Many successful business analysts today have started their career with a different job role. SO here is the answer to all those who ask a question quiet frequently ‘can I become a business analyst without having prior experience or IT background?’ In the business analytics field, all the roles related to business in any form of matter. These roles may sound different to you, but it should be emphasized. Business analysis has no defined boundaries rather it is diversified. You must have strong communication skills and emotional intelligence to perform this role creatively. With these skills and basic domain knowledge, you can start as a BA with an entry-level role. In this post, we will discuss how, with no BA experience, you can make a pathway to be a business analyst.
A business analyst is responsible for collecting user requirements and implementing technical solutions to cater to those needs. Therefore, we can say that a BA works as a connector between a business team and an IT team. Due to this reason, people think that starting a career as a business analyst need good IT knowledge. Relax, this is not true! With some online courses and training, you can easily gain enough technical knowledge required to be a BA.
Let’s focus on key areas where you should start working to make a career in the field of business analysis.
Understand the job role of a business analyst
What is the role of a business analyst? Improving the overall business model by changing the ongoing strategies for the betterment, implementing new technologies and ideas to take the business to the next level, calculating all the measures that can boost revenue are the key responsibilities of a business analyst.
Aren’t you doing these activities in day to day professional life? Sometimes we don’t know how our efforts are building a business rather we remain busy doing these important tasks. Hence, we should understand the fact that a business professional takes care of improvements to a business in all possible manners. And, we all handle the role of BA in some aspects as we are contributing to organizational growth.
Interact with business analysts and learn
When you have a good social network, you have a higher chance of getting more employment opportunities. People having a senior position in the business analysis domain have not been senior since start; rather they would also have started from the base. They interacted with other business analytics professionals, heard their success stories and implemented their ideas to build a strong career. When you communicate to a professional of any domain, they share domain-specific information that helps you a lot in going forward. Ask them about the challenges they faced as a business analyst and what strategies applied to address those issues.
Another important point that you must ask a BA is about all the references or sources from where they learn something to improve skills and perform better. You can join various forums, communities or groups wherein business analysts discuss their experiences, job opportunities, tips & tricks, and learning resources. You must have the ability to represent your current job as the basic level role of a business analyst to make your entry easy in the business analytics world.
Think of how you can optimize your current job role
If you keep an attitude of improving the process of your daily activities, you are already on the track of becoming a good business analyst. Going office, doing the same job in the same style every day will neither add benefit to your growth nor organization growth. No matter whether you are at home or office, try to figure out the ways that can improve the results of your job role.
You can create an excel sheet for yourself or involve other people to check whether or not you are improving the existing process. By introducing new strategies to the existing business model, you can improve the impact as well as open new project opportunities for yourself. Once you start working on so many projects, you get an idea of all the possible aspects of a BA to handle a case, and it helps you to grow faster.
Go through some project documents
A business analyst listens to people carefully, convert their words into business requirements, and send it to a team. This is a very critical job, and a minor difference in understanding can create a big problem. Therefore, you must have to think in a way a user is experiencing.
To start a career as a BA, you should first go through some project document writeups. In the business requirement doc, you will find information related to user requirements, project scope and the method of the overall process. In the technical requirement document, you will learn about technical things like how user requirements can be implemented. The project plan document is basically created by project managers, and it includes plans or processes of a project, but as a BA, you should understand such documents too.
Get some training and certifications
To start a career in business analysis, BA training can help you build a foundation. Before choosing any business analyst course, make sure you have done a depth analysis, and the institute you have chosen holds a good reputation and can help you get a valuable certification. When you take training from a reputable institute, you learn good things and apply your learning to get a job as a business analyst. Also, the chance of employ-ability remains high while you have the right skill set and valuable knowledge. While joining a training course, prefer those institutes that can provