Top business analysis interview questions in 2022
Preparing for a job interview as a business analyst can be a stressful time. You’ve done your research, prepared your CV, got called for a chat — now it’s time to get prepared.
Having witnessed and conducted hundreds of job interviews, I’ve seen a trend in the types of questions that get asked more often than others. Understanding what interviewers may ask will help you be more confident.
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not suggesting you should learn any of the answers by heart. Quite the opposite, the conversation should have a natural flow and feel authentic. Still, it never hurts to brush up on the basics as well as reflect on your work or educational experience. The latter is important, as you will be expected to weave examples from experience into your answers.
But also as a hiring manager, asking the right questions is important. You have only a bit of time with the candidate, and you have to make it count. Focusing on the right conversations should be your priority. I hope this list will help.
Let’s see what types of things people talk about at BA job interviews in 2022.
Trends
Generally, I’ve witnessed that interviews are moving away from checking theoretical or factual knowledge. Instead, they focus more on the ability to apply previous experience and wits to solve problems. While understanding the basics is expected from candidates, a lot of attention is given to situational questions or inquiries into specific examples from the past.
Expect to have fewer questions on definitions and knowing what a particular thing is and more questions on how would you apply a certain thing to achieve a stated goal. For example, you are less likely to be asked:
“What is UML and which diagrams form a part of it?”
and more likely to be asked:
“How would you apply UML or other modelling solution to explain system design to a developer vs business stakeholder?”
A job interview is not an exam. It is an opportunity for the employer to assess if a candidate is going to add value in a particular role. Your pure knowledge of definitions and tools may surface through answering other questions of course. But it is not likely to be tested directly.
A lot of attention is also given to assessing your ability to work cross-functionally and as a part of the team. Being an excellent individual contributor no longer guarantees success in interviews. You are expected to show that can you bring something new to the existing culture that will enhance and not negatively affect it.
Finally, there are trending themes regardless of the domain and subject matter. Think about your approach to the topics of business agility, sustainability, and inclusion prior to an interview.
Sample Questions
Your experience
— Tell me about yourself?
In my professional career I’ve had only one interview when I wasn’t asked a version of this question. This is your opportunity to shine and to present who you are. Prepare an answer to this question at home and even rehearse a few times. You will have a bit of time to expand on this, so be prepared to speak for about 5 minutes and cover:
- your professional background and overview of your previous roles
- your education or related professional development
- key organisations and projects you’ve been exposed to
- key achievements that you are proud of
- what your career aspirations are and what you expect from this position
Think about it as an elevator pitch about yourself. Talk about relevant facts only, and make sure you can back them with proof. Be prepared to take follow up questions and dive deeper at some elements of your experience.
— Tell me about a time you have improved a process.
Business process management and improvement is a big part of BAs role. Yet not always it is easy to pinpoint a specific example to talk about, so have a few prepared before the interview. These improvements can be a result of your project work, or specific process management assignment. But they also may be a by-product of a suggestion you made during a retrospective meeting. It is important that you can explain the nature of the process to give context, what was the issue, how did you identify it and come up with an improvement idea, and what was the result of it. Focus on measurable outcomes of your actions.
— Tell me about a time you dealt with a hard stakeholder
This is another one of those questions that always get asked. A big part of your business analysis work will be about dealing with people, even if they don’t want to be dealt with. These are usually referred to as “hard” stakeholders. You will be expected to explain the situation, who the stakeholders were, which strategy you selected, and how you resolved the situation. Where possible, select a story that did not result in escalation to the management. This will not paint you a good negotiator.
Ways of working
— What is your agile experience?
Agile is a hot topic today and organisations are asking about it even if they don’t actively practice a form of an established agile process. Usually, the goal is to either ensure you are at least familiar with the flavour of agile they do or make sure you are not a zealot of a particular process that they don’t have. In either case, be prepared to discuss agility. Think about how you as a BA contribute to it. Try to back it with examples: what have you done in the past, and how do you identify the level of agility needed for a particular initiative.
Common buzzwords are very likely to surface in this conversation. Make sure you know your terminology: Scrum, DevOps, DevSecOps, DesignOps, Kanban, SAFe etc. are examples of terms and abbreviations you may hear.
If you don’t have agile experience, at least brush up on your theory and show that you are ready to apply it given an opportunity. Or invest in getting an agile certification.
— How do you keep the customer at the centre of analysis?
One of the trends in the market is that organisations become more and more human-centred. Even the more traditionally concealed departments start to consider the value they bring to the end customer. Corporate IT or operations are good examples.
You need to show that you understand the human-centred design process. Show that you value designing solutions for real people. Focus on how you use feedback loops and research to validate assumptions and shape requirements.
— How do you build empathy with the customers and stakeholders?
You may or may not be asked this question directly, but the topic of empathy is likely to get discussed. You may talk about formal tools like creating personas, customer journeys, and building empathy maps. You may also mention less formal ones like talking to end-users, shadowing them or walking in their shoes. The particular methods you talk about may be specific to your experience. The message should be clear — whatever you do, you try to understand the real needs real customers have in real scenarios. Then ensure those are communicated to the team.
Core skills
— How do you manage requirements?
“Business analysis” and “requirements” are the two terms that just go together. I can’t imagine an interview for a BA position (any level) where this won’t be asked. Specifically, people will want to hear your approach to identifying the scope, managing change, and tracking the status of the deliverables. For many, these are the key analysis skills you should possess.
