work on a task when the team is ready.  If you are always fumbling through, or trying to find, notes to find important information then you hinder the progress of the work. So Time Management and Collaboration become important underlying skills when working with a team.

Soft Skill #4 – Building Relationships

As noted above, the Business Analyst does not work in a vacuum. Building relationships with both business and technical team members is an important skill to develop to be effective.   All the skills mention above assist in being able to build relationships.  Being able to communicate and comfortable working with others, learning from others and working with others all are a part of building relationships. Having an interest in and understanding a person’s viewpoint, interests and agenda are important factors in building the relationship.  This does not say that you have to agree with the individual, but if you determine that building a relationship with this individual is important to your effectiveness as a business analyst, then understanding that individual will make you effective at building that relationship.

Soft Skill #5 – Facilitation

You can’t talk about the soft skills of a business analyst without mentioning Facilitation. Not all business analysts have to facilitate large group discussions among a large group of stakeholders, but facilitation of discussions and relationships is an important skill for a business analyst.  Knowing what the goal of the discussion helps guide the discussion along the path toward that goal and reduces tangent discussions.  When in that large group facilitation, having a scribe for those discussions always proves worthwhile as it is very difficult to guide that discussion while trying to take minutes at the same time.  If needed, volunteer to scribe for another business analyst if they will scribe for your group discussions.

So there is the list of soft skills you should strive to develop when considering a career in business analysis. So as Laura says in her 5 Steps to Becoming a BA: confirm your career choice, and then identify these soft skills you already possess and leverage those to assist you in transitioning into the career that you have chosen.  Along with identifying those skills you have, identify those that you need to improve in; and be ready to always be learning.

>>Get Hired as a BA

Our 5-step business analyst job search process will walk you through what you need to do to get hired as a business analyst.

Click here to learn more about the BA job search process

Wendy Stookesberry was a software developer. She documented a business process for her software development team in June of 2012. She had already taken one of our career planning courses and she knew she wanted to be a business analyst. But in her current software development role she didn’t have a lot of opportunities for customer interaction or to do business analysis work.

At first, she wasn’t sure about moving forward with the business process analysis course because it meant getting buy-in from her manager to document one of their software development processes, and she wasn’t sure how this request would go over.

But her offer to document a business process was well-received and she was assigned to documenting a current state development process in which the team was exploring some automation opportunities. After a few weeks of working through the process documentation, Wendy presented her document to the management team. It (and she) got rave reviews and she was asked to do more work like this and was even called into a customer requirements meeting, something that didn’t typically happen to software developers in her organization.

Since then, Wendy has continued to offer her skills up to the organization and take on business analysis responsibilities – she’s created a virtuous cycle of one BA task leading to another.A little over six months later, Wendy officially moved into her new position as a business analyst in this organization.

Dave Wolf is a software developer. In his organization, there are no business analysts, but there are project managers who do some business analysis. Nearly all of the project managers come from an engineering background and hold an engineering degree as well as a PMP. David has a degree in Economics and extensive experience in a variety of IT roles.

In mid-2012, David started his business analysis career journey by documenting the process his software development team uses to test and release new software. From this experience, he realized that even while he may never break down the barriers to becoming a business analyst in his current organization, he could expand his relevant experience so that he is employable as a business analyst outside of his organization. Since documenting that process, David has reached out to the project managers to cultivate stronger relationships and surface opportunities. He’s stepped up to create some technical documentation that has many parallels to a requirements specification.

A recent event created an influx of new business for his organization. The project managers are overwhelmingly busy and David has stepped up to fill some of the project management and analysis tasks on his projects. He’s also started to build some client-facing interaction during project meetings. Along the way, he’s decided that he’d prefer a role where he can keep a few toes in software development, but also do some analysis. And he’s well on his way to either creating that role internally or qualifying himself for a BA role in a new organization.

We were able to check in with Dave in August 2013, and here’s an update on his path to business analysis.

I recently passed the PMP and, as predicted, this lead to more BA type work in my current position as software developer.

I’m presently serving as the liaison between the company I work for and three contractors. Together we have been hired by a state agency coordinating the design and implementation of a series of web services designed to serve as the interfaces for passing data and files back and forth to support the process of conducting field assessments, documenting storm damage, and assigning and monitoring contractors.

This project has given me the opportunity to strengthen my skills in several critical areas including leading meetings, interacting with stakeholders, and designing and documenting business processes. In fact, I developed the first detailed process document for this project which became a hit and was frequently quoted and used as a template in subsequent meetings several levels above me.

I’m learning a lot, developing confidence and hope to use this experience to help transition to a more defined BA role either in my current company or elsewhere.

Thanks for sharing your story Dave. We look forward to seeing your continued success in the business analysis profession!

So this begs the question, what does success look like?

I believe that each of you owns your future and your career direction. I can’t tell you that you should be making $82,493 per year (which is the average salary of a business analyst, according to the most recent, but dated business analyst salary survey), or that you should be creating business cases or leading your team to create better software. I can’t tell you what your success looks like. That has to come from you.

But I can tell you what kinds of success others have found. Let’s take Rob Jowaisis as an example. Rob has shared the start of his BA career journey with us – just last week. You might read Rob’s story and say, “Well, he’s not done yet.” I say, “Of course he’s not done! Are you done?” I’m not done.

We’re done with our careers when we retire, and maybe not even then. Rob’s story is a success story. Rob is being financially rewarded for a job he likes and a job that is giving him opportunities to expand his business analysis experience. Rob is very close to closing the deal on a life-long dream of getting a college degree. Rob is a man with a mission. He is paying the price now for a greater tomorrow. He is a success. If Rob waits until he achieves every part of his dream to celebrate, he’ll lose out on enjoying the amazing journey he’s on.

Let’s take another example. One of our recent course participants, we’ll call her Jo, jumped on an opportunity to analyze a process for a local small business. Jo tackled one of their most complex and error-ridden processes. In the matter of a few hours of discovery and several more of analysis, she was able to put together that process in an easy-to-understand document.

They were so impressed, they asked her to come back and help implement the obvious improvements that were needed. What’s more, the business owner is well-connected locally and willing to make introductions to organizations that can employ Jo full-time.

Is she employed yet as a BA? Not the last time I checked (but she had just secured a second BA job interview from talking about this pro bono work experience).

Is she a success? Absolutely, and without question, yes.

The question is, what does success look like to you?

In essence, success doesn’t have to be about achieving a big milestone. That’s not to say that milestones such as new jobs and promotions aren’t important. They are.

• But that meeting where you leveraged a new communication technique and earned a new stakeholder’s trust and created a happier conversation for both of you? That’s a success.
• That pilot project you did using a new business analysis technique? That’s a success.
• That contract job that in the best of worlds leads to a full-time opportunity, and in the worst of scenarios expands your business analysis experience? Success.

I can tell you what it looks like to me and when I see it in others, but only you will know what it looks like to you. My challenge to you is not to blow success up into something so big you never achieve it. Make it small. Celebrate now. And you’ll get to those big successes much, much sooner.

The only failure is absence of forward progress. Failure is not experimenting with the new technique because you might not get it right. Failure is not sending your resume because you might hear “No.”  You are too special for that. Your life is too short to be doing less than fulfilling work. Your life is too short to wait until later to be fairly compensated.

We are a community of business analysts. We make change. We improve organizations. The world needs us to do what we do. The world needs your successes – the big and the small.

Laura reached out to me to see if I would create a blog about my ongoing journey to become a Business Analyst.

First a little bit about me. I graduated high school in 1996 and went to a small private college in St. Augustine, Florida called Flagler College. As I entered college I first wanted to be a History major so that was my declared field of study upon enrolling in classes. I then decided that no, while I loved History, I wanted to do something that might lead to better job opportunities. I kind of became a Business/Spanish major. After struggling to focus on what exactly I wanted to do, I decided I wanted to remain closer to home.

I returned to my hometown of Richmond, VA and for a time worked part-time and took classes at a community college. I took some time off from school in 1999 and that was when I decided to get into IT. I initially wanted to go in to network management as I frequently heard radio pitches like, “Learn Microsoft Windows NT! Become a MCSE! Make $80K a year!” I eventually decided I wanted to go back to school and get an IT-related degree. In May 2001 I finished a 2-year Associate’s degree in Business Administration at a local community college. I then transferred to Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Business to study Information Systems. I still thought I wanted to be a Network Admin/Engineer so that was going to be my focus.

I knew right away that the programming classes were going to be a challenge for me. One class I found interesting, however, was Systems Analysis and Design. That was the first time I thought, “If only there were a position out there where I could be a part of the SDLC but not have to do any coding.”

Although I made progress towards my degree, I needed to move towards working full-time.  In the summer of 2003 I studied for and passed two entry level technician certifications, A+ and Network+ , to help make up for my lack of overall work experience. I started getting some short-term desktop support related positions. By the end of 2005, I had a full-time position making decent money. School had been pushed to the side.

In the course of looking for work, I did see postings for “Business Analyst” positions, but didn’t understand the exact job function. My Information Systems program at VCU even started a BA track but I had already taken my Network Management classes so I didn’t want to go back and take any extraneous classes that wouldn’t count towards earning my degree. After several years of working various desktop support positions I knew I didn’t want to be in this field forever. I also came to the realization that computer networking didn’t interest me anymore. In Fall 2010, my mind turned to Business Analysis again and I purchased Laura’s book, How To Start A Business Analyst Career. I eventually read through it over the next year and it struck me how nebulous the path to becoming a BA was.

I became unemployed in July, 2011 and thought that this might be a good time to try a switch from desktop support to a new career. Unfortunately, that would prove to be difficult as my work history was firmly in desktop support, with few transferable skills. That fall I did take Laura’s free BA career planning course,  and in January 2012 I took part in one of her webinars. This course was effective in allowing me to look at my current career in a different light.

I finally obtained employment in late spring 2012, again in the field of desktop support.

Now that I’m employed again, I’ve still been wondering about how best to “bend” my current career towards a path that might ultimately lead to a BA role. In perusing various message boards, I’ve seen some people say that an IT-related degree isn’t that important. I only have three classes left so I’m still intent, both for professional and personal reasons, to complete my Bachelor’s degree. So that still remains an important goal for me. One of the classes I did take was in Project Management. This class qualified me to take the Certified Associate in Project Management, so taking and passing that certification is also a goal of mine.

More immediately, and before I resume taking classes in January, I’d like to study and take the ITIL 2011 Foundation exam. One of the common terms I discovered while looking for employment on job boards was ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library). I was not very familiar with the subject but I’ve discovered that it might be just the ticket for me to transition from desktop support to BA. ITIL uses a set of best practices to implement and integrate IT service management into the overall business. It’s steeped in various processes, process analysis, and specific types of inputs and outputs, not unlike Project Management and Business Analysis.

>>Take a Step Forward Toward Your BA Career Goal

Start your business analyst career with our free step-by-step career planning course. Upon joining, you’ll also receive our BA career planning guide and follow-up insider tips via email.

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Today we meet Neslon Colon, a Bridging the Gap reader who has made the transition to business systems analysis at a New York financial services firm after a twelve year background in the Air Force.  Nelson has leveraged a combination of targeted education and making an impact during a summer internship to break into the BA profession.

Here’s Nelson’s story:

First and foremost, I would like to thank you very much for creating this Web site. This Web site has interesting resources regarding the business analyst role. Currently, I am a student majoring in computer information systems. I am planning to graduate next May. This will be the second undergraduate degree that I am pursuing. My first bachelor’s degree is in aviation, with a minor in management.

Please allow me to tell you about my background. I spent twelve years in the Air Force. My role in the Air Force was an aircraft electrician. As an non-commissioned officer in the military, I was responsible for supervising and training up to ten people. Additionally, I was responsible for maintaining training records and Web-based maintenance record databases. Throughout my military career, I deployed around the world in support of military operations.

This summer, I interned for a major financial services firm in New York as a business systems analyst. Within the firm, I was employed in the business unit that is responsible for the firm’s information technology infrastructure. I managed one shared mailbox and two SharePoint sites. Additionally, I was part of a team that introduced a mobile application that provides technology support for employees, as well as update a technology product catalog.

Most importantly, I frequently communicated between end users and information technology professionals throughout the firm. This internship provided me with experience that I would not gain in college. This September, I was offered a full-time position with the firm, which I accepted. Next July, I will begin my employment with the firm. I am looking forward to a great career as a business analyst.

This January, I am participating in a study-abroad program to Shanghai, China. After graduation, I plan to enroll in a graduate program in business. I strongly believe that these two programs will provide me with additional skills needed in the global business environment.

Please join me in congratulating Nelson!

Are you confident in your ability to create formal requirements specifications just like a tried and true business analyst would?

Let’s look at how business analysts approach requirements specifications, what a hiring manager is looking for when they ask for experience with specific templates, and how to determine what your real capabilities are in creating requirements specifications.

How BAs Approach Requirements Specifications

If you begin to look at formal templates and BA methodologies, this can quickly become overwhelming. Sure, there are some big templates out there and you can find formal work samples well in excess of 50 pages, but the reality is that the best business analysts, in my not-so-humble opinion, create documentation that meets the need at hand, even if that means it doesn’t look very formal.

Yes, they might leverage their own repository of templates as a starting point or a checklist of questions to ensure the document is of high quality, but they realize the structure itself is not as important as the usefulness of the document in the context of the project and the stakeholder group. At their best, templates and checklists provide a structure that give you a starting point and can help improve your analysis processes.

Let’s look at some interesting examples that blend a user focus with just enough structure to be useful.

• Tony Heap gives us an example of a graphical functional specification that combines anything-goes diagrams with context diagrams and graphical use cases.
• I share my experience creating a user interface specification to document visual requirements as well as the various ways I’ve used use cases, even if it meant combining the “what” and the “how”.
• And here, Adriana Beal shares how she has used a wiki to manage requirements.

In each of these cases above, the business analyst has leveraged pieces of what you might find in a formal template and presented the information in such a way that it is easier for their stakeholder audience to consume, approve, and use.

What Are Hiring Managers Looking For?

While all of this can be true, what do you make of the job qualifications that speak to BRDs (Business Requirements Documents), SRSs (Software Requirements Specifications), Scope Documents, Vision Documents, Product Backlogs, User Stories, Business Process Models, etc.?

Well, before providing an answer, let’s do a little analysis of what a hiring manager might be looking for when they add such a qualification to their job description.

• They need someone who can package the requirements in a usable way (and their understanding of usable might mean by using a specific template).
• They need someone who can write requirements clearly and using unambiguous language.
• They need someone who can elicit the information and analyze the requirements so that the specification can be created in the first place.

