Hi, I'm Jen. Today I'm talking about business analysts interviews.
Specifically - how do you sell your skills and your fit for the job in your next
BA interview? There are two main types of questions that you're going to get in
any business analyst interview. The first type of question is questions about your
skills. This is going to be more of the technical questions. And the second
type of question is situational questions. These are questions that start
out with things like "tell me about a time when..." and then they want you to
relate your specific experience. These tend to be less technical and more
situational / relational to other people or circumstances. In both cases, the
employer really isn't looking for an answer that's about you. They're looking
for an answer about how you're going to fit into the job. They really want to
understand how you personally are going to perform once you're in the role.
Knowing this really changes how you answer these types of questions. When it
comes to questions on your skills, don't just answer with "yes, I have that skill"
or by defining back to them what the skill is. For instance, if you ask me if I
know about business process design, I could say, "Oh, yes. I've worked with
business process design in my past jobs." And that's really a sufficient answer.
Technically you have answered the question. But how much more powerful of
an answer is it if instead of that, I say something like this: "Yes, I just finished
a project working on optimizing the business process for producing monthly
financial reports. This led to the business being able to produce the
report one week quicker than they were able to do it before." See how much more
powerful that second answer is versus a more textbook or just a yes answer? It
really elaborates on not only do I know what you're talking about, but here's
exactly how I've used it. I have the skill.
It shows how you've made a difference with it within a company which is
exactly what they're going to want you to do with that skill if they hire you.
That's skills questions, but then there's that second type of question. "Tell me
about a time you dealt with a difficult stakeholder"
or "What would you do if you had a stakeholder that didn't fully buy in?" You
could easily give a textbook answer here and go through the list of things that
you're supposed to do in these situations
and, again, it's a fine answer. But it's really not going to make you stand out and
it's going to be harder for the employer to see you as the candidate that they
absolutely have to have in this role. Instead of saying, "I would meet with them
one on one. I would talk through their concerns." which is a fine answer. Those
are things you should do. Talk about your actual experience. Don't
just leave this as theoretical. You probably have dealt with this before. Or
if not that situation, other situations that you're going to be asked about in the
interview. Talk specifically about a time when you DID have a stakeholder that
didn't buy in. Specifically, what steps did you take? Were they convinced? Were
they not convinced? Were you never able to convert them to a believer before the
end of the project? This is actually probably much easier for you to talk
about because you've actually been through it and you can talk about the
details with ease. And for the person interviewing you,
it gives them direct insight into how you're going to act as a business
analyst because this is exactly what you've done, how you've acted as a
business analyst before. There is a common model that you can use as the
base for answering these types of questions. It's called the STAR model and
it walks you through how to really comprehensively talk about a situation
and also do it concisely. It stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result. I'll
leave a link to a video I did before that talks more specifically about how
to use it to answer these types of situational questions that start with
things like "tell me about the time..." Let's talk about a few other things that you
can do to prepare for your BA interview questions. First, do a little research on
the company you're interviewing with. Look at the job description. What are the
things they commonly mention? Fully expect that these should come up during
the job interview and make a few notes to help you prepare. Be familiar
with the skills that they mention, but also the terms that they use using. This
connection in language can be really powerful in making you stand out. How do
they describe the work that they do? There's often a lot of different words
that we can use that mean the same thing and using that same verbage can be
really powerful. For instance, if the Job Description mentions multiple times that
they want someone that's self-motivated, use those specific word self-motivated
when you're having a discussion with them. You can also research other people
in the company in the same or similar positions. LinkedIn is a fantastic
resource for this. How do they describe the jobs that they're in? Can you use
some of these same terms when you're interviewing for the position?
You know that's how people within the company are probably looking at the
roles and the terms that they're using as reference. Doing this sort of research
will help you be able to say "yes" to more questions which makes it seem like you
are the more qualified candidate. Maybe you are the more qualified
candidate. The reality is in an interview, perception is reality so you need to be
perceived as the strong candidate to get the job offer. If you're in the interview
and you get confused by a term they're talking about, it's not the end of the
world. You can ask them to clarify what they mean by it. But if you already know
that they use slightly different terms than the company you work in currently or
than you're used to hearing, but they really mean the same thing, then you can
easily jump in to what your experience is with that instead of first having to
stumble through "What do you mean by that?" or "I don't think I've done that before"
if the reality is you have the experience. That just is another piece of
polish that you can bring to your interview. Instead of first having to
stumble through "What do you mean by that?" or "I don't think I've done that before"
if the reality is you have the experience. That just is another piece of
polish that you can bring to your interview.