We’ve written a few blog posts about how to be a sucessful Business Analyst. Such as 12 Things to Fertilize Your Business Analysis Career Plus there’s other sites that have helpful information on the subject how to become a Business Analyst, and how to be successful.
But people often ask; what do we look for in a BA?
One of our biggest challenges is finding good Business Analysts and Product Managers. We interview a wide variety of individuals but it’s really tough to find good hires. Since we specialize in such a detailed field we really have to look for specific skills. Having relevant experience and having consulting experience does not suffice.
Our interview processes is also a bit more unusual than most companies. We start off by having the candidate fill out a questionnaire, we conduct a phone interview. Then we have two onsite interviews that are more specific to job required skills for the business analyst and product management job.
This process is more thorough than most; however we feel we can get a better feel for the candidates’ background and culture fit by doing these series of evaluations.
During this whole process we look for certain skills at each step. If a candidate does poorly at any of these steps, we won’t move him/her on though the remainder of the process.
All throughout the interview process we ask ourselves:
Do they have strong analytical skills?
Have they written software requirements documents before?
Are they detail oriented?
Are they a good cultural fit?
Do they have any consulting experience?
Are they coachable/ trainable?
Are they personable?
Are they professional?
Would I like to work with this person?
Answering ‘yes’ to all of these is a rare find.
Most important to us: we have to have BA’s and Product Managers who possess strong analytical skills, are very detail oriented, solid technical skills and are someone we would like to work with.