Your skills in creating informal documentation, if it’s clear documentation that was usable by stakeholders and served a project need, satisfies the lion share of these requirements. Your skills eliciting and analyzing requirements at the level required by the requested requirements specification (business or process-related requirements for a BRD, scope document, or business process model, and functional requirements for an SRS, Use Case, or functional work-flow), will also be critical. The template or package is secondary.

But how do I convince a hiring manager of this, you ask? Well, let’s get to that next.

How Do I Determine My Requirements Specifications Capabilities?

You still need to be able to speak authoritatively as to how your documentation experience relates to what you will do in a business analyst role and specifically to the business analyst skills required by a job you might be interviewing for. Luckily, there is a simple way to cultivate this understanding so you can present yourself as capable of doing similar specifications.

Here’s my suggestion.

1. Download some “standard” templates. (My Business Analyst Template Toolkit is a good starting place.)
2. Go back to your old documentation. Remember what problem you were trying to solve in the first place and the context in which this deliverable fit into the project.
3. Rework your documentation using a more standard template. Make sure you leverage the new template to solve that same problem – this might mean consciously removing a specific section or adding a new one. You’ll be working here as a BA would do, not mindlessly copying and pasting information into a template, but making conscious decisions about how to best present information to your stakeholder group.

After completing this exercise, you should be confident that you could create a new deliverable in the standard format if required. You will also have a work sample you can present in a business analyst job interview. If you are not completely confident after going through this process, ask a senior BA to review your work and provide concrete feedback for how to leverage the template and communicate information to your stakeholder audience. And don’t forget to update your resume. Use that BA terminology to describe what you did on that past project. Because, hey, you just proved you could do it.

Build Your Documentation Skills

For help applying the standard structures to make your documentation more formal or, just as important, improving the language you use in specifications so that it’s clear and unambiguous and solves the problem at hand, we do have some courses that can help. Business Process Analysis and Use Cases and Wireframes would be good choices. Each provides templates you can use to structure your documentation, work samples you can review, and include instructor feedback on your deliverables.

• You hit roadblocks; you work around them.
• You don’t hear from anyone for months then you get 5 interviews in one week.
• You plug along adding value, getting very little feedback, and then seemingly out-of-the-blue you learn about a new internal opportunity.

Anyone who has successfully made a BA career change will tell you that when that opportunity came, it felt quite serendipitous. As much as we love to plan, we cannot plan a career transition in a perfectly linear step-by-step way. They are simply too unpredictable because you are at the mercy of many factors you can’t directly control.

I’ve watched a lot of people navigate this career change. Here are the signs I look for to know they are moving, not stuck.

#1 – You are Meeting Concrete Goals

When we put together professional development plans, a common tendency is to capture a set of activities we can do, but not make them very concrete. Here are some examples:

• Make LinkedIn connections.
• Go to networking meetings.
• Learn new skills.

#2 – You are Applying Your Training

I always get nervous when someone emails me and starts by listing the various training courses they’ve participated in. Participating in training is not itself progress. (Yes, this is coming from someone who provides business analysis training for a living!) Leveraging what you learn to take on new responsibilities or identify transferable skills is progress. Training can help you do that.

Someone with traction in their career is engaging in purposeful learning. They have specific expectations as to what they will achieve through training and are taking action based on those expectations. They also happen to be my favorite type of customer because I get to see them do amazing things and feel a small part of their success.

But I digress. Let’s move on to sign #3 that you are making progress and not spinning, even if you are not seeing big success signs all around you.

#3 – You are Getting Calls

If you are searching for a job, you are getting calls about potential jobs and landing some job interviews. They might not all be a perfect fit. But, if you compare the calls you are getting this month to those from last month, they are, relatively speaking, a closer fit to what you are looking for.

#4 – You are Hearing “No”

This one might be counter-intuitive, so let me explain.

• “No” is different than the dead silence of no response.
• “No” typically comes with information as to why your qualifications are not a good fit for a particular opportunity.
• “No” is not a rejection of you. It’s a “not now” or “not in this situation” or “not a good fit.”

Dead silence does not help you at all, which is what often happens if your career transition activities are limited to submitting 10 job applications a day via a job board or participating in self-learning without sharing the results of your work. If you are only getting dead silence from your activities, you might be busy, but you are not making progress.

If you are hearing “no,” you are putting yourself in a position to learn, and thereby making some progress. Which leads me to my next point.

#5 – You Are Learning From the Marketplace

In my philosophy training, I learned about a concept called “arm chair experiments.” The idea was you sit in a big comfy arm chair, consider a set of hypotheses, and then think through the implications of those hypotheses. You emerge a more enlightened soul, but you haven’t necessarily proved anything.

In the context of a career transition, you can get stuck in arm chair experiments too. Or, you can do things that give you real information, such as talk to recruiters, apply to jobs and follow-up on your applications, and discuss career options with your manager.

It’s easy to sit back and make a set of assumptions about how your experience will be valued. And it’s easy to do so and be wrong.

Those who are putting out a consistent stream of feelers have real information to work with and are moving forward. Those who are conducting arm chair experiments are stuck trusting their own (often mistaken) assumptions.

#6 – You Are Validating Your Learning

Sometimes I’ll hear someone say that one recruiter told them X was a bad idea. And they stopped doing X. Oftentimes X is something very worthwhile, like soliciting LinkedIn recommendations, applying to jobs just a slice beyond their qualifications, or reaching out directly to hiring managers.

Yes, feedback from the job market is important, but it’s also important to validate one person’s opinion against those of others and to understand why this particular person is giving you this particular piece of advice. Questioning well-intentioned advice gives you a broader perspective and helps you avoid being busy without making progress.

#7 – You are Revising Your Approach

A career transition is a learning process. Every time you submit a resume, interview for a job, or talk to another business analyst you can learn something about your local BA job market and the value of your experience.

This means that your plan will change. You might start pursuing opportunities internally and switch your focus to transitional roles at new organizations. Or vice versa. You might switch from applying to 10 random jobs per day to submitting custom, well-researched applications to 5 on-target jobs per week.

As long as you are setting concrete goals, learning from the marketplace, and validating your learning, you will revise your approach as many times as you need to until you achieve your career goal.

Career transitions are not a linear process. Revisions are a sign of progress.

The Most Important Thing

The most important thing not to do is to substitute effort for progress. The most important thing to do is look for any external sign of success and celebrate it.

In fact, if you’d like a little dose of celebration and an idea of what success look like, I suggest checking out this post next:

http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/what-does-success-look-like/

TH worked in a variety of industries that all utilized her requirements elicitation and analysis skills, with a particular focus on solving organizational and data tracking issues. While in a business development and knowledge management role, she advanced her requirements elicitation and analysis skills through documenting requirements and creating process flows.

Now in her first role as an official BA, she elicits, analyzes, documents and manages requirements as part of an agile software development team. The key’s to TH’s success were exploring the resources available at Bridging the Gap which led her to understand just how much her past and current experiences aligned with the work of a business analyst.

She was originally skeptical about how helpful the How to Start a BA Career book would be, but was pleasantly surprised at how comprehensive it was.  TH also found a lot of valuable information using the search feature of Bridging the Gap and wants to thank all of the contributors for providing great original content as well as linking to great content at similar sites.

Three final keys to her success where:

• Joining IIBA
• Studying the BABOK, and
• Speaking with business analyst she discovered in her personal network.

Please join me in congratulating TH!

Nope, not at all.

In business analysis, your experience counts. Big time.

Of course, not all experience counts. If you’ve been pumping gas on a boat dock or waiting tables (I’ve done both), you won’t have a lot of relevant experience to draw from. (Though Adrian Reed made the case that your customer service skills will be an asset in your business analysis career.) I’ve also seen professionals from technical support, training, sales, recruiting, and accounting identify relevant experience. And I’m sure I could eek some relevant professional experience out of tutoring elementary school students, working the library reference desk, and even my role as an assistant editor at a large publishing company.

And then there are roles that just plain include business analysis responsibilities. For example, I re-framed a part of my experience as a Quality Assurance Engineer and Systems Analyst as part of the qualifying hours I documented for the CBAP exam. I’ve also seen individuals from the technical writing, project management, general management, consulting, and software engineering professions skip right into full-fledged business analyst roles and do really well.

The short story is, if you can pull together a mix of related experiences (aka transferable skills) from amongst several professional roles related to business analysis, you might just have the makings of a tried and true business analyst.

Not “junior.”

Not “entry-level.”

Just “Business Analyst.”

You might be thinking that this is just another strategy that happens to work for some professionals, especially those professionals that have more experience than you or who aren’t quite so new to the profession. The thing is, that it’s actually the most common path to business analysis I see work, at all, even for professionals who start out thinking that they don’t have much relevant experience to draw from.

Let’s look at a few examples.

Joan Davis shared her story of transitioning from the HR department to an IT intern. After applying to many internal jobs unsuccessfully, she decided on a different approach.

Eventually I had a heart-to-heart with the IT Department Head, recapping my assets as someone who was capable of comparable work plus knowledgeable of the business side, someone that might soon be lost to a competitor given no other choice. Read the entire post.

As Michelle Swoboda advised one of our readers, based on her own experience in overcoming a tough local job market:

All your skills are transferable and you can translate your resume into the career that you are passionate about – just find out what that is!  It is well worth the time and energy. Read the entire post.

Even recent college grads can make use of this strategy. Eric used professional experienced he gained in his first year out of college to position himself as more experienced and therefore ready for the BA role.

I identified the skills and experiences in my background that would be relevant to a BA role and rewrote my resume so that it would reflect those skills and experiences. I then targeted BA (or similar) positions that didn’t require more than 2 to 3 years of work experience. Although I only had only 7 months of work experience out of college, I was able to persuade my interviewers that I was more than capable of performing the job. I actually ended up with two offers for BA positions. Read the entire post.

Your skills are relevant and valuable and could help you secure a business analyst position that’s well-beyond the entry-level designation. But first you must discover what those skills are and be confident in how your experience is relevant.

Click here to read an article about how to discover your transferable skills

>> Find Your Path Into Business Analysis

After reading and working through the exercises in How to Start a Business Analyst Career, you’ll know how to assess and expand your business analysis skills and experience.

This book will help you find your best path forward into a business analyst career. More than that, you will know exactly what to do next to expand your business analysis opportunities.

Click here to learn more about How to Start a Business Analyst Career

Laura: Why did you decide to pursue a business analysis career?

Eric: It was a career path that I was exposed to while still in school. My IT professors would tell us from day one that they were teaching us to fit the role of a BA, meaning that they intended for us to act as the bridge between business and IT. They would constantly harp about the business value of technology and how the business drives the strategic direction of IT (not the other way around).

My major was a mix of technical and non-technical coursework, ranging from web development and database development to project management and business analysis. We were exposed to many business analysis concepts, such as the requirements life cycle and various software development methodologies. I became especially interested in my BA coursework, which is why I decided to pursue that career path.

However, becoming a BA was a secondary choice for me. I really wanted to be an IT consultant, but unfortunately, I didn’t quite make it there. I decided to pursue a BA career because I view a BA as almost like an internal consultant. I hope that someday I will reach my goal of becoming an IT consultant, but in the meantime I intend to learn as much as I can and to be as successful as I can in a BA role.

Laura: How did you end up in your first BA position?

Eric: I graduated from the University of Denver in 2011. However, finding a BA position right out of college proved to be incredibly difficult because entry level BA positions are almost nonexistent, with a few exceptions. As a result, many of my classmates went to work for IT consulting firms, which specifically hire and train college grads for the role.

I also sought an IT consulting position, but I couldn’t find one in the Denver area. I would’ve had to move out of state to work as a consultant (which is what happened to all of my classmates). Instead of leaving Colorado, I decided to pursue a BA role, which I managed to eventually find. Before starting as a BA, I accepted a role performing IT audits for external clients at a public accounting firm.  I started my business analysis career as a Junior SharePoint Business Analyst in March of 2012.

Laura: What was the interview process like?

Eric: When I was still in school, I interviewed with 8 or 9 different companies. A few were small, and the role they characterized as a BA role wasn’t a true BA role. Most of the other firms I interviewed with were major IT consulting firms. Unfortunately, I didn’t receive offers from the IT consulting firms because my interview skills weren’t very strong, and the firms were rather selective in their interview process.

I did interview for a true BA role at a large insurance company, which is where I had my last internship, but I didn’t receive an offer there either. My interview with that insurance company was probably the most difficult one I had because they asked me interview questions that essentially required previous BA experience, e.g. “Tell me about a time when you had to facilitate a meeting” or “Tell me about a time when you successfully gathered requirements.”

I eventually settled for my previous job at a public accounting firm, which I thought would involve Information Security consulting. I realized later that I was actually an IT auditor (I had no concept of IT auditing going into the job).

I didn’t learn how to successfully interview for a BA role until after I had an interview for a BA position in January of this year. The interview didn’t go as well as I would have hoped, and I didn’t receive an offer. The disappointment became a catalyst that caused me to seriously reflect on my past interview experiences.

I decided to rethink how I would approach all my interviews going forward. I identified the skills and experiences in my background that would be relevant to a BA role and rewrote my resume so that it would reflect those skills and experiences. I then targeted BA (or similar) positions that didn’t require more than 2 to 3 years of work experience. Although I only had only 7 months of work experience out of college, I was able to persuade my interviewers that I was more than capable of performing the job. I actually ended up with two offers for BA positions.

Laura: What do you consider as the keys to your success?

Eric: The keys to my success were identifying the skills and experiences in my background that were applicable to a BA role, and the posts and stories at Bridging the Gap helped me do that. For example, my role as an IT auditor at a public accounting firm was entirely client facing. As part of each audit, I had to perform interviews with both business process owners and IT process owners to understand the processes around business process controls and IT general controls.

Also, despite the fact that my resume doesn’t have years of work experience, I found a way to leverage my youth to my advantage. I would convince prospective employers that although I lack experience, I am not set in my ways (I can be molded), and I am enthusiastic about learning. That argument worked especially well for roles that candidates were expected to grow into.

Laura: Late in 2012, Eric was able to provide an update for us. It’s interesting to see how a career can progress!

Eric: Since I started my position as a SharePoint Business Analyst earlier this year, my responsibilities have undergone some interesting changes. Although my title includes Business Analyst, in reality I wear many different hats. I take on many roles, including that of business analyst, administrator, help desk and developer, all of which revolve around SharePoint. I guess a better title to describe my position would be Technical Business Analyst because I’m involved in the more technical aspects of the platform while still performing client facing work. Such a role is possible in my organization because it is relatively small, and I’m the only person dedicated full time to SharePoint.

Lately I’ve found myself doing more and more development work, although most of it involves no code solutions and minor front end coding. However, I’m slowly transitioning into heavier coding, which may include developing custom solutions using C#. I don’t know if that means I may become more of a developer than a business analyst. Nevertheless, my company intends for me to continue juggling my multiple roles for the foreseeable future.

Thanks Eric for sharing your story! Please join me in congratulating Eric on his new BA role and wishing him a long, exciting career in business analysis and, eventually, IT consulting!

When exploring a career change, there are a lot of things you can be doing. Equally important are making sure you avoid the activities that won’t help you clarify your decision.

#1. Underestimate Your Relevant Experience

Ever run a meeting, ask a question, or clarify an assignment? Your professional experience is a goldmine. When considering business analysis, don’t underestimate the value of your professional experience and assume you’ve got to go for an entry-level business analyst position.

#2. Read the BABOK

Many new business analysts pick up the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge  and get frustrated that it doesn’t teach them what they want to know about the profession. Reading the BABOK is time-consuming, can be frustrating even for experienced BAs, and is very important once you’ve established yourself in the profession. Rest assured there will be plenty of time in your business analysis career to tackle this tome. Now is not the time.

#3. Go It Alone

The BA community is a vibrant and collaborative group of people. Find a mentor. Take a training class. Join a LinkedIn group and participate in the discussions. There are lots of BAs willing to share their time and advice to help you figure out what your best path to business analysis might be. Seek them out and make them part of your professional network.

#4. Assume IIBA is Only For Established Business Analysts

IIBA is for professionals at all career levels, and that includes you. When you are considering business analysis, you’ll meet many helpful BAs at your local chapter meetings. Often these cost between $5 and $10 for non-members and attending a few meetings is a great way to learn more about the profession.

As soon as you decide to pursue a business analysis career, the webinar resources and online library are worth the cost of membership alone. (For a rundown on how your IIBA membership will help you get started as a business analyst, check out this public IIBA webinar I hosted.)

#5. Leave your Resume Just the Way It Is

Your current resume got you the job you are in now, right? That doesn’t mean it will get you a job in a different career. If you’ve begun circulating your resume and not received the response you were hoping for, your experience might not be the issue…but your resume might be! If you want to find out if your qualifications stack up for a BA job, you’ll need to be creatively honest and start revising your resume.

#6. Make a Snap Decision

Career changes represent significant investments in time and energy. In this instructional video, Professor Herminia Ibarr at INSEAD and 13-year Harvard Business School faculty member, said that an average career change takes three years. This is not something you want to jump into after a miscue with your boss or because you were bored with your last project.

On a more positive note, career changes can happen much faster with persistence, focus, and a bit of luck. The more you do to position yourself and put yourself in the line of BA opportunities, the more quickly you’ll make the transition.

#7. Over-Analyze the Decision

On the other hand, if you are going to be a good BA, chances are you like to analyze things. I know I do. And analysis and critical thinking has its place, especially when making a career change. But there is a difference between analyzing to make a good, informed decision and getting stuck in analysis paralysis. You come out of the analysis that goes into an informed decision self-confident and ready to create a change.  You might never come out of analysis paralysis and if you do, you feel stuck, unsure, and your actions tend to be haphazard.

>>Plan Your Next Step with a Free Course

You might be wondering exactly what steps you can take to get moving the fastest towards a BA career. We offer a free step-by-step BA career planning course that will help you figure out your next step.

Click here to learn more about how to start your BA career

Hello, I am very interested in becoming a business analyst, the only problem is I have no idea where to begin. One main question I have is what do I need to study in college that can lead me to the point of becoming a BA? I understand that the term “BA” can be a general term, however I am looking for the best path to take getting there. Please keep in mind I have started some classes in IT as a network specialist but have withdrawn from the courses at my school, due to me discovering that BA is the career I wish to pursue. Please help, any information you can give me in regards to this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Laura’s answer:

There are two main tenets of thought on how your studies in college relate to your career options after college. The first is to use your college experience to broaden your mind and thinking, pursuing a liberal arts education that may have little direct applicability to your future career. The second is to use your time in college to pursue training in a specific vocation and plant the seeds of your future career while an undergraduate.

To reveal my biases, I attended a liberal arts college and dual-majored in Philosophy and English. I didn’t start thinking about a career until my senior year when it became apparent to me that the continued education/professorship path was not a good fit. I remember many, many conversations with my parents talking about what I wanted to be when I grow up. I fought with the answer and fought the need for an answer. After college, as you can imagine, I found myself very satisfied with my college years but without any great career prospects. I managed to land an assistant editor job at a local publishing company and proceeded to work myself up from there, eventually landing in a business analyst role that would be the foundation for my first real “career.”

If I had to pick one college class that was the most helpful to me as a BA, Introduction to Logic would be it. In my first months as a BA, as I fought to think through designing systems, the concepts kept coming back to me. It turns out, there were a lot of parallels between picking apart a logical argument and designing a coherent system! While Aristotle did not teach me to write use cases, he sure taught me to think critically. And that has always been important as a business analyst.

I know many, many other BAs with similar stories. So, on the one hand, it may not really matter what you study in college, as long as you are learning and growing intellectually in a meaningful way.

But I know that many do not pursue education the same way I did, and are looking to build the seeds of a vocation while an undergrad in college.

I think an ideal background for a business analysis role would include courses in the following areas:

• Communication
• Analysis/Problem-Solving Process
• Logic
• Public Speaking
• Facilitation
• Relationship Building
• Finance
• General Business
• A dash of the Business Analysis Fundamentals

How can you take this and apply it to your selection of an undergraduate major or program?

A lot of the advice regarding specific courses really depends on what programs your college offers. You might choose an “off topic” liberal arts degree that interests you and add some electives in business analysis so you leave college with an awareness of the core business analysis skills. Or, you might choose a more formal “BA” degree and make liberal use of your electives to choose from courses in fields such as sales, marketing, business, philosophy, psychology, and English to broaden your perspective.

Regardless, when you leave college, be prepared to build some professional experience outside the BA profession, as that’s where you’ll build the professional experience and transferable skills that will lead you to a business analyst job within a few years of graduating. You can accelerate this path by using your summers to work in internship programs.

And if you are a mid-career professional, here is a different approach to become a business analyst.

>>Are You Ready to Hit “Go”?

Start your business analyst career with our free step-by-step career planning course. Upon joining, you’ll also receive our BA career planning guide and follow-up insider tips via email.

Click here to learn more about the free course

(By the way, I want to be sure you know that you can download my free BA Job Interview Prep Guide and receive more detailed information on preparing for your business analyst job interview.)

What is a Behavioral Interview Question?

Behavioral interview questions ask the candidate to give concrete examples of how and when they’ve used specific skills in their work history. Say I was interviewing a candidate and crafting use cases was very important, I might ask the candidate to tell me about a time they used use cases to document requirements. Or, if we tend to have challenging stakeholders (who doesn’t?), I’d ask about how they handled a situation where the sponsor was not willing to compromise on scope.

Why Does the BA Interviewer Ask Behavioral Interview Questions?

Because how you do business analysis is very important. Knowing how to do something is not the same as having done it in a real-world situation. Having the technical skills of a BA or knowing how to write “perfect” requirements specifications is not enough. As a BA, building relationships, communicating well, and handling sticky situations with grace is just as, if not (depending on who you ask), more important. Behavioral interview questions are one way to ascertain whether or not you can do the job and do the job well, because you have done it well before in a similar situation.

(Before I forget, let me also point you to my Mastering the Business Analyst Job Interview course where we cover preparing for a BA job interview in detail and mastering the art of responding to behavioral interview questions without preparing dozens or hundreds of canned answers.)

Just Be Sure Not To Do This…

There are hundreds of lists of possible behavioral questions. As a BA, you like to prepare. Your first thought might be to prepare an answer for every possible question you might be asked in a business analyst job interview.  Having a great, canned answer for each is not only not feasible, it’s counter-productive.

It’s counter-productive because in the interview you want to be fully present and putting your best foot forward. If, instead, you are searching your memory for one of several canned responses you’ve prepared, you risk missing the essence of the question and properly positioning your skills and experiences.

How Do I Prepare For Behavioral Interview Questions?

Instead, take a few key career highlights and practice talking about them. If your career background largely matches the background the employer is looking for, it’s likely that in your key career experiences you’ll have a story or two that will be relevant for most of the behavioral interview questions you’ll receive.

Second, before the interview, take some time to familiarize yourself with the terminology of the organization and practice telling your stories using the terms that are most likely to be used by the interviewer.

It’s important to note that this approach also works for the aspiring BA who might have a lot of relevant work experience but is just learning to “talk the BA talk.” By learning to talk about past experience using BA terms, you’ll prepare yourself for the behavioral interview questions, multiplying the value of your past professional experience in a BA context.

>>Go Into Your Next Interview with Confidence

Pick up the BA Job Interview Prep Guide that walks you through the essential steps you need to take to prepare for your first or next business analyst job interview.

Click here to get your copy of the BA Job Interview Prep Guide

What is the difference between business analysis and business development?

Michelle’s answer:

Business development is just that; the growth of new or existing business.  It is usually associated with the sales team within an organization.  Sales and marketing are responsible for growing existing business – so finding areas of customers that have not purchased a product.  They are also responsible for meeting their targets in growing new business by introducing new products or services.  Wikipedia’s definition is:

“New business development concerns all the activities involved in realizing new business opportunities, including product or service design, business model design, and marketing.”  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_business_development)

Business analysis is defined by the International Institute of Business Analysis as:

“…the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison among stakeholders in order to understand the structure, policies, and operations of an organization, and to recommend solutions to enable the organization to achieve its goals.”

Click here to learn more about the business analyst role

The business analyst works with the defined set of tasks in the BABOK (Business Analysis Body of Knowledge, IIBA) and utilizes tools such as:

• Stakeholder analysis
• Business requirement elicitation and validation
• Gap analysis
• Documentation such as mapping and training
• Use cases

Development of new products will often include the business analyst due to the impact on the business stakeholders and the business process.  While Sales is looking after the external analysis for a new product, the BA is looking after the internal analysis of the impact of the new product on the business.

On a personal note, I have been involved in new product introductions as a BA and it is quite exciting.  I wish they would involve us earlier in the process so I could do the business intelligence research.

>> Learn More About Getting Started as a BA

Start your business analyst career with our free step-by-step career planning course. Upon joining, you’ll also receive our BA career planning guide and follow-up insider tips via email.

Click here to learn more about the free course

I have been working in the medical and spa industry for over 10 years. It seems every position I have involves some BA type duties from rewriting policy and procedure manuals to doing efficiency studies. I need to find a mentor to assist me in turning all this random experience into a BA career. I feel like I have the skills and the desire, even a natural aptitude; I just need some direction. I hope that you can help me with this. I feel like I’m wasting my potential.

Aaron’s reply:

Don’t mistake your “random” experience as just jobs because each of those experiences is a stepping stone to your Business Analysis career.  It is up to you to take charge of your career and drive it in the direction that you wish. I have done so and have been driving my personal career into the business analysis arena for the past several years.

There is no single way or roadmap to develop a business analysis career; each of us got here from different starting points and on different paths.  Some have come from the business side of the organization and others have come from the technology side.  The fact that the reader is requesting a mentor to assist them in developing their career shows that they are ready to take charge of their career and drive it in their desired direction, and not that of whichever job or task may come their way at any point of time.

Some ways to find a valuable mentor:

Look for a Business Analyst Mentor Inside Your Organization

The best mentors may be ones that you can meet with on a face-to-face basis and that you have access to on a daily or weekly basis.  Look for someone in your organization that exhibits the characteristics you would like to develop.  Look for someone that the rest of the organization considers the “go-to guy” when it comes to solving business problems.  This is not to say that a “virtual” mentor would not add value; and it really depends on the type of help for which you are looking.  A mentor that “sees” your work habits and interactions with stakeholders will be in a better position to give you work experience advice.

Look  for a Business Analyst Mentor in the Community

Another great place to find a mentor for career advice is in the business community.  They are still local and know that community in which you wish to develop your career.  One of the best places to find a mentor in your business community is in your local IIBA® chapter.  Connect with your local chapter and get to know other BAs within your local community.

Look for a BA that is active within the chapter and others go to for answers and advice.

Look for a Business Analyst Mentor Online

There are BAs that write many of the articles and blogs dedicated to helping professionals get started in a business analysis career or continue developing their career.  Stay abreast of the information these mentors create here on Bridging the Gap, or on BATimes.com, TheBAMentor.com, BusinessAnalysisMentor.com, ModernAnalyst.com, PracticalAnalyst.com and more.  

There are also individuals that will mentor new BAs virtually, such as our own Doug Goldberg, who gives advice over the internet to those individuals who seek him out.  They can give you the advantage of their years of BA experience.

Get the Book

In How to Start a Business Analyst Career, you’ll learn how to assess and expand your business analysis skills and experience.

This book will help you find your best path forward into a business analyst career. More than that, you will know exactly what to do next to expand your business analysis opportunities.

Click here to learn more about How to Start a Business Analyst Career

In what follows, I’ll lay out some of the roadblocks non-IT professionals face in finding BA jobs, provide suggestions for overcoming them, and then speak to some of the strengths business professionals bring to the BA profession. (After all, the “B” in “BA” stands for “business.”)

The Roadblocks non-IT Professionals Face in Finding IT BA Jobs

As a business professional, it might seem like everywhere you look “BA” and “IT” occur in the same sentence. If you lack confidence in your IT knowledge, what do you really need to learn to become a business analyst?

First – Lack of Experience with Projects, Specifically IT Projects.

One of the challenges I see non-IT professionals face is experience working on a project end-to-end.  There’s a difference between doing work that is relatively consistent day in and day out, working in more of an operational role that sustains the organization, and doing work that has a very specific start and end point.  Being able to step outside of the day to day and consider the problem that needs to be addressed, the scope of the solution, and make a plan to achieve a specific goal is extremely important for a business analyst.

Many subject matter experts are very responsive in the short term and very consumed with getting a good quality job done.  But they need to work on developing a longer term view that makes them successful as business analysts.

The best way to overcome this challenge is to get involved in projects: something that’s temporary, something that has a start and an end, something where you get involved, you do some work, and then you step out and allow the day to day operations of the business to continue on without you involved.

Second – Lack of Technical Awareness

While an IT BA doesn’t need to know how to build technology, it is important that they know enough about technology to have productive conversations. In the 21^st century, technology is becoming a strategic part of the business.  Even though as business analysts we are solving business problems, the possibilities that are enabled by technology are allowing us to address new business opportunities and solve new business problems.  Understanding enough of technology is no longer an area that’s relegated just to the developers; it’s something that savvy business professionals are beginning to embrace as well.

As a business analyst, you need to at least keep up if not exceed your business stakeholders in terms of your understanding of technology. You can start by talking to the most friendly developer you can find and asking them to walk you through the basics. You might also explore a resource such as CIO.com or Tech Republic or the Forbes CIO Network.

Third – Difficulty Communicating with Technical Professionals

Lack of technical awareness can lead to difficulty communicating with technical professionals. Sometimes we’ll see a business professional assuming that anything is possible and being somewhat unwilling to negotiate around technical complexities.  When you take this approach, you disenfranchise yourself from the solution.

You as a BA will not necessarily be creating code, running scripts, writing queries – those are the hard skills of an IT professional. But you will definitely be working with professionals who do these things.

The relevant questions are:

• Can you communicate with technical professionals effectively?
• If you don’t understand a technical term, do you have the confidence to ask what it means so that you can get the concept behind it?
• Are you willing to engage in conversations that might be full of abstract technical language so that you can fully understand the technical problem and communicate that back to the business community?

Strengths Business Professionals Bring to IT BA Roles

You might not want to believe me, but I also receive questions from technical professionals asking if they can ever be a business analyst without a business background. (The grass is always greener on the other side, isn’t it?) And that’s because your business background provides you with many assets you can draw from in a business analysis career.

Thinking of yourself as a “non-IT” professional is part of the problem. You are starting from a point of weakness. Instead, think of yourself as a business professional who can deliver excellence in your areas of strength. Here are some strengths we see business professionals leverage in their transition to business analysis.

Business Domain Knowledge

Business professionals have business knowledge. You might know a business domain. If you are from accounting, you know more than I do about finance, I’ll guarantee you that! The same holds true for marketing, operations, customer service, and sales professionals. You might also have relevant industry expertise to bring to the table or another leverage point that sets you apart from your “IT” competitors.

Knowing the business is a big part of being a BA. Leverage this asset to its fullest when exploring your options within BA by seeking positions implementing or enhancing IT systems within your domain area of expertise.

As Joan Davis shared from her story on transitioning from the HR Department to Business Analyst Intern:

Eventually I had a heart-to-heart with the IT Department Head, recapping my assets as someone who was capable of comparable work plus knowledgeable of the business side, someone that might soon be lost to a competitor given no other choice.

Strong Relationship-Building and Communication Skills

Professionals in sales, account management, and business development tend to have strong relationships within and outside of the organization. These are important soft skills for a business analyst who might work with dozens of stakeholders to negotiate requirements for a large project.

Consider the strength of your relationships and how you communicate with others. Is this a core qualification you can leverage in paving your path to business analysis?

Understanding and Solving Business Problems

If you are dealing with any sort of change, you are solving a problem.

• If you are in sales, you understand the customer’s problem and then position what you have to offer to solve it.
• If you are in customer service, you are solving lots of customer problems.
• In operations you might address inefficiencies, redundant work, and incoherent processes.

Consider deeply the problems you’ve been involved in solving and how they were addressed. Detail out your role in defining the problem or finding the solution. This type of accomplishment is especially relevant and is an experience you’ll want to highlight in your conversations about BA roles.

An Alternative: Focus on a Business-BA role

If the above strengths don’t fit you and the roadblocks aren’t areas you wish to improve upon, you might reconsider whether becoming an IT BA is really a good decision for you. It might be that you would do best to focus on becoming a business process-focused BA, where your scope of problem-solving is limited to improving the business processes. These roles are available, though perhaps in less demand than an IT BA. These roles are also less likely to have the title of “business analyst” so you might need to do more digging to find them.

>>Get Hired as a BA

Our 5-step business analyst job search process will walk you through what you need to do to get hired as a business analyst.

Click here to learn more about the BA job search process

Along the winding country road that leads to my house there’s a sign posted, hand-painted in large block letters – “Patience & Persistence” is the message to all who go by.  The author’s meaning isn’t clear. From the jumble of in-progress construction projects on the property, perhaps it’s a message of encouragement to the neighbors that soon an eyesore would become a palace.

For me, the message rings of hope … that being focused and tenacious can drive a positive outcome.

I’m smiling as I write this, and it’s not just the bright spring day that has me in a good humor.  I’ve reach a new turning point in my journey to work virtually; the story that I started sharing with you here a year ago has taken a course with the best of all possible outcomes.  Patience and Persistence are responsible for the results, and I can’t help but think back to another time when these characteristics came into play, transcending some very fundamental obstacles in the way of my desired career path as a Business Analyst.

Turning Rejection Into Opportunity: How I Became a BA Intern

My first job after graduating with a BBA in Computer Science was as Benefits Analyst in the HR department, calculating pensions and collecting health care payments.  I won the position mostly due to a Finance class that gave me experience with Lotus 1-2-3, a rare commodity in 1985 (there were few PCs in the office back then, and spreadsheets were found on the ironing board).

But a senior project in system analysis made me aspire to take on the Business Systems Analyst role, a combination of Business Analyst and Project Manager that resided in the IT Department.  To get there I had to migrate from HR to IT, no easy feat since job posting candidates typically had several years’ foundation as a Programmer, with the best and brightest choosing to move into this role with greater influence on solution design and implementation. There were no entry-level positions.

After being rejected from the candidate pool a second time I started considering options outside my company, while at the same time developing a strategy to build my case internally.  The Patience & Persistence approach?

• Expand your network, making the most of new connections made through the interview process.  They all know you’re looking and you never know where a job lead will come from. Bonding with your prospective boss and co-workers will also help them to support a decision in your favor if it ever came up again.
• Repeatedly reach out to your growing network and find ways to help them without anything expected in return. In this way you stay on their radar and show your win/win attitude.  Call it good karma, but in my experience, those who give, get a second look.
• Demonstrate your capabilities in a way that mirrors what your prospects do now and supports what they want to do in the future.  Create deliverables for them or share samples of your work that align with their own work products, in terms of presentation style, charts and graphic exhibits, etc.

Eventually I had a heart-to-heart with the IT Department Head, recapping my assets as someone who was capable of comparable work plus knowledgeable of the business side, someone that might soon be lost to a competitor given no other choice. My arguments prevailed, and together with my new Team Leader, we defined an intern position that would include coaching to fill gaps in my knowledge while I took on IT’s l-o-o-o-n-n-g list of low hanging fruit: short, easy projects that delivered immediate value – and helped me to earn my paycheck as a Junior Business Analyst.

Finding the Path to Your Own Professional Vision

We leave this story at a promising crossroads – a novice BA exploring the possibilities. In my next article we’ll fast forward in time to explore how Patience and Persistence recently helped me to triumph again in my search to become a Virtual Business Analyst.

Think about how you project your capabilities when investigating new opportunities.  In what ways can you better communicate your vision and demonstrate the assets that you bring?

Nothing happens unless first a dream. – Carl Sandburg

The heart of job offer decisions comes back to two key elements:

1. Benefits – What are the benefits of each opportunity in front of you, relative to the short and long-term trajectory of your career?
2. Risk – How much risk are you able or willing to absorb right now in your career?

This sounds familiar right? We do this type of analysis all the time on our projects. This is yet another example where we can use our business analysis skills to help our business analysis careers.

Let’s Look at Risk First

All too often though, we forget the benefits and let the notion of risk freeze us and prevent us from making any decision at all.  Risk is the probability of a negative impact. Let’s take a look at both the negative impacts being in the wrong job could have on your career, and the factors which increase the probability that something negative will happen.

How do you use these factors? Just as an example, let’s take the professional in a typical “jack of all trades” type position. This person wears a lot of hats and is successful mainly based on their deep expertise in a system. Wearing a lot of hats isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it can expose you to multiple responsibilities and increase your marketability in organizations valuing employees who can pitch in and contribute in multiple areas. But it might limit your options when it comes to pursuing more formal roles within a profession, whether business analysis, development, or project management. The quality and depth of your experience may not stack up to someone who has spent the last several years focused on building a career in that profession.

But what about that system expertise? If your expertise is in a mainframe system that the company is visibly retiring bit-by-bit, the value of that expertise is declining every day. That creates job instability for you, unless you can expand your role and develop expertise with a long-term impact on the organization. But other areas of expertise can be very valuable and have long-term marketability, such as expertise in a widely-adopted tool like SAP or Salesforce.com or SharePoint.

Then over on the probability side are all of these factors that might increase the chances that something bad will happen. In immature organizations, we simply don’t do as much business analysis, which can lead to diminished marketability. In highly specialized roles we increase the changes that economic factors will make our roles (and our skill sets) obsolete (think of all those working in the financial sector in and around New York). If our organization does not perceive value in business analysis, then we’re less likely to have the opportunity to take on more advanced responsibilities, progress our careers, and may even face a bit of job instability when the purse strings get tight.

The point is not to rest on any one factor, but to look at all of them and consider where your risk points are and what aspects of your role might counter-balance those risks.

But What If I Needed a Paycheck Yesterday?

We’re not always in a position to make a decision based on the long-term. Sometimes immediate financial or even career concerns are also a significant factor. When you are deciding to look for a new job or bypass a not-so-right job offer, think about  your financial runway.  Entrepreneurs use this concept a lot when they talk about starting a new business.  They ask, “How many months do I have before I simply run out of money?” Your cushion might be a little bigger.  It might be, “How long do I have before I have to start drawing on critical savings to pay the mortgage? ”

Now, Let’s Look at the Benefits

Risks often prevent our clear thinking, so I’ve spent the most time on them. But benefits are important as well.  If you look at where you are today and where you want to be two to five, to ten years down the road – however far you can look, does the opportunity help you take a forward step in that direction?  Or is it in a different direction that might eventually lead to where you want to go? Will you be building valuable career experiences and will you be minimizing your risk?

Warning: Avoid the “Grass is Greener” Syndrome

A lot of times we can look at jobs outside our company and they seem perfect on the outside.  Few people want to tell you the truth in an interview — that the boss micro-manages and the stakeholders avoid you at all costs and it’s just miserable to work here. You might be looking at your own imperfect situation and thinking any situation can be better.

Yes, the grass is always greener somewhere else. Until we get there. Then we sometimes realize they have similar fundamental flaws and our last opportunity didn’t seem quite so bad.

So take that into account and do some diligence around those benefits. Make sure the grass really is greener.

Pulling it All Together

Weigh the pros and cons of all the options available to you, and weigh them not just against the short term of, “What will they achieve for me next month?” but the long term of, “Where do they take me in my long-term career plan?” Look at the relative risks of each situation. After doing your research and looking at the pros and cons, you might take a deep breathe and decide based on your gut — often your gut gives you information that doesn’t show up on any spreadsheet or comparison chart.

And remember, every situation can be influenced by YOU. Careers are not something that happen to us, careers are something that we build in response to the opportunities that we discover along our paths. The decision you make at this juncture could be the most important in your career, or it could be that either answer will lead you where you want to go. I can’t help you see into the future, only make the best decision based on the necessarily limited information you’ll have to make it.

Get the Book

In How to Start a Business Analyst Career, you’ll learn how to assess and expand your business analysis skills and experience.

This book will help you find your best path forward into a business analyst career. More than that, you will know exactly what to do next to expand your business analysis opportunities.

Click here to learn more about How to Start a Business Analyst Career

I was a project manager for 25 years, but for the past 4 years I have been involved in software QA and Process Improvement as a consultant for CMMI and other standards. I’ve been giving serious thought to moving towards a BA emphasis in my career, returning to earlier roots as a systems analyst. However, I’m no longer a ‘spring chicken’ and am wondering if makes sense for a post-60’s skilled/experienced individual to begin contemplating a career in BA? Be honest!

Doug’s Answer:

Pondering a career change at any stage in life is a hefty undertaking, and while I cannot speak directly to the complexities of those past my own age, I can make the attempt to give some general advice. What I see in the poster’s question is a great degree of experience that does not jump right out and say “business analysis”. However, everything this person has done involves a large degree of analysis technique and skill in order to be successful in the above respective roles.

As a PM, this person would have encountered organizational skills and potentially the rigor involved in CMMI-based methodology that typically requires detailed check points and documentation, as well as phase gate approvals. If this person has been in an industry that is under regulation and has the potential for audits, there is even greater emphasis on knowing what must be accomplished besides the actual project work. This brings a high degree of discipline.

As a Process Improvement consultant, this person would have been involved in many efforts that involve changes to organizational structure. This must include a large analysis effort revolving around business unit impact, application impact, infrastructure assets, resource requirements, and even simulated exercises to test potential new processes. Many of the analysis techniques described in the BABOK are used in this area of expertise, such as root cause analysis, decision analysis, interviewing, observation, etc. So, the poster would have gained exceptional experience as an analyst even if that is not what his or her title indicated.

So, to the question then. To me, it would make more sense to not necessarily switch careers but to re-brand your capabilities in a different way that emphasizes your ability to analyze…because that is what this person has been doing essentially. A career switch can be a huge, lengthy and often frustrating undertaking if positions are not forthcoming for the job seeker. My sense is that this poster has a ton of capability to bring to bear and would be better recognized and utilized as a senior consultant that has expertise in guiding analysis efforts for many types of projects. I also think that the job search results might be better than if he/she is marketing himself/herself as a fledgling, yet elder analyst. I don’t believe in job discrimination based on age, but the reality is that it occurs. I would offer the advice that this person should be presented as an experienced mentor who is brought in to resolve issues, so that should be the focus of self-marketing efforts.

Then how does one really get one’s head around how to make that happen, especially if there is no recognition that perhaps analyst skills are already present? Start reading and taking some classes. Read through the IIBA BABOK to recognize skills you already have. Read business analysis articles, blogs and books to recognize how analysts perform their duties formally, in order to understand that much of the current skills really do translate into formal analysis skills.

Finally, you’ll want to sign-up for Laura’s free step-by-step BA career planning course, download Laura’s eBook on How to Start a Business Analyst Career and keep your eyes posted for enrollment into future business analyst training courses.

Do you use a summary or an objective?

An objective talks about what you want to achieve in your next position. A summary tells a story about what you bring to the table as a professional. Summaries are the introduction of choice unless you are a recent college graduate and do not have much to summarize.

So we know a summary should tell a story of us as a professional. That’s a good place to start.

The summary will most likely be the first item on the resume that is read. To determine what makes a good summary, you first need to put yourself in the employer’s shoes.

What does the person reading your resume want to know about you?

First off, most people review business analyst resumes to ascertain if you are qualified for the position. Recruiters receive hundreds of resumes for an individual job position and many people apply to jobs they are not qualified for. You want to use your summary to show that you are well-qualified for a business analyst job, preferably the specific business analyst job you are applying to.

Secondly, you want your summary to tell a story of why you are interested in this specific position.

• If you have a career as an executive and you are applying for a business analyst job, you need to tell that story.
• If you have 10 years of experience testing software and now you want a business analyst job, you need to tell that story.
• And your story should be specific to the job at hand. Avoid generic language like “interesting position at a growing company”.

