How to Create Unique Value in your Business Analysis Career
It’s tough to stand out in a competitive job market.
With so many people vying for the same jobs, it’s more important than ever to be versatile and learn new skills.
Adding other skills to your core skills creates your unique value. By doing this, you’ll not only make yourself more valuable, but also more marketable in a competitive job market. So don’t be afraid to try new things and expand your horizons-you may just find that you’re good at them!
In a competitive job market, it’s tough to stand out from the crowd. But by adding other skills to your core skills, you can create unique value in your field. You will make yourself more valuable and more marketable to potential employers.
Business analysis has 5 core skills – analytical thinking, critical thinking, problem solving, business knowledge, and communication. However, when we add other skills around these 5, we are creating our own unique value proposition.
Don’t be afraid to try new things and expand your horizons.
Adding other skills to your core skills is a great way to differentiate yourself from the competition and create value in your field.
This gives business analysts the opportunity to explore various interests and develop a wide range of skills, which gives us a competitive advantage in the marketplace. By expanding our core business analysis skills with technical skills, business knowledge, techniques, soft skills and other abilities, we can position ourselves for success both personally and professionally.
1. What is unique value in the job market?
Your skills allow you to do your job well and competently. You develop these through experience and education. The better you are at certain tasks, the more marketable you become. However, in order to be truly valuable in the job market, you need to add other skills to your core skill set. This creates your unique value.
Let’s look at an example. Having the core skill of analytical and critical thinking and adding to that skill data analysis suddenly creates a unique offering from you.
Critical thinking is essential for data analysis because it allows you to connect disparate facts, synthesize information, etc. Likewise, analytical thinking enables critical thinking by allowing you to extract insights and actionable information from data.
So, by adding data analysis to your core skill set, you become someone who can take data and turn it into insights that can help a business grow and make sound decisions. This is valuable in any field, but is especially important in fields like business, marketing, and finance.
The bottom line is that adding other skills to your core skill set makes you more valuable and more marketable. These skills can be in any field, so don’t be afraid to try something new. The more versatile you are, the more opportunities will open up for you.
Having the skill on it’s own is only a fraction of the value you can offer. Having another one or more skills that you can use to complement that core skill creates your unique value.
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2. Discuss the importance of adding other skills to your core skills
When you can do more than one thing well, it shows that you’re versatile and capable of learning new things. This is important in a competitive job market, where hiring managers are looking for employees who can not only do the job they’re hired for, but also have other skills that could be useful in other areas of the company. By expanding your skill set, you’re making yourself more valuable and desirable to potential employers.
Having a variety of skills is also beneficial when it comes to career development. If you can do more than one thing, you may transition into different roles within the same company or even move into other industries with your current skill set. This can open many opportunities that you wouldn’t have access to if you were doing just one thing.
Finally, adding other skills to your core skills can help you stand out from the crowd. Many people may have similar job qualifications or experience, but having additional skills will make you more unique and memorable to potential employers. If you’re able to prove that you can bring something different to the table, hiring managers are much more.
3. Offer tips for expanding your horizons and trying new things
We have said it is important to be versatile, continuously learning new skills, and make yourself more valuable and marketable. You need to be expanding your horizons constantly.
So, how can you do this? Well, here are a few tips to get you started:
- Get involved in personal projects that interest you. This is a great way to learn new things. For example, building a website or a mobile app. It doesn’t have to succeed for you have learnt new skills.
- Take classes outside of your field of study. If you’re interested in learning a new skill, there are probably classes available that can help you do just that. I did a course at Auckland University in Digital Forensics. Shortly afterwards, I was working on a project where I used some skills in the project to develop a security policy.
- Travel! Explore new cultures and learn about their customs. This is a great way to gain new perspectives and expand your horizons. You are a global citizen. I have worked in four countries now and in each one I have picked up the knowledge that I use today.
- Volunteer for a project or organisation that’s different from what you’re used to. This can help you gain experience in new areas and develop new skills.
- Make use of free online resources like LinkedIn, even Udemy at a low-cost price to learn skills. I learnt Azure’s machine learning capability of Udemy and used it in a research project for NZDF.
Of course, one needs to be strategic in this and not go off on a wild tangent. Have a plan and know what skills you can learn that will complement the core skill sets (see blog post) of a business analyst for your context.
Adding other skills to your core skills is a great way to make yourself more marketable and valuable in a competitive job market. By being versatile and learning new things, you’re showing that you can adapt to new situations and will take on new challenges. We’ve offered some tips for expanding your horizons and developing your unique value. Develop a habit of trying new things and learning!