The Business Analyst job description may vary from one company to another.
The job requirements of a person filling a business analyst position depend on the business nature of a given company.
Therefore, each Business Analyst job interview can be completely different.
Note: a Business Analyst is sometimes referred to as a System Analyst or Engineers Analysts or IT business analyst.
This article provides samples of job interview questions for a business analyst position.
In general, the business analyst job description is:
- Effectively translate business needs to applications and operations.
- Challenge cross company units and provide the requirements for the R&D team.
- Use cases, surveys/scenarios analysis, and workflow analysis, evaluating information, focal point for internal and external customers, define users’ needs and convert to business cases.
The skills requirements for a business analyst are:
- Leadership
- Decision making
- Conflict resolution
- Presentation skills
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Interpersonal communication skills
- Analytical thinking and a negotiator
Sample Business Analyst Interview Questions
- Describe your responsibilities as a business analyst in your last job.
- What are the BI, Business Intelligence, reporting tools you use for a given project. Describe the project, the BI tool/s and the report extracted.
- How do you select which BI tool to implement? How do you decide on the report-frequency, update-frequency and user-needs based on the objectives you want to
- achieve for that report? Refer to BI tools such as – Cognos Discoverer, Business Objects and Crystal reports etc.
- Can you list the desired skills needed to perform effectively as a Business Analyst?
- What types of modeling requirements are used in the business applications of the analyst?
- If two companies are merging, explain which tasks you would implement and how, to ensure a successful union?
- Have you been responsible for assigning tasks to testers? How were you required to integrate the results found? How do you coordinate these responsibilities with the team and your management?
- Can you explain the term “push back” in relation to business users? What this means to you?
- When working on a project, at what point would the requirements of a Traceability Matrix be implemented and for what purpose?
- For process testing, can you explain the role of the Business Analyst?
- When working with specific document requirements, can you explain or define the steps to create Use Cases?
- At what point of a project is the Use Case system complete? What are the next steps in the project phase?
Some other technical questions that may be asked during the job interview include:
Technical terms and Technical questions
Some technical terms that may be used by the interviewer to verify your knowledge and competencies would be:
- UML modeling
- GAP analysis
- SDLC methodologies
- Traceability Matrix
- RUP, Rational Unified Process, implementation.
- UI Designs and UI Design Patterns
- System Design Document (SDD)
- Requirement Management Tool, Requirements Modeling
- Use Case and Test Case
- Risk Management
- Business plan
- Data mapping
- Black box testing and White box testing
- Push Back from Business Users
- Waterfall Method and Prototyping Model and their hybrid
- Interface / Integration mapping
- Functional requirements: FSD(Functional Spec document) or FRS/MRD
- End user support and user acceptance testing (UAT)
- Validation of the requirements
- Determine – ROI, cash flow, break even and fixed/variable costs and sale price
Answer:
This is your time to review your knowledge about the above business terms. Make sure you have good understanding of some of these buzz words of the industry of your interest.
Read again the job description which was detailed in the job opening and if you find special requirements, prepare yourself to answer related questions
In case you have expertise in several specific areas, find the right time during the interview to speak about these professional expertise that you gained in your career.
Financial Positions Job Interviews