The BIGGEST mistake people make is making the summary about them…about what they want as a candidate. It’s all about the employer. You want to them to see YOU as the solution to their problem.

(By the way, we cover this in more detail in this article walking through the business analyst job search process.)

What can your resume reader about your qualifications that entices them to pick up the phone and call you in for an interview?

With all that out on the table, what are some phrases you might incorporate into your professional summary?

• Experience with enterprise XYZ systems
• Evaluating vendors
• Working around the constraints posed by legacy systems.
• Helping stakeholder teams perform cost-benefit analysis
• Engaging appropriate stakeholders throughout the project
• Creating alignment between stakeholders from multiple levels of the organization.
• Building processes / improving processes / defining processes
• Achieving positive ROI on projects.
• Diverse professional experience across multiple organizations from a variety of industries.

This is not an exhaustive list.  (Check out our list of important business analyst skills for additional ideas.) The point is to focus on the types of experiences you have had that qualify you for the position for which you are applying. I suggest you keep a running list of power phrases or summary sentences. Then when you apply for a job, select the ones that best match the job description.

And here are some to avoid:

• Seeking CBAP support
• Support my career growth
• Growing company
• Company that supports its employees
• Company that appreciates its employees

You might say, well I want these things! Yes, you do and that’s perfectly fine. But remember we are talking about the first sentence on your resume, the purpose of which is to get you a job interview.

Would you start a first date talking about a pre-nup? Probably not.

Then don’t start your business analyst resume talking about conditions of accepting an offer that’s nowhere near being on the table.

Get the Book

In How to Start a Business Analyst Career, you’ll learn how to assess and expand your business analysis skills and experience.

This book will help you find your best path forward into a business analyst career. More than that, you will know exactly what to do next to expand your business analysis opportunities.

Click here to learn more about How to Start a Business Analyst Career

The issue for many people is that ‘networking’ sounds scary. It stirs up images of ill-fated cocktail parties and other awkward forced social situations. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way!  Networking can be easy and fun as well as productive.  Here are some tips:

1. Plan and commit to networking opportunities:

If you are interested in expanding your network, the first step is to find some relevant networking opportunities.  A great place to start is your local chapter of the IIBA – they may well hold monthly events where you can meet other professional analysts.  Alternatively, depending on the type of person you are hoping to meet, there may be another professional organisation relevant to your specific domain.  Once you’ve identified a networking opportunity, mark it in your diary and commit to it.  If you are a nervous networker, you might be tempted to back out.  By making a commitment, and making time in your schedule, you are more likely to make sure it happens.

2. Carry the right tools:

To make the most of your networking opportunities, you will want to carry the right tools.  It is good practice to carry a supply of clean, up-to-date, crisp business cards.  Remember that first impressions last, so don’t be tempted to rely on an out-of-date creased business card with your old job title on it!  If your employer doesn’t supply business cards, consider having your own personal contact cards printed.

3. Meet new people:

When going to networking events, it can be tempting to spend time speaking to people you already know.  Remember your aim, and make sure you speak to people you haven’t met before. Don’t be afraid to introduce yourself to people –  I find a smile, handshake and brief introduction such as, “Hi, I’m Adrian, I don’t think we’ve met yet,” can often be an easy way to strike up a conversation.  You might also want to consider how you introduce yourself, and some networkers advocate using an ‘elevator pitch’ (a short polished summary of your role and/or strengths).  Either way, the important part is to be confident and genuine.

4. Exchange cards and build your address book:

When you meet new people, be sure to exchange cards or contact details.  After each networking event, store the business cards you have been given carefully, or even better put the details into your address book.  You might also want to add a few lines describing the person/their role to help remember them in future.  Make sure you do this as soon as possible, else you will end up with a stack of business cards with no idea of who was who, particularly if you meet several people with the same job title, first name or from the same company.

5. Be genuine:

Networking should be a fun professional activity.  Unfortunately, some people use it as an opportunity to immediately sell their services, or to ask for a favour.  My view is the best type of networking happens when neither party has any immediate gain.  That way, a professional relationship can build over time, and perhaps at some point inthe future business might be conducted.  It is also better to think about what you can give to your network, rather than what you can get from it.   If you act genuinely and invest in your network, you’ll find you won’t even need to ask your network for help – they will offer it when they find out you need it.

6. Stay in touch:

Professional relationships strengthen over time, so make sure you stay in touch with your network.  If you see an article that a colleague might like, ping them over an e-mail.    If you see an opportunity that someone in your network might be able to bid for, let them know.  There are many ways to stay in touch, and you might prefer to use a professional networking site like LinkedIn.   Online social networking is a very useful way of supplementing real-world networking, but it certainly doesn’t replace it!

In summary, as BAs we can benefit greatly from networking with our peers in other domains and industries.  This allows sharing of information and best practice, and building a strong network is a great way to protect your career stability.  It is one area of professional development that can definitely be fun.

>>Networking as Part of Your BA Job Search?

Our BA Job Search Process covers the entire lifecycle of finding a new BA job, from getting started to accepting the offer.

Click here to learn about our BA Job Search Process

Some BA jobs require SAP experience, but how do you get it if you don’t have it?

Eric’s Response:

Many BA job posts require applicants to have some kind of experience about specific business software, such as ERPs, CRMs or other specialized software.  Although it can be a questionable requirement for a job post (See Laura’s post on “Why do we see technical skills in business analyst jobs?” and Jonathan Babcock’s post on “Four Key Knowledge Areas for Business Analysts“), it is something that we have to deal with as not everyone really understands the BA role and responsibilities.  In this context, how can a BA get experience in the software when you don’t have it?  Based on my experience, there are 3 ways to get it (other than actually working with the software, of course).

1. Self-Training

Take some time to read on the specific software (of the specific module of the software you’re interested in).  Do some research on the web, look for software editor documentation, check for software users and developers communities, register for webinars on the software.  It will not be something that you will be able to put on your resume, but it will at least provide you some general knowledge and vocabulary that you will be able to use while reviewing your resume or during an interview.

2. Experience with Similar Software and Business Processes

Although you might not have experience with that specific software, you might have relevant experience with other related software, which makes your introduction to the new software much easier.  You might also have knowledge of specific business processes supported by the software without having software-specific knowledge.  Since most similar specialized business software use similar patterns (known as best practices), the knowledge curve to switch from one to the other is quite small when you’re already familiar with the concepts.

3. Emphasize Required Competencies Behind the Software Knowledge

You might not have related experience on similar software or business processes, but you probably have competencies that could be used within a SAP-like context.  Have you worked in projects involving close interactions between systems?  Company-wide processes, crossing multiple departments?  Do you have related experience in the company’s industry?  Answers to these questions should help you to demonstrate that even though you don’t know the software, you know how to handle the specific characteristics of working with a software such as SAP.

Making My Case for “CRM Experience”

As an example, the job post for my current job was asking for experience with a specific CRM software, which I didn’t have at this time.  I managed to get to the interview phase with the hiring manager, where I was able to point out that although I had no experience with the specific software, I have worked on several projects involving customer-related processes and systems in the past, and have also dealt with off-the-shelf integrated software in the past.  This experience makes it easier for me to quickly understand the business context, as well as the users’ and the development team’s needs and how they interact with the software to support their activities.  These competencies are much harder to get than actually knowing how the software works.  Moreover, I have worked in the same industry (telecommunications) for some years, so I already had a good idea about the specifics of the customers, products and processes.

I put the emphasis on these points during the interview, and I finally got the job.  After a quick introduction to the software and some exploration on my own for a week or two, I was up and running, and started working as the lead BA on major projects.

Make Your Case

Looking for the best way to make your case for a business analyst job? Join our free BA career planning course – we’ll help you identify your transferable skills in business analysis and find the leverage points you have that will lead you to the best possible BA opportunities.

Click here to learn more and sign-up for the free course

The Career Before Business Analysis – Time as a Software Developer

Laura: I’ve been consistently impressed by your enthusiasm about and dedication to becoming a BA. I’m excited to share your story because I think you will inspire others who might be having rocky transition paths. What was your job role before you started on your path to business analysis?

Michiel: Before becoming a BA I was a 100% software developer in BlitzMax, C#/ASP.Net and getting to grips with the Android SDK in Java programming. My current job is BA at an international company with offices in Amsterdam, Brussels and London.

Since I was a kid I always wanted to program my own computer games. The main reason being that buying games was prohibitively expensive, as we lived in a small farming community with no computer shop within 250km. My only option, so it seemed, was to learn how to program. Besides, it would be really cool to play your own games. However, one thing lead to the next and after graduating from college in South Africa, a company recruited me to work on a financial bookkeeping software system. Since 1996, most of my time was spent professionally programming in Microsoft & Java, mostly at very small (about 30 people) companies in both South Africa and now in the Netherlands. My primary interest was programming, and learning everything there is to learn about it.

With me mostly being a theoretical rather than a pragmatic programmer, I started noticing that the pragmatic programmer, the guy who (often) has screwed up code, usually is loved most by business users. Initially that caused me to have irritation, then frustration, then eventually I realized that the nice, really interesting jobs are on the business side. About the same time, one evening I dumped about 30 Java/SQL/DotNet programming books into the trashcan.

I thought about getting into the business side but had no experience, no knowledge, nothing. Having only seen job ads for BAs made my mouth drool, and my heart sink to my feet. There was just no way for me to become a BA. Ever. Forget it, never going to happen. I dreaded spending the rest of my life at a cubicle in the IT-department.

Laura: Why did you decide to become a business analyst?

Michiel: The short version first: I was tired of not knowing the WHY of my assigned programming tasks. The other reasons were:

• A great BA can summarize advanced quantum mechanics in 5 words which even a 10 year old can understand.
• BAs know the WHY of a particular piece of work assigned in a programming task, because they are in physical close proximity to the business users.
• BAs are close to where business ideas start, and have more ready access to the strategic direction taken by a company.
• I felt that as a developer I was regarded as non-functional worker bee with no other real interest in work life except the latest Linux Kernel release.
• As a techie it was functionally difficult, if not impossible, to understand the WHY, WHO, and WHAT of doing a particular section of program code. Only that a BA has specced it, or a business wants a custom financial report.
• My employer(s) saw no benefit in training me from being a C#-programmer to becoming a BA. Why? They already employed a BA.

However I did visualize leading requirements workshops and sitting in on board meetings. Visualization is more daydreaming than anything else, but heck, one has to start somewhere. At the time, about 4 years ago, it was only a dream. I realized that knowing the latest Linux Kernel compile isn’t getting me closer to the ideal of understanding the WHY of it all.

Meanwhile, by reading some books about RUP, SCRUM and Writing Effective Use Cases proved to be the gateway into becoming a BA.

The Challenge of an Informal Software Development Environment

Laura: I know you were partially a BA before you were fully a BA. Can you describe that role? What were some of the challenges you faced in a partial role?

Michiel: My last role was about 80% programming.  Real life came knocking on my door. I needed to pay the bills.

Challenges mostly encountered (in programming jobs):

• Management voiced an idea and then lost interest.
• Financial constraints, i.e. my desktop computer was already 8 years old.
• Nothing documented. Absolutely and utterly nothing, same for the actual C# programming code.
• One knowledge holder who holds the business ransom; he knows everything but is not willing to share.
• Squashing bugs, putting out fires all the time is considered cheaper than rewriting code.
• No project methodology followed, no projects.
• Lack of support for testing and pressure to put code right into production without review.
• Lack of support for creating documentation, such as use cases.
• Etc.

I was working in a small, four-person company and my employer thought writing documentation, any documentation, was a complete waste of time. He had things which needed programming, and basically that was the scenario. My ideals of working out UML models and doing proper requirements analysis was smashed to pieces. Spending time on planning and organising was another waste of resources. Mostly my job was to quell fires, fix bugs in code or create ad-hoc financial reports from the SQL-Server database.

One of the many challenges was that management would have ‘another great idea’ but when I wanted to put it into a plan, it would be ignored to die a silent death. Implementing a new back office architecture was just another idea which, after having invited and evaluated potential suppliers, nothing would happen. As a small company, finances were tight and this put a constraint on the opportunities.

Finding His First Business Analyst Opportunity

Laura: How did the opportunity surface for you to take on a full BA role?

Michiel: It all happened much like a dream. I was called by a consulting company who wanted a designer with UML knowledge to work in a travel reservation company. Arriving at the interview we had some small talk when he laid an A4-paper with a job description in front of me. There, was my perfect job. A BA job!! Then he said, “This job, it’s yours if you want it, and we’ll pay you a nice salary + 13th month + training + bonus + company car.” I silently thought that it was a joke! My previous job was basic salary and that was it.

I yelled, “Yes I want this job!” The guy looked at me strangely, then asked me to wait a few minutes while he printed out my employment contract. It was thinking, “Oh my, how incredible! No, this must be a dream!”  I signed the contract still subconsciously thinking it was some kind of candid-camera prank.  It wasn’t. A few weeks later my company car arrived, and I went for on-the-job BA training while involved in an offshore project using RUP + UML. Incredible! Over the top.

Laura: What were your first few weeks like as a full-fledged BA?

Michiel: One day I was doing hardcore SQL-Server Transact-SQL programming and three days later I was in my new reality – sitting in with business users at a requirements workshop. The odds were against me 10,000 to 1. I only needed the 1 to get there. That was enough. To be honest, I hadn’t even spoken to an end user ever in my life, and didn’t even know about the existence of requirements workshops, nor how they are run.

Keys to Success

Laura: Looking back, what do you think were the keys to your success?

Michiel: If you want something, you can achieve it. I somehow had a spate of luck. Call me crazy, but I would write out on a little paper my innermost desires, then speak them out aloud, and leave the paper somewhere out in the open where the universe can see it. Sometimes, the wishes take years to get fulfilled, sometimes only weeks. My current job matches 24 out of 25 points to those specs written out on 3 post-it notes.

My success may be partially due to some invisible forces helping me. But some other things that are important are to work up a plan, communicate the plan with your management, and act with integrity. Be honest with yourself and to others around you. Admit mistakes without being negative. Mistakes are needed to grow. When you say you’re going to do something, keep the promise. If not, have a good positive reason why you’re not able to keep the promise.

On Friday afternoons, I always reflect back and ask myself, “What was my contribution to this job/family/situation in the past week?”  Also, sometimes threats or dull jobs may seem dull but those are important in building your career. The dull job might just be a piece of the overall BA puzzle you’re trying to achieve. Never discount opportunities; however experience will let you know when to say “No.” Try to be as good as you can be, and share your success with your team and manager.

I made loads of mistakes, and had a situation where I was nearly 5 days from being homeless. Some people are born with the right attitude, right situations; I had to learn the above stuff to get to my current situation. The challenges go on non-stop. Those are the keys to my success.

