Business Analyst Interview
Business Analyst Interview

Congratulations on getting a business analyst interview.

We all know interviews are stressful and competition is intense.

However, with a small amount of preparation you can ace the Business Analyst Interview.

Here we will give advice on how to prepare for the interview, review questions you may get asked, questions to ask, discuss interview attire, and finally, we recommend a few business analyst interview tips. 



Business Analyst Interview Questions and Answers

What is the role of a business analyst?

  • To remain competitive, businesses constantly need new software. Software is created or updated by computer programmers or developers. The role of business analysts is to meet with stakeholders to define requirements that are handed over to the developers to write code.

How do I prepare for a business analyst interview?

  • Reread the job description and find key skills and experience they are looking for then make a list of those skills.  For example, if they are looking for someone who has experience using JIRA, or Microsoft Visio and you have experience with those tools be sure to make a note and tell them in your interview.
  • Match any industry experience you have with the job you are interviewing for. For example, if you are applying at a bank and have banking experience be ready to tell them about it at the interview.
  • Does the company use Agile in their SDLC? If the SDLC is Agile make sure you know your Agile terms such as scrum master, stand up meetings, stories, features, and sprint planning.
  • If the company uses waterfall try and talk about tools such as SharePoint, office, and a requirements management tool such as HP ALM.

Interview Questions and Answers

Why do you want to be a business analyst?

Possible answers are

  • State you feel you have strong communication skills which will allow you to interact well with the business and work well with developers and quality assurance analysts.
  • Mention you have a passion for solving problems and you will enjoy the challenge of solving new problems.
  • Discuss how you will be able to apply your related experience to the role of BA.
  • Discuss the passion for the industry or the product you are working on.

What is a smart requirement?

  • A smart requirement is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and traceable.

What types of SDLC models have you worked in the past?

  • If you are applying for a senior position, make sure you are familiar with Agile methodologies.  Many experienced BAs, have never used agile in the past.
  • Popular models today are Waterfall, V-Shaped Model, Iterative, Spiral, Big Bang, and Agile.

What is a Use Case Model?

  • A use case is a set of actions that can be performed by the end-user to perform a task or a goal.  For example, a user of Gmail may log in, write an email, send an email, and then log out. The second set of actions can be login to Gmail, delete several emails, then log out. A business analyst tries to map out all the use cases (including exceptions) to make sure all the requirements are covered and well thought through.


What can you tell me about the traceability matrix?

  • A change in one requirement can impact another requirement or test case. These impacted requirements or test cases need to be updated. A traceability matrix will tell you which requirements or tests need updating.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Try and state a goal related to the job you are applying for. For example,

  • If you are applying as a junior business analyst say would like to become a senior business analyst.
  • If you are interviewing for a senior or business analyst state you would like to be a project manager.

Tip! Have a look at careers you can see yourself doing in five years. Look at the requirements in that position. State what you are doing or plan on doing to achieve those requirements (for example, I want to be a project manager and I am going to start studying for my PMP next month)


Business Analyst Behavioral Interview Questions

How would you deal with a difficult end-user?

  • State you would sympathize with the end-user and try to understand why he or she is upset.  Once you find the reason the end-user is upset, tell him or her you will log in a defect or a change request.  Often users do not understand how the system works and you may need to explain the system in greater detail.

How would you deal with an end-user with demanding expectations?

  • Tell them that you can prioritize their requests and phase in changes one by one.   It is important to set the end-users expectations and manage those expectations.

Tell us about a mistake you made in the past?

  • Everyone makes mistakes and it is okay.  The important thing is what did you learn from it?  Also, what did you do to fix the situation?

Tell us about a time where you disagreed with your boss. How did you handle it?

  • There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with your boss.  Try and explain how the situation played out where you and your boss came to an agreed-upon outcome.


Agile Questions

The next section is dedicated to Agile Business Analyst Interview Questions. Note Agile is everywhere and if you have experience as only a waterfall BA you need to learn these questions and how to answer them!

What is a User Story?

  • A story is a unit of work that is written by a BA and completed by a software developer.  Many stories make a feature in agile.

What is a Feature?

  • A feature is usually a collection of stories.  For example, a site may have a feature called “Register”.   Users can register with their email, Facebook, or google plus account.  The three stories in the registration feature are email, Facebook, or google plus.

What is a Sprint?

  • A sprint is a set period of time during which a specific set of tasks or stories has to be completed and ready for review.

What is a Product Backlog?

  • Stories that are not included in the current sprint and are not currently being worked on are stored in the product backlog.

What is Test-Driven Development (TDD)?

  • In TDD developers will write their unit tests first. They write them with intent to fail. The developers continue to check-in their code until the unit test case passes.

What is Behavior Driven Development (BDD)?

  • BDD is written in the format “given”, “when”, and “then”. It is written in a way to describe end-user behavior. In a user story, it is often put in as acceptance criteria.

What is Continuous Integration?

  • Every time developers save and check-in their code a set of automated test cases run to ensure high-quality software.

What tools are used by Business Analyst?

There are many tools to choose from but the fact is there is only a handful of tools business analysts use. These tools are

Jira and Confluence from Atlassian.

  • Jira is the most popular tool for agile. Business analysts create features and user stories. Stories are initially put into a product backlog then scheduled for a sprint.
  • Confluence is used to create business requirements. Requirements are often broken down into user stories. You can link requirements to stories.

Microsoft Office and SharePoint

  • Most business analysts will use Microsoft office products. More specifically word and excel. Documents are saved on SharePoint to allow collaboration. PowerPoint is used to give presentations.

Google Docs and Sheets

  • Google docs and Google sheets are just like the Microsoft tools mentioned above. They are stored on the Google cloud to allow collaboration.

Business Analyst Interview Questions to Ask

  • What type of advancement can top-performing business analysts expect?
  • What are the characteristics of your top-performing business analysts?

What are the 3 most important skills of a business analyst?

The 3 most important skills are

  • Communication skills this includes listening, writing, and talking.
  • Problem Solving (business have problems they need solved and they turn to BAs for that help)
  • Organisation and planning (letting the client know when they should expect their change to be implemented).

See Also