Business Analyst Interview Questions

In your Business Analyst job interview, you will be assessed on three key things:

• Technology skills
• Business acumen
• How well you would fit in with the company

Business Analysts play a crucial role in a company’s success, so employers want to make sure you have what it takes to jump right into the role.

Here are a few tips for acing your Business Analyst interview:

To help you in your Business Analyst interview preparation, we have put together a list of interview questions that cover key areas that you will likely be assessed on.

Employers want to make sure you have the foundational knowledge needed to perform the Business Analyst role.

Business Analyst positions tend to have quite specific requirements and responsibilities, so before your interview, examine the job description again.

Here are some examples of common skills-based Business Analyst interview questions and how you can answer them:

Question: Take us through the very first steps you should take in developing a project.

Answer: When you answer this common Business Analyst interview question, be sure to spend a bit of time providing examples of how you approach each step and what you tend to learn. Initial steps of developing a project include:

Question: Please tell us the one aspect of analytical reporting that you think is most important?

Answer: In business analytics, analytical reporting is an essential element in data-driven decision-making. Combining data analysis techniques and making smart business recommendations, analytical reporting is all about turning numbers into actionable data that can affect or lead to the creation of business strategies. As far as which aspect is most important, it might be worth pointing to the need for a Business Analyst to have critical thinking skills and a strong foundation of business knowledge in order to successfully identify the most important patterns and trends in the numbers.

You should also be able to define and explain a number of terms, including:

Business Analysts need a range of advanced technical skills, including data analysis, project management, business management, and documentation.

Some of the technical competencies required to learn business analytics include:

• Requirements management
• Diagramming
• Project management
• Baseline knowledge in the basics of software development

Technical Business Analyst questions will be geared toward making sure you understand things like elicitation requirements, gap analysis (and other various types of statistical analyses), testing for verification and validation, and creating risk-management projections.

In Business Analyst interviews, hiring managers will be assessing your technical expertise through questions such as:

Question: What documents do Business Analysts need? Please tell us about the documents you have prepared in your previous work.

Answer: Documentation is a crucial part of business analytics, so don’t be surprised if a Business Analyst interview asks you to list all the various technical and functional documents you’re expected to create, update and share over the project lifecycle. Those documents could include:

Question: What are the most important Business Analyst tools?

Answer: Given the wide range of technical and business needs associated with the position, Business Analysts need to be familiar with a wide variety of tools and software, used for a wide variety of different tasks.

Some of the tools you should mention in a Business Analyst interview include:

• The Microsoft Office Suite, including such essential tools as Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Excel, which is commonly used by BAs for requirements management tracking (other tools for this include Rational Requisite Pro, ReQtest, etc)
• Oracle NetSuite is a popular and intuitive choice for enterprise resource planning, while other tools for this include Acumatica and Sage
• Wrike and Trello offer project management features including file management, schedule-timeline diagramming, stakeholder collaboration, and budget management
• Microsoft’s Visio, Tableau, or PowerBI are often used by Business Analysts to create compelling data visualizations
• Pencil for modeling, diagramming, and wireframing, a helpful collaborative tool many Business Analysts use that allows multiple stakeholders access

As a Business Analyst, you will be working closely with colleagues across the organization to address complex business requirements and problems. Employers want someone with the right personality who is enthusiastic about their work.

To learn more about your work habits and interests, expect questions such as:

Question: What qualities set you apart from other Business Analysts who might interview for this position?

Answer: The answer to this question will of course vary from candidate to candidate, but one approach is to avoid the urge to pick an intangible quality. Instead, for instance, you could focus on showing your commitment to continuous learning.

The top credential for Business Analysts might be a certification from one of the many professional organizations that offer them (the Project Management Institute or the International Institute of Business Analysis, for instance).

But less formal education is also worth mentioning, whether you’ve been learning through webinars, industry blogs or podcasts, or other free Internet resources.

In your role, you may be regularly leading teams/projects and interacting with stakeholders. Leadership and communication are two essential skills to thrive as a Business Analyst.

Here is an example of a situational Business Analyst interview question and how you can answer it:

Question: What is your approach to process changes to requirements?

Answer: Your ability to respond to change requests says a lot about you as a Business Analyst. Here, the hiring manager is looking to assess three things:

• Adaptability
• Ability to respond under pressure
• Analytical and critical thinking skills

In your response, talk about how you identify the scope of the changes and the potential effect they will have on the project before conducting an impact analysis (among potentially other analyses) to see how the adjustments could affect deadlines, budget, and resource allocation.

To convey how thorough you are, also mention how you’re always sure to check for any new gaps in testing, development, or design caused by the changes.

The idea behind behavioral interview questions is that past behavior is a good indicator of how you may act in future situations.

To successfully answer this type of interview question, describe the situation, outline the task, explain your actions and share the result.

That will help your interviewer understand your problem-solving strategy, and how you apply it in your communications with the development team, technical team, and any difficult stakeholders.

Here is an example of a behavioral Business Analyst interview question and how to answer it:

Question: Please take us through a time when you failed to meet a deadline.

Answer: It’s crucial to answer this question in an honest way. At the same time, you need to choose a situation where the errors you made that led to missing a deadline were understandable, forgivable, and not indicative of an overall problem in your approach that could still be lingering.

Clearly outline how you applied the lessons you learned here to future projects to ensure you didn’t miss a deadline again.

If you’re curious about what the top tech companies are seeking in a Business Analyst, take a look at these interview questions from Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and more.