Lastly, have a good mix of learn + value. Businesses don’t just want learners; they want people who produce useful stuff. Use 10% of your time to read/study, another 10% of time to talk & reflect about what you learned and read, and the remaining 80% to do your job, what you are being paid to do!

Laura: How did your career background help you make this transition?

Michiel: Looking back, it’s as if a giant puzzle is coming together. Each job, each project or task is an important key to build your future. I look at job ads, then at my assigned task and see if I can learn and contribute towards the company’s goals while working on my CV.

Laura: Anything else you’d like to share?

Michiel: In order to become a BA you have to read, listen and look at as many case studies as you can get your hands on. Sometimes I would read a book of 450 pages, in which a sentence of 10 words proved invaluable to my situation. Of course, your experience may vary.

Lastly, don’t go chase things, they just run away! Don’t chase being a BA, have a plan. Work the plan. Write your life and career goals on paper, then keep them in your mind every day. Ask the universe to provide you with opportunities. When an opportunity is presented, go proactively after it with a honest smile, a good heart, and good intentions. If you want your BA career to get anywhere, you have to give it a hand.

One last note. I am on a learning path. One can never learn enough!

Laura: Thanks Michiel for sharing such an honest and heart-felt story. Congratulations on your new role. I wish you all the best possible success in your career as a business analyst (and beyond!).

Are you looking for support paving your path into business analysis? We can help. Check out our step-by-step BA career planning course (it’s free).

I’d really appreciate any advice you can give me.

Many thanks.

Laura’s response:

Based on my prior experience working with IT Trainers, I typically find that they have a deep knowledge of the organization’s business applications and a good understanding of the business processes that leverage those applications. Because you are training new users on the system, you are a bit of an expert. I’m going to assume that’s also the case for you!

Does your company enhance the business applications or improve its business processes? Most do. If so, how does that work happen today and who is involved in making these decisions? This answer should point you to the person or persons in your company who are performing the business analysis activities, or lack thereof.

One does not need to have the title of “business analyst” to be a “business analyst.” You’ll often find under-the-radar business analysts if you start looking at the make-up of a project team and find the person ensuring everyone is aligned on the project goals and negotiating between competing interests.

Then, as you look at the process for how changes are made, then what are the pain points? Are there frustrations in the connections between the business users and the IT changes? Is there a lot of rework due to misunderstood requirements? In those pain points is where you’d start to make a case for a more formal BA role within your firm or at least to expand your responsibilities to include business analysis tasks. Or, if those pain points don’t exist, then who is responsible for the relative success? As you find that answer you might find your business analyst to reach out to for coaching and mentoring.

>>Are You Ready to Hit “Go”?

Start your business analyst career with our free step-by-step career planning course. Upon joining, you’ll also receive our BA career planning guide and follow-up insider tips via email.

Click here to learn more about the free course

Of course, to succeed as a business analyst it’s important to have the core business analyst skills. Most new business analysts are strong communicators and problem-solvers and many even have a bit of informal business analysis experience under their belt. But for many, their first positions, their “chance” so to speak, comes from leveraging a qualification that’s specific and unique.

What Can I Leverage?

Potential areas of expertise that are important include the following:

• Industry experience
• Functional / domain experience
• Application expertise
• Organization expertise

You might think of expertise as “know how.” It’s something that probably took you a few years to build and sums up a good part of your on-the-job experience.

For example, as I look at my career history, I’ve built some expertise in working on web products and, especially, content-rich web products. I understand search, content organization, and how to bring this together in a way that is a benefit to the customer or user. And more recently, these content products are driving connections. The websites I’ve worked on are trying to connect two parties (candidates and employers; wedding vendors and engaged couples; etc.).

This means that if I had to find a job fast I’d be looking for companies that could leverage this experience. I know my job search would be more effective in these areas. It also means that if I was considering a career change and trying to find a job outside of business analysis, I’d focus in on these types companies because I’d bring a lot of transferable knowledge to the table.

Whether we like it or not, many managers hire BAs for industry experience. As a new BA, you’ll make a much better case for your qualifications if you can mine elements of your career history that give you a leg up on the competition and make you a well-qualified candidate. Employers are simply more likely to overlook your relative weaknesses in business analysis if you have some irresistible expertise to provide.

What Expertise Do I Have?

Expertise comes from experience and it doesn’t necessarily have to be business analysis experience. Although industry expertise is often the most obvious qualification to leverage, other opportunities exist.

Here are some examples:

• Were you the subject matter expert on a specific tool? Common examples include Enterprise Resource Management tools (such as SAP), Customer Relationship Management Tools (such as Salesforce.com), and Documentation Management Tools (such as SharePoint).
• Do you have deep experience within a business domain or functional area? Consider marketing, finance, product development as ripe possibilities. Although I had built a team of BA generalists, I brought in a specialist BA for an accounting system migration. She new the accounting application, could talk accounting-speak with our finance team, and was a business analyst.
• What about the organizations you’ve worked for or are currently working for? This area of expertise that is often overlooked.  It includes what you might know about how an organization works, who the stakeholders are and what the business model is. So many professionals become BAs by moving from one role into another in the same organization. Going back to organization’s you’ve worked for in the past can also yield opportunities. In this case, you can leverage your expertise in that organization and, very likely, your track-record of success in that organization. A close corollary would be focusing on organizations that are direct competitors  to an organization you worked for previously.

Expertise Can Also Help Ensure Your Early Success as a BA

Instead of entering a new job where everything is new, you have an anchor of expertise to rely on. This actually makes it easier for you to consciously build your business analysis skills. If you walk into an industry or domain you know inside and out, you won’t need to spend as much time learning the language. Instead you can invest your time learning new business analyst techniques and preparing to use them in your projects.

>>Get Hired as a BA

Our 5-step business analyst job search process will walk you through what you need to do to get hired as a business analyst.

Click here to learn more about the BA job search process

When I tell my story of getting started as a BA, I often start by saying that my transition happened with a hallway conversation.  A senior BA on the business analyst team approached me on my way back to my desk and mentioned a new position that was opening in the department. She recommended I apply.

My first response was “well, there’s a lot of projects in QA right now, it might not be a good time.” And her much wiser response to me was “Well, then when will be a good time? This is a good opportunity and probably more money too.” It was good advice. I took it.

But really, my transition did not start with that conversation. It started much earlier. My transition to business analysis was embedded in how I chose to approach my QA position.

• I participated in requirements and use case review meetings.  I found errors. I questioned details.  I helped make the requirements better by being a critical consumer.
• I established a new testing program (which I later learned was a type of business process) to streamline the quality of an aspect of the system that was previously subject to ad hoc and unorganized testing from the business. I developed automated tests and organized business testing to create a structured UAT process.
• I inserted myself between the business team and the development teams to resolve issues that surfaced in UAT.
• I built strong product and stakeholder knowledge within my company. In QA I had been involved in more than 15 projects. I had worked with most of the project managers, product owners, business analysts and developers.
• I knew most of our products inside and out.

My decisions about how I approached my QA role led me to business analysis. They demonstrated to this senior business analyst, who soon became a great mentor to me, that I had the capacity to succeed in the types of situations a business analyst would face. My internal network of stakeholders was an asset. My deep product knowledge compensated for my non-existent experience in specifying requirements in my early days as a business analyst.

To anyone looking to follow in my footsteps, I’d suggest looking for opportunities to get closer to the business and expand your business analysis experience by taking on new responsibilities. There are often many opportunities for QA engineers to help with the transition and implementation process, which can lead to filling in any gaps left by the business analyst, who may now be assigned to a different project.

>>Plan Out Your Career Transition

Anyone interested in learning more on making the transition to business analysis should sign-up for my free e-course on becoming a BA. I’ll help you get started in planning your transition and unearthing the business analysis experiences in your career history.

In what follows I’ll walk you through 5 tips for landing more job interviews for business analyst jobs.

1. Be Current

If you are unemployed and have a employment gap to address on your resume, let them know what you’ve been doing to advance yourself professionally. Volunteer work for as a business analyst in an organization, shows that you’ve been keeping busy and continuing to grow. Training and professional development shows you used the time to hone your skills. Although business analysis skills date less quickly than say software development skills, a strong awareness of the latest tools and practices will help you show that you are ready to achieve success for your new employer on day 1.

2. Read the BA Job Postings

This might seem obvious, but I can’t tell you how often I talk to people who do not read the job postings before they apply. And many of the questions we received showed a focus on job titles over job responsibilities. This is a great way to completely miss a great opportunity or to create a lot of noise in your BA job search process. It’s not a great way to actually find a job.

Look closely at the job responsibilities and not just the titles. While in a purist sense, we might define a clear difference between a business analyst and a systems analyst or a process analyst and a business analyst or a business process analyst and a functional technical analyst ….and so the list could go on…the titles are used inconsistently in job postings. Reading the responsibilities and requirements will typically give you a good insight into what the job actually is and could open up more opportunities for you.

(By the way, our best-selling book How to Start a Business Analyst Career will help you dissect the qualifications in job postings so you can get past titles to see what’s a BA job and what’s not.)

3. Use Language from the Job Posting in Your Resume

Many business analyst hiring managers are less informed about business analysis techniques than you might assume. And recruiters or HR representatives are often less so. By using the terms from the job posting in your business analyst resume (provided they accurately represent your business analysis qualifications) you can make it easier for a manager or recruiter to pick out your relevant qualifications and see your career history as relevant to the current position.

4. Network Professionally to Find Hidden Opportunities

We all know it, but few do it. The best success stories I’ve heard recently all come from professional networking. The best interviews are when someone contacts you about a job. You get to skip the whole application process completely! Getting involved in your IIBA Chapter is a first place to start. You’ll meet BAs and if you can prove to them that you are dependable and smart, they are much likely to fill you in when there’s a new opportunity in their organization.

I know this works. I recently helped connect one of our IIBA Denver volunteers with an organization and she landed her first BA position. I felt confident recommending her because she had helped me document one of our Chapter business processes.

Moreover, recruiters at IIBA meetings come mostly to meet candidates. They are scoping out local talent. They are a great resource for what’s happening in your local job market and for helping you find open positions. At our last networking meeting I made a connection with a recruiter who might be able to help me find part-time contract work in 2011.

And beyond IIBA, professional associations for related roles, industry associations, job seeker groups, and any place where you’ll be in contact with business leaders can be great ways to make new contacts that might help you with your job search.

5. Break the Rules

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to your job search. In answer to a question about “what’s the ideal amount of time to build a BA experience?” I said (of course) “it depends.” It could be 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months, or 2 years depending on the nature of the experience, the constraints in your work environment, and the amount of knowledge you need to accumulate to be successful. What matters most about putting an experience on your resume or talking about it with a potential employer is that you achieved a meaningful result that you can speak to with clarity. There’s not a rule, but there is a purpose or principle to consider.

In a similar fashion, you can break the rules, including those in this post. My feelings won’t be hurt. Just be sure to understand what rules you are following and what you intend to accomplish through those rules. Consider some other options. You never know when you might realize your rules are marching you consistently away from your goals.

Get the Book

In How to Start a Business Analyst Career, you’ll learn how to assess and expand your business analysis skills and experience.

This book will help you find your best path forward into a business analyst career. More than that, you will know exactly what to do next to expand your business analysis opportunities.

Click here to learn more about How to Start a Business Analyst Career

1. Do all BA jobs require industry experience?
2. Is industry knowledge mandatory to find my first business analyst job?
3. If I see a  qualification for industry expertise in a job posting, but I know I could be successful in the job, should I apply anyway?

Let’s tackle these inter-related questions one at a time.

Do All BA Jobs Require Industry Experience?

Not all BA jobs require industry experience, but many do. And when it’s included as a required qualification, industry experience is typically a show-stopper qualification for the hiring manager, meaning that they won’t consider candidates without the right expertise.

(This means you won’t ever hear back if you submit your resume, for no other reason than your lack of relevant industry experience. I am making a point to spell this out because I see people get very frustrated about their opportunities in business analysis when this happens. The reality is that this has nothing to do with you as a person or a BA. It simply means there is not a fit between your qualifications and this particular job. Focus instead on leveraging your other transferable skills.)

In a small handful of other cases, the manager will consider BAs without the appropriate industry experience but they are very likely to hire a BA with industry experience before just about any other BA they interview – unless the BA significantly outranks the BA with industry experience in every other important qualification.

You can argue about whether this is right or wrong, and I’ll go into that a bit later on. But for now, let’s take a practical look at how this situation came to be by considering the hiring manager’s perspective.

That job posting represents a pain point of some sort. They need to solve a problem in that organization. And, if they are requiring part of the solution to that problem (i.e. the BA) to have industry experience, it’s probably for one of the following two reasons:

1. They believe that it will take a BA without expertise too long to get up to speed to be successful in the position.
2. There is no one for the BA to work with who has the industry experience required to make the project successful.

Often #2 is the case. That those BA jobs requiring industry experience need the BA to fulfill a form of product ownership. The BA is required to have the domain knowledge because there is no one for them to “elicit” the domain knowledge from.

Is Industry Knowledge Mandatory to Find My First Business Analyst Job?

No. But it’s extremely useful. It’s a success path I see many new business analysts following — leveraging their industry experience to find their first BA job. By bringing this essential qualification to an employer they are able to position themselves as a strong contributor and then learn the BA skills on the job.It also provides a bit of comfort as a new BA to have some system or industry competencies to rely on.

If you don’t have deep knowledge in an industry, you’ll want to consider what other position of strength you can offer to an employer. This might be technical knowledge, strong facilitation, specialized tool or system knowledge, organizational expertise, etc. We all have something unique to offer. What’s your point of differentiation?

Should I Apply for a Job Posting that Requires Industry Expertise That I Don’t Have?

I really sympathize with the underlying desire behind this question. It can often feel like industry experience is just slapped on a role and that we could be successful in “everything but” the industry experience. And it is tough to look at all the BA job openings and find yourself unqualified for the vast majority of them.

But this is reality. And it doesn’t just apply to you.

Most BAs do not qualify for the vast majority of BA jobs.

Even those that are CBAPs and have years of professional experience. The market is just too fragmented for even a senior BA to apply to every BA job out there.

Now, if industry experience is a preferred qualification or just listed in the bullet points as an after thought, it can be worth applying if you are otherwise qualified. But again, it’s likely that if the hiring manager bothered to list industry experience as a qualification, they are going to prefer candidates that have it, when reviewing resumes and conducting job interviews.

It could make sense to apply – it could very well be that no one with the appropriate experience applies and the manager widens their net – but please don’t allow your ego to get caught up in the position at any stage of the process. Because if your ego gets too damaged, your progress towards your BA career goals suffers, and I don’t want to see that happen to you.