In agile environments, you will be expected to explain how you use tools like story maps and backlogs to manage requirements. In others you may be expected to explain your approach to creating requirements documents.
I recommend explaining the ontology and classification models you use to ensure requirements are not missed, e.g. the BABOK(r) Guide’s 4 levels of requirements:
- Business
- Stakeholder
- Solution (Functional and Non-functional)
- Transition
Also explain what you would do if you identify a change in a previously defined requirement, and how you would go about impact assessment.
— How do you prepare for and run the workshops?
Workshopping and facilitation are the two very important skills you will bring to the business. Showcase your ability to:
- prepare for a structured session: define goals and agenda, prepare materials, plan logistics, execute the plan
- facilitate a conversation: explain some of your favourite ice breakers or talk through your approach to conflict resolution
- and drive measurable results (the follow up)
If you are not comfortable with taking this question, you may decide to do a quick refresher on facilitation and planning efficient meetings.
— How do you get buy-in / take the stakeholders on a journey?
Change management is an important aspect of any project. Introducing any changes in the systems/solutions affects the way people perform their work duties or achieve their consumer goals. Every time this happens, people need to be warned, guided through the change, and supported after.
Be prepared to explain how you would identify key stakeholders, get them informed, trained and supported after the delivery of the project.
Make sure to mention you ability to plan and run training, especially if you’ve done it before. Often it is expected of a BA even if not directly asked about.
Explain the quality gates you would introduce in the projects and how you would use those to communicate the plans, changes, and obtain necessary endorsement.
In the modern world, your ability to run remote sessions and get people onboard while being geographically distributed will be valued. If you have any good stories about it from your previous roles, tell them here.
— When you start on a new project, what do you do first?
This question is aimed at figuring out what to expect from you in the first couple of days/weeks after you start and how much support and supervision you would require. You may answer differently depending on your level of seniority.
If you join as a junior-ish BA, show that you would do your best to:
- learn the business and the project
- understand your role
- learn existing processes and tools, and
- seek guidance.
If we are talking about a more senior position, show your ability to:
- understand the goals and objectives of the project,
- assess it’s current state,
- prioritise activities,
- plan own time,
- build relationships, and
- establish control points to connect with the management and receive feedback.
— Which technique would you choose in a given situation?
A question like this is asked not so much to test your knowledge of the techniques (although it is, to a degree) but to show that you understand which value you are going to bring to the table and you possess the skills to deliver it. As a BA, you should be familiar with at least a basic set of modelling, facilitation, and documentation techniques. Show how you would choose from them to apply to a situation painted by the interviewer.
— What is the difference between project management and business analysis?
There are many ways this question can be worded. People often ask you to define your area of responsibility and compare the role of a business analyst with another role. It can be a project manager, or a solution architect, or a tester.
I would recommend focusing on the fact BA helps identify the scope of the problem to be solved and the scope of the solution to be delivered. Project management is more concerned about the scope of the project to define and deliver said solution.
Technical skills
— What is your experience with a <platform>?
Some BA jobs are technology agnostic, some are very dependent on a particular platform. At times, the job may require a business analyst to be a subject matter expert in a particular piece of tech. If that’s the case, be prepared to showcase your technical skills and knowledge of the product. Sometimes these interviews may take a form of a trial task or deep technical questioning. Either way, this is definitely something your job description should tell you prior to the interview.
— Have you used a <tool> before?
There are just too many tools to select from. You need to make sure you are familiar with at least a basic set of standard BA tools:
- Communication tools to interact with your team and stakeholders (e.g. zoom)
- Requirements and business modelling tools to build models (e.g. activity diagrams, use case diagrams, business processes, customer journeys etc.)
- Project delivery and requirements management tools (e.g. jira)
- General office productivity tools (e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
— How do you use data?
Today, data is everywhere and a lot of business analysts are required to have some understanding of how to cook it. I don’t think knowledge of data querying (SQL) or a particular data analysis package is generally expected (unless stated in the job ad, see the previous question). That said, you need to show the interviewer that you are able to process raw data to gain insights and to use a data-driven approach to decision making.
Ability to use advanced techniques like A/B testing and experimentation to validate the requirements and solution designs shows that you are in line with recent trends in product development. If you don’t have similar experience in the past, you may want to invest in learning how business analysis and data analytics help each other; and maybe even consider getting certified.
— Do you have any technical background?
This is a very popular catch-all question. Often, your role as a business analyst will require the ability to understand how technology works in general.
Just focus on aspects of your experience or education that show transferrable technical skills, such as API design, algorithmic thinking, version control, and software development lifecycle. If you can read or produce code in any language it is good to mention it is well . Just remember you are not applying for a developer’s position, so don’t overbake it.
Final remarks
Just like with any interview, there is always a bunch of non-BA specific things that get discussed. It may include your salary expectations, career aspirations, or what you find attractive about this opportunity. When preparing for the interview, think about how you will answer those.
As a business analyst you should possess sound communication skills. I doubt anyone will explicitly ask you about them, but the way you talk and present will be carefully evaluated. Use this as an opportunity. Make your answers interesting and narration natural.
Don’t just answer the questions — tell stories.
Finally, always prepare your own list of questions about the place you are going to join. Usually, you will be given an opportunity to ask those at some point during the interview. Asking smart and relevant questions is a great way to show your interest in the job and position you as an inquisitive business analyst.
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