How to become a Business Analyst?

Step 1: Start with knowing about the role and skills of a Business Analyst

It’s a good idea to do your own research and understand the role of the business analyst. This will help you in assessing if you have the aptitude for it. For example, if you have a technical bent of mind, this is not a suitable profile for you. You should consider the Data Analyst profile.

The next step is to learn about the skills needed to become a business analyst. We have discussed these skills in the fourth section of this article.

Step 2: Conduct skills gap analysis

You need to evaluate your skills against the required skills for an entry-level Business Analyst. Assess your current skills, and if these match with the required skills.

For example, if you are a sales professional, you will be good at customer handling and interactions. These skills are relevant for the business analyst profile as well. We call these skills “Carry Forward” Skills.

Create a simple document to identify the gaps in your skills so that you can plan the approach to acquiring the skills. Please note that soft skills and hard skills will need different acquisition strategies.

Step 3: Plan to upgrade your skills

Once you have completed the skills gap analysis, you would know the skills you need to acquire. Now it’s time to determine the approach you would like to take to acquire these. What do you need to consider?

• Your work schedule: How many hours you can put in every week/weekend? For example, live online or offline training may require you to invest 4-6 hours on the weekend and a few additional hours during the week.
• Your learning approach: What works best for you? Do you like a classroom program? Or you can manage with a self-learning course?
• Overall time frame: If you have a pressing reason to quit what you are doing, you need to spend more time learning. Else you can pace it as per your work schedule.
• Soft Skills vs Hard Skills: Do you need to upgrade on the soft skills as well as hard skills? If yes, then you need to plan that as well. There are several soft skills training programs to help you learn.

Step 4: Consider getting certified in your plan

Do consider a certification in your plan because it will help you in getting shortlisted for job interviews. The certification provides employers confidence that you have business analysis competencies. IIBA ECBA Certification is a good choice for you.

If you are considering ECBA Certification, here are the things you must consider:

• ECBA Exam is based on Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) v3
• The syllabus for ECBA Exam – You don’t need to study all the chapters from BABOK for ECBA Exam.

For more details, read our blog article - ECBA Certification and preparation strategy

Step 5: Complete training and crack ECBA Exam

You can prepare for the certification as you are going through the course. This way you can optimize the timeframe. If you are short of time, give yourself extra time for preparation. Certification exams require some preparation. In the case of the IIBA ECBA Exam, you must do the following:

• Go through BABOK v3
• Practice with chapter-wise questions
• Revise BABOK with the help of answers and explanations
• Target 70% in the practice tests
• Practice with full-length tests (Take at least 2-3 such tests)

Step 6: Update your resume and upload it on the job portal

Now, you have learnt the business analysis skills and are ECBA Certified, it’s time to prepare for the job interviews. Preparing for a job interview starts with updating your resume and making it suitable for the position, you are applying for.

Updating your resume means:

• Positioning yourself for the business analyst role
• Showcase your business analysis skills
• Mention your certification
• Add the right keywords relevant to the role
• Include scenarios and projects from previous employment, if any, relevant to the business analyst role

Once your resume is ready, upload it to the job portals popular in your country.

Step 7: Search for jobs

Don’t just wait for a call from a company. Search for the job yourself. It will help you get interview calls quickly.

However, searching for an entry-level business analyst job can be tricky. A typical search on “Business Analyst” may result in listings with the following:

• Every listing needs 1 year or more experience
• Listings need programming language knowledge like Python, R etc
• Listing needs knowledge of tools like Tableau, Power Builder etc.

It means you are not searching for it right. I have created a video to help you with the right way to search for entry-level business analyst jobs.

Step 8: Prepare for the interviews

Cracking a job interview is competitive as you just have 30-40 minutes to impress the interviewer (s). Success in an interview depends on two factors:

• Your displayed confidence (No matter how nervous you are)
• How well you can answer a question

For some of you, it's easy but it may not be easy for the majority. So you need to practice or use dry runs.

A dry run is used to refer to trials before the actual go-live day. You should also use a dry run of interviews. Use a couple of interviews as dry runs. Use the experience to assess your preparedness.

Moreover, you can also leverage the Techcanvass business analyst interview questions and answers book specially written to aid aspiring business analysts to crack the interviews on their first attempts.

In this book, you will find the most asked or common interview questions that you might be asked in your interview. You can get instant access to the book, where you can enjoy the answers written by industry experts.