What Should We Do About This?

You might read all this and think that someone should “do something” about this “problem.”

I have two things to say about this.

First, while this might seem like a good idea to address this head on, it’s important to remember that organizations don’t exist to support business analysts. Business analysts exist to support organizations.

We need to solve a problem for the organization and if that organization needs someone with industry experience to solve their problem, then who are we, the individual professional, to tell them differently?

Now, of course, we can take this problem up a level and help the organization see how the use of professionals in more general business analysis roles could help them solve their problems more effectively. We can help them restructure their organization so that that industry experience requirements fall to a different, possibly more appropriate, role. This is possible and potentially desirable for our profession. But it’s not something for you to worry about right now, which leads me to my second point.

Second, you as the BA job seeker have no business trying to solve this problem. As an individual job seeker applying for an individual job opening, it’s very unlikely that you will wield the influence necessary to achieve this sort of organizational change.

I’d rather you see you focus on getting employed first, then making a solid contribution so you stay employed, and then (and only then) begin the even more difficult work of maturing your organization’s BA practice and perceptions of business analysts.

What Can I Do About This?

Glad you asked. The way you position yourself as a BA is very important. And it may even be that you have more relevant industry experience than you expect or more relevant and transferable skills that will help you make this career transition.

Get the Book

In How to Start a Business Analyst Career, you’ll learn how to assess and expand your business analysis skills and experience.

This book will help you find your best path forward into a business analyst career. More than that, you will know exactly what to do next to expand your business analysis opportunities.

Click here to learn more about How to Start a Business Analyst Career

For job interview purposes specifically, but also pertaining to those early days on the job, what questions should an entry level BA be asking?

To provide additional context, I am currently interviewing for BA positions that match my experience level. Although I’m hoping for another job opportunity, I don’t want to wake up and find that I’ve talked myself into a position that doesn’t challenge me to grow and where I am not gaining exposure to valuable project experience.

Are there questions I should ask in the interview to expose the company’s commitment to their BA’s, or should I expect those barriers as a common path to the more challenging BA roles? What are the “signs” to look out for that will tell me whether the organization I’m interviewing with will utilize and value their BA’s?

Laura’s response:

This is a great question. There is a delicate balancing act, as you recognize, in terms of asking questions without putting the manager on the defensive. Also, in many business analyst job interview situations, you might have the opportunity to meet with multiple people, so think about what questions you might ask different people. The BAs will probably be more honest and upfront.

(Before I forget, I want to be sure you know that you can download my free BA Job Interview Prep Guide and receive more detailed information on preparing for your business analyst job interview.)

Now, if you are hiring for a position and you don’t get to meet with anyone but the hiring manager, that could be a different sign in and of itself — I always gave at least a few members of my team an opportunity to meet candidates. It was good to help build their skills, judge fit for the organization, and also for the candidate to get a real flavor for the position. I would sit in on these conversations and just listen and watch for rapport (or not). But I digress.

I think for the most part you want to understand the business analysis role and the business analysis methodology. By understanding the manager’s approach to roles and process, you’ll indirectly be able to see support for BAs.

Ask questions such as:

• What different roles are there within the organization? How do they interact with business analysts?
• When it comes to process, do you have a big process or an informal one?
• What are your expectations for someone filling the business analyst role? t
• Another good one is “What makes a person successful here?” or “What kinds of challenges will I be able to help with?”

If you are feeling comfortable, you can ask questions about professional development opportunities. I would think about asking a BA something like, what do you do as a team to improve your process? What sort of support do you get to grow your business analyst skills? Or, have there been any recent improvements to how you do requirements? How were those received?

>>Go Into Your Next Interview with Confidence

Pick up the BA Job Interview Prep Guide that walks you through the essential steps you need to take to prepare for your first or next business analyst job interview.

Click here to get your copy of the BA Job Interview Prep Guide

You are a good software engineer, database manager, or software quality assurance professional who recently discovered that business analysis is the role you enjoy the most. How do you go from a technical role to a business analysis role?

This is a problem faced by many aspiring business analysts, and even by people who already spend time doing business analysis work in technical positions. What should you do to prove to potential employers that you have the necessary skills to take a formal BA role? How to avoid being constantly “dragged back” to an IT role when the volume of development work grows or the size of the IT staff is reduced?

Having solid technical skills can be a great starting point for someone looking to develop a career in business analysis. In Why do we see technical skills in business analyst jobs? Laura lists a good reason why many BA jobs ask for technical skills: BAs with technical knowledge are more likely to ask the right questions about technical implementation.

The assumption becomes if you can write code now or could write code in the past, you are less likely to be trampled by the developers.

I remember at least one situation in which my technical background (electrical engineering, with time spent programming in C and Java) came to the rescue of a system enhancement project in danger of not fulfilling the business need. The developer (who had inherited the code from someone else), was adamant that one of the business requests could not be implemented without a major code rewrite, which would require time and budget the project didn’t have. I asked him to explain to me the basis for his opinion. After some investigation, I discovered that the initial implementation had a flaw that could be easily corrected. By simply changing a primary key in the database (to the one that actually made more sense from a system and business perspective), it would be possible to implement the feature the business requested. The developer wasn’t exactly convinced by my arguments, but I scheduled a meeting with him and the head of development (a manager with excellent technical background), and the manager immediately saw that my analysis was correct. The featured ended up being implemented without the major code overhaul proposed by the developer.

Situations like the one described are not uncommon when business analysts with a technical background work together with business subject matter experts and the IT team to find the optimal solution for a business problem. A business- and technology-savvy analyst can be instrumental in helping determine the business need and define the optimal solution to meet this need.

The biggest obstacle for IT professionals interested in developing a BA career is the lack of well-developed business skills. One might argue that “soft skills” (the ability to communicate with clarity, precision and eloquence, work well with other people building effective contacts and relationships across and outside the organization, and so on) are more important for a BA than being business-savvy. However, in my experience, software engineers who are passioned about business analysis already value and develop their transferable soft skills, so it’s typically not the main competence gap they face when they try to switch to a BA position.

Understanding things like revenue streams and profit centers, on the other hand, may require a mode of thinking that is relatively unfamiliar to many technical people. Often, IT professionals are more skilled at writing elegant code, and producing software rich and features and functions, than at helping stakeholders determine the right set of project requirements capable of balancing the needs of the company, the market, and the users.

If you have a background in IT, and want to become a business analyst, here are some steps that will help you reach your goal:

1. Read Bridging the Gap regularly. Here you will be able to interact with BAs who successfully made the the transition from a technical role, and read articles like What jobs will lead to a BA role?, which will give you good insight on how to highlight your BA experience in your resume, and how to use other roles as stepping stones to get a BA job. Signing up for the free email newsletter will help you stay updated with the latest posts.
2. Periodically reassess your competence gap and make sure you have a plan to address them.
3. Learn to “talk the talk” of business analysts. The site Modern Analyst offers a useful list of potential interview questions that can help you formulate your thoughts and become better prepared to answer screening and interview questions.
4. If you haven’t started yet, read business books, and blogs such as the ones from Harvard Business, as well as resources that can help you build your business analysis skills, like the ones I recommend here.

Finally, if you are truly invested in developing a business analysis career, check out the book, How to Start a Business Analyst Career.

New and experienced business analysts alike will start researching jobs, only to discover that an overwhelming number of positions require specific technical skills. Or, they speak with a recruiter who has a myopic view of the role, and are told that if they can’t write code [or insert your favorite technical skill here], they’ll never make it as a BA.

In what follows, I’ll explain why we see BA jobs requiring technical skills, show you how to determine what those technical qualifications really mean, and give you a litmus test to see if you have the technical understanding required to be a successful BA.

Why We See BA Jobs Requiring Technical Skills

In the real-world job market, business analyst roles are messy. There are a specializations, unique qualifications, extensions, and partitions. The short answer to this question is you can find a BA role that does not require technical skills. But you have to be prepared to wade through and ignore those jobs with technical qualifications.

As soon as I find a job with an absolute requirement for SQL or a coding language, I stop reading and move on. If you don’t want to be doing those things, applying to jobs that require those skills is just a waste of time. So is fretting over their existence. Remind yourself that BA roles are messy and set them aside.

(And if you are interested in learning more about the BA job marketplace, be sure to sign up for our free BA career planning course.)

But before you throw out too many job roles, realize that the technical requirements you see in job postings can mean different things depending on the context. And that’s what we cover next.

Sorting Through the Technical Skills Requirements

You may notice that not all jobs with specific technical skills listed require the ability to use those skills. Sometimes these skills are preferred. Sometimes they are not mapped to any of the job responsibilities in the description. Sometimes you can ascertain a bit about the position by looking for the context around the qualification.

Consider the following two hypothetical examples:

• Write SQL reports. Requires SQL report writing experience with deep knowledge developing complex queries across multiple tables.
• Prior experience in SQL preferred. Understanding of database concepts and information models critical.

While the first requirement indicates day-to-day SQL responsibilities, the second does not. Vague or “preferred’ requirements often indicate a desire for a business analyst to think logically and understand big picture technical concepts. Other times, they have seen business analysts trampled by developers because they don’t ask the right questions. The assumption becomes if you can write code now or could write code in the past, you are less likely to be trampled by the developers. (Just because this assumption can turn out to be wrong doesn’t stop well-meaning managers of business analysts from making it.)

When technical skills are couched in conceptual or communication-related contexts, the technical skill may be less important than system-thinking competencies. And as a business analyst, IT-focused or not, you must have good systems-thinking skills.

Technical Understanding vs. Technical Skills

While we are starting to see a growing number of jobs focusing specifically on business process and organizational changes, the reality is that most business analyst jobs involve working on IT projects. By an IT project, I mean that a larger part of the solution is implemented in software. To perform BA work on an IT project does not require a technical background or the ability to write code. I’ve spent most of my career working on IT projects and I hadn’t written a line of programming code since high school when I took a class on PASCAL.

As a business analyst on an IT project, it is important to have a general understanding of software systems. Basic knowledge of servers, databases, and client side technology, augmented with solid logical, systems-thinking will do. Combining both will lead to more effective communication with the implementation team.

Quick Test: Select a software application (client or web-based) that you use often. Select 2 or 3 activities you use it for. Can you identify the main sub-systems and interactions that are in place to enable these activities? If yes, you probably have enough software knowledge for a pure BA position on an IT project.

>>Get Hired as a BA

Our 5-step business analyst job search process will walk you through what you need to do to get hired as a business analyst.

Click here to learn more about the BA job search process

In this article, I’ll walk through a process that has helped almost every business analyst job seeker I’ve worked with transform the work history section of their resume to emphasize the most relevant career experiences. This process results in a different structure to the work history section – you still organize your experiences by job and by employer, but instead of including one list of bullet points for each job, you have the flexibility to add bullet points specific to each project you’ve worked on. This allows you to pick and choose what experiences you emphasize and give more attention in your resume to your most relevant career experiences, while also being 100% honest about your professional experience.

(By the way, this is just one of 8 Business Analyst Resume Secrets You Need to Know Especially If You’ve Never Held the BA Job Title.)

Let’s look at the four steps you can take to elaborate your work history by including project summaries.

Step 1 – Identify Key Projects in Your Work History

The first thing you want to do is list some of the key projects in your career, paying careful attention to those that meet one or more of the following criteria:

• Big impact for your organization;
• You took on new responsibilities or otherwise excelled in some way;
• Close match to the type of work you want to be doing in your next position.

Not all projects will make it on your resume. In fact, you might develop project summaries for several projects and then select the key ones that best match a specific job you are applying for.

As you go through the list, start diagnosing the project.

• What did you contribute?
• What did you learn?
• What deliverables did you create?
• What would others say about your work?

Look at the project from multiple different angles to get a clear picture of the experience. This step takes a good understanding of your business analyst skills and it can be helpful to go through a skills discovery process so you know what projects to highlight and skills to represent.

Step 2 – Write a Summary for Each Project

With the background information in hand, write a short 1-2 sentence summary of the project.

Although there are no hard and fast rules, what I’ve seen work best is to have a sentence or two describing the project. These should hit the high points:

• What was your role?
• What, in essence, did you contribute?
• What impact did the project have on your organization?

Once you are done, you’ll have a bunch of mini-elevator pitches ready, any one of which might be the exact thing your next hiring manager is looking for in a candidate. You’ll also be using your resume to suggest some very compelling discussion topics, should you get called in for a business analyst job interview.

Step 3 – Write a Set of Bullet Points for Each Project

Next consider a few bullet points that back-up your project statement. You’ll want to select a few experiences that showcase your ability to use business analysis tools and techniques to achieve a tangible outcome for your project or your organization. You might think about one bullet each for the beginning, middle, and end of the project. These bullet points should detail specific contributions that you made. Wherever you can, include numbers to quantify your role. Here you want to be very concrete.

For example,

Elicited business requirements from 10 stakeholders to define a validated scope statement.

You can improve how you position not just your business analysis skills, but also your soft skills, by identifying how you impacted the project. As you think about a statement like the above, consider what challenges you faced doing this specific activity. When you are eliciting requirements, stakeholders don’t often just line themselves up in a row and sign on the dotted line. There is facilitation involved and maybe you helped overcome conflict. Maybe they had different understandings of some key terms and so couldn’t agree on scope. What did you specifically add to the elicitation process that helped make the project more successful?

After such a diagnosis of your experience, you may end up with something that looks more like this:

Elicited business requirements from 10 stakeholders across 4 departments, overcoming inter-departmental differences in understanding about key business processes by drafting high-level process flows, resulting in a validated scope statement.

There are probably 20 ways to write the above accomplishment and how you choose to do it will depend on which professional qualifications you want to emphasize in your business analyst resume. But doesn’t it have some punch? Don’t you feel like the person who could write this is likely to know a good deal about how to be a good BA?

Step 4 – Include Selected Project Summaries in the Work History Section

It’s likely you’ve worked on several projects. After drafting the summaries and bullet points for each project, consider which ones have the most impact and are most relevant to the type of position you are applying for.  Insert 3-5 projects into your work history section, indenting them below the appropriate job. If you are applying to multiple different kinds of business analyst jobs, you can swap projects in and out of your work history section so you are emphasizing career experiences the recruiter and hiring manager are most likely to find interesting.

I read statistics that say that 80% of projects fail because of poor requirements. I’ve been a developer and I could take a certification test before I got a job. As a PM, any negative impact I could have was limited to the delivery. As a BA, people could be stuck with my bad requirements for a long time. How do I know that I’m ready for this position and that I won’t screw things up? Is there any litmus test I can give myself to be sure I’m ready to take on a full-time business analyst role?

Laura’s response:

The “Am I BA” Litmus Test

Historically, most business analysts have become business analysts through experience, not formal business analyst training. We creep into the role from related roles and wake up one day and find ourselves in a business analyst position. Others of us simply jump into the deep end of the pool and hope our instincts lead us to swim. So the reality is that most people today that call themselves business analysts have not applied such a litmus test. The CBAP is obviously one such test, but it is only available to individuals with 5 years of experience, so it doesn’t really resolve your dilemma. The CCBA could come much closer, but still requires 2 1/2 years of experience.

But the reality of our profession is that formal knowledge of the role is secondary to experience. It’s rare that an individual takes an entry-level business analyst course and then auto-magically is a “qualified” business analyst.

You Don’t Have to Own Your First Project

My first business analyst experiences were not on projects I owned. I was lucky enough to shadow a senior business analyst. I attended her meetings, took meeting notes, and provided the initial drafts of some requirements documents. She reviewed everything I did before it went out to the stakeholder team.

She fed me increasingly more challenging business analyst responsibilities as I learned BA by watching her in action. This was kind of like getting to swim in the kids pool to get used to the water. After a few months of this, I was thrown into the deep end on one of the biggest projects the team had tackled. Then I learned to truly swim.

But, There Are Some Life-Preservers

Not everyone will have the opportunity to shadow a BA before jumping into the deep-end. But it doesn’t mean that when you jump into the deep end of the pool, you don’t do some smart things to make sure you don’t drown. There are a few life-preservers that you’ll want to make sure you’ve got close by to make sure you learn to swim.

#1 Your requirements will be validated by others

A bit of the fear of screwing things up should be alleviated by the realization that as a business analysts, while you are the author of the requirements, you are not solely responsible for their contents. Any project should have some layer validation or approval – the requirements are typically reviewed by multiple business and technical stakeholders before being finalized and implemented. This collective responsibility for the requirements doesn’t mean that you are off the hook for writing good requirements, but it does mean that you will have others reviewing and checking your work.

#2 Learn and apply formal business analyst knowledge

Your learning can continue on your first few projects. As someone prepared to enter the profession, you’ve probably already read some books and maybe even taken a training course. (That’s a link to the virtual, instructor-led courses we offer here.) It’s important to maintain these activities as you move through your first project. In some cases, you’ll trust your instincts. In others, you’ll want to refer to books, go back through course materials, or have some on-demand training ready to prepare you for a tough task.  You may also want to gather together some templates or work samples to use, especially if you can find the type of documentation typically created by BAs in your organization.

#3 Find a senior-BA mentor

The true life preserver for a new business analyst is the support of a senior-level analyst.  A mentor should share their experiences with you and help you wade through some of the more difficult challenges. Even senior business analysts often rely on their peers for support in a challenging problem. But as a new BA, it is worth finding the support of someone in your organization that can spend a bit of time with you each week to talk through your plans, review your deliverables, and provide ongoing support and advice.

>>Get Ready For Your First Project

Would you like a starting point for approaching common business analyst work scenarios? Along with work samples so you can see what a typical requirements document looks like?

Check out the Business Analyst Template Toolkit – all of the requirements templates are fully annotated and editable by you, giving you a great starting point for starting your first business analyst project or formalizing your work samples.

Click here to learn more about the BA Template Toolkit

Reader question:

I have been in sales now for about 15 years, mostly in the financial industry. I am thinking of changing careers and the business analyst route seems interesting to me. From what I hear there is the interaction part with people along with communication skills and the liaison aspect between departments.

My question is, is there a way to be a BA without having to be real technical in terms of learning programs, etc. but focus on the liaison part. I’m tired of sales and the commission aspect, not knowing if there will be another paycheck etc.

Can a sales person who is used to be out and about all day become a BA or is this too extreme?

Laura’s answer:

Business analysis is a much different role than sales, but there are also transferable skills from one role to the other.

You will find you have some very relevant transferable skills.

• Interviewing clients pre-sales can be an awful lot like asking stakeholders questions about their requirements.
• Creating proposals for clients which have many parallels to scope statements and business cases.
• Negotiation, influence, and the ability to align others around a common goal are all necessary to being a great business analyst. This relates to what you mention in terms of being a strong liaison with good communication skills.

In your particular case, your financial industry experience could provide a launch point for a BA career, as BA roles in the financial industry tend to value industry experience. As a sales person, I imagine you have a lot of knowledge about different organizations and needs throughout the industry, which could make your experience very compelling to the right hiring manager.

You do not have to have hard technical skills (as in knowing how to write programs) to be a business analyst. However, you do need to dig in and obtain a working functional knowledge of how certain business applications work. You’ll also need to explore new business domains with curiosity and fit all the pieces together.

One thing I write about in How to Start a Business Analyst Career that applies in your situation is to be very aware of the time you like to spend with people vs. the time you like to spend doing independent work. Across all my various BA roles, I’ve found that I spend about 1/3 of my time with people (mostly in meetings) and 2/3 independently (working up specifications, analyzing problems, etc). I find it hard to imagine a BA role that would allow you to spend more than 50% of your time with people.

Ask yourself if you can imagine sitting at your desk, working independently on a model or requirements document for at least 4 hours out of a typical work day.

>>Find Out if BA Is Right For You

Interested in learning more about whether or not business analysis is a good career choice for you? Check out these articles from our archive:

• 42 Reasons to Start a Business Analyst Career
• How Do I Know If I’m Qualified to Be a Business Analyst?
• The Business Analyst Job Search Process

And don’t forget to join our list – you’ll receive a free BA career planning course and an ongoing series of tips to help you grow your business analyst career.

The job is in mortgage industry and I will be working with a top leader in mortgage solutions for some of major banks like BofA and Chase. I am concerned about what kind of portable skills am I going to acquire. My role currently is creating technical designs wherein I would be basically working on a document laying out what changes that need to be done to which places in code. The document is meant for developers and I create that based on the Business Requirements gathered by our company BAs. I am afraid that I will learn too much about the tool but not grow as much as I should, if just in case I was to leave this company after 2 years for example. I would ultimately like to see myself as a BA and then PM.

What do you have to say about this?

Laura’s answer: You raise a great question and just the fact that you raise it tells me that you are taking your career in your own hands. So first of all, well done on looking at the long-term potential of this position and how it meshes with your career goals!

I think you are correct to acknowledge the limitations of your current role to qualify you for future business analyst roles. As a Technical Analyst you will become a systems expert over time and it sounds like your current role is leveraging your programming competencies more than your business analyst skills.

All is not lost. First off, there are BA competencies that you will expand upon in this position. You will become very good at communicating with developers and understanding what makes them successful. And you will do this without actually doing the development work, which is an important layer of abstraction. You will also become an excellent consumer of business requirements as provided by your BAs. You will learn what kind of input makes you successful as a technical analyst and you will have a deep understanding of the process between business requirements and technical specifications.

Because you know the limitations of your role going in and you have a clear set of career goals, you can keep your eyes open for other opportunities that might surface to build transferable skills. Can you build business analyst experiences through new assignments?

• Maybe your team needs to improve it’s processes?
• Maybe you could shadow the business analysts through requirements gathering?
• Maybe a business analyst will go on an extended vacation and you’ll be able to step up and assume some of the responsibilities? (I actually qualified myself for a QA role when a senior person on my team spent 3 weeks in Japan — don’t count on it but it does happen!)
• Maybe a business analyst position will open up while you are working as a technical analyst and you’ll be able to apply. Your system knowledge could be viewed as a strong asset for a BA position in the same company and thereby help you to build more marketable competencies.

I wish you the best in your new role. I hope you enjoy it and are able to make the most of it.

Get the Book

In How to Start a Business Analyst Career, you’ll learn how to assess and expand your business analysis skills and experience.

This book will help you find your best path forward into a business analyst career. More than that, you will know exactly what to do next to expand your business analysis opportunities.

Click here to learn more about How to Start a Business Analyst Career

My question is about BA resumes. I have 5 years of experience in IT and around 4.5 in BA. I am a developer/BA blend, as I understand from your book My resume lists my experiences chronologically. I remember from your IIBA presentation on resumes that a resume should contain accomplishments vs just responsibilities.  What proportion of these two things do you suggest?

I don’t want the resume to sound like I am just blowing my own trumpet but balance it with something like this is what I helped the company with (in other words, accomplishments) and these are the additional responsibilities that I handled.

Laura’s answer:

I totally understand the desire not to sound too much like a salesperson when you are putting your business analyst resume together. However, the reality is that you do need to sell your legitimate qualifications on your resume and be sure it clearly communicates what you can do by showing what you have done. The first person reviewing your resume is very unlikely to make assumptions in your favor. So toot your own horn or blow you own trumpet, even if just a little.

Let’s look at exactly what an accomplishment is. An accomplishment is a tangible result you’ve achieved for an organization you worked for. It is a benefit they received of employing you as a BA or a developer or in a blended role.

If you are honest about what you contributed, you’ll start to feel less like a salesperson and more like a communicator. And that’s the sweet spot you want to be in. You’ll need to be there before you succeed in the job interview, so you might as well figure it out when putting together your resume.

The other thing about accomplishments is that they don’t just happen. You have to do something to make them happen. Your projects are not wildly successful because you happened to wake up on the right side of the bed. Your requirements aren’t clear representations of real stakeholder needs that solve real business problems because you put random words down on paper. You did something tangible to make this happen.

This is why backing up your accomplishments with responsibilities is so important. Trust your “blowing my trumpet” instinct to guide you to in asking “what did I do to achieve that result?” In the answer to this question, you’ll find your how behind your what.

Include both in each bullet point.

For example,

Achieved alignment across four departments about a new, user-friendly navigation scheme by creating mock-ups, identifying stakeholders, and facilitating review meetings.

Or, as another example,

Improved communication between product managers and the software development team by modeling requirements in use cases and holding combined walk-through meetings, resulting in fewer changes in test.

This way your list combines accomplishments and responsibilities in one statement. Written this way, all of your bullet points could show accomplishments.

If you want more information on what responsibilities and accomplishments to include in your resume, especially if you have a varied career, click here to read my take on that.

>>Get Hired as a BA

Our 5-step business analyst job search process will walk you through what you need to do to get hired as a business analyst.

Click here to learn more about the BA job search process

Part of the challenge is that many of us view a resume as primarily a document of our career history. If you change up your perspective and view your resume as a sales/marketing document (a high-quality, high-integrity one), there are some plausible options for grooming your resume appropriately.

In today’s job market, recruiters receive an overwhelming number of resumes for every open position. Assuming they actually look at your resume, they are looking primarily for a reason to throw it to the side. One recruiter actually shares his scanning method for looking at resumes and a key trigger is whether or not your most recent job title is similar to the opening position.

When you are thinking about your job titles, think about that over-worked and overwhelmed recruiter. But also think ahead to landing the job interview and passing reference checks. You don’t want to sneak through the filter system and get caught later on down the road. (It’s always a good idea to keep your entire BA job search process in perspective.) And there are a few options to make sure that doesn’t happen to you.

Change Your Job Titles on Your Business Analyst Resume

Simply swapping out the “official” job title for the one you feel best represents the work you were doing at the time is a way to make sure your resume helps you stand out as a candidate for your target position. This approach does have some risks. If your previous employer is called for a reference check, they will most likely reference your work by the official title.This option is probably best suited for positions at smaller companies where titles were lax anyway.

As I interviewed new business analysts as part of my research for How to Start a Business Analyst Career, I found that people used this technique to highlight legitimate business analyst experience in their career history in jobs where their responsibilities shifted quite a few times and job titles were not formalized.

But don’t worry if you aren’t comfortable with this solution, because there are other ways to be sure your BA experience gets noticed.

Include “Business Analyst” and the “Official” Job Title

Another option is to include your official title and also a representative title in parenthesis. You could also separate the two titles with a slash or hyphen. I use this technique to represent my work in my most recent full-time position. My official title was “Director, Enterprise Solutions” but what I was really doing what leading a PMO, a QA group, and defining the Business Architecture. As I am applying mostly for business analyst positions, I capture this title as Business Architect / Enterprise Solutions Director.

Use Descriptions to Tie Together Job Titles and Work Accomplishments

While most resumes follow-up a job title with a bullet list of accomplishments, I aim to capture my core responsibilities and any situational context in 1-2 brief sentences. If you are uncomfortable changing out or augmenting your job title, brief descriptions can help tie together a mismatched job title and the accomplishments you are listing out. This won’t necessarily get you past the filter, but it will help you pass muster in a more detailed review.

Warning: Match Your Accomplishments to Your Job Titles

Simply swapping out titles is not going to land you a business analyst job interview. The titles you use in your career history and the job responsibilities/accomplishments within that position must be consistent. Nothing smells stranger to a recruiter than a title and description that don’t match. Do your homework.

This means you can only give yourself the title if you can also legitimately list responsibilities you had that someone with that title would have had. After all, we are not talking about stretching the truth here. We are talking about representing the work you actually did in a way that recruiters and hiring managers will respond to.

Warning: Prep Your Employment References About Your Resume

If you are flexible with your job titles in your resume, be sure to inform your references. If a potential employer contacts someone, they are likely to reference the title on your resume. Be sure your reference understands how you are presenting that position and are comfortable supporting that characterization so they don’t mistakenly botch a reference-check.

>>Get Hired as a BA

Our 5-step business analyst job search process will walk you through what you need to do to get hired as a business analyst.

Click here to learn more about the BA job search process

If you are thinking of a career in business analysis, here are 5 signs you should give business analysis more than a fleeting glance:

1. You find yourself in meetings and like it. You always seem to sense when people are talking at each other but not communicating with each other. Bonus points if you find yourself in the middle of these conversations because you feel compelled to make them understand each other.
2. You like to write, especially a precise type of writing, and you are comfortable working independently at your computer for 2-3 hours at a time.
3. You always seem to find something wrong with a website or piece of software and ask yourself, why didn’t they think to handle that better? You get a bonus point if your co-workers come to you with questions about the legacy system you work with day-to-day. You understand not just how to use the system to do your job, but why things work the way they do. You wonder why everyone else just doesn’t get it.
4. You can handle tense situations but you don’t feel the need to be in the conflict. Helping people wade through different opinions and make informed decisions is one of the most important things a BA does.
5. You like to ask questions. You make sure you really know what someone meant when they said what they said. Right along with this is that you naturally clarify problems before getting to solutions.  You might annoy people with all your questions about what the problem “really” is and why they think it’s something it’s not.  But you also rarely get caught with your pants down expending lots of effort to solve a problem only to find out no one cares about the solution. And when you do, you only blame yourself.

Score At Least 4 out of 5?

Check out 42 Reasons to Start a BA Career – after which you should have a pretty good idea of whether or not starting a career as a business analyst is going to make sense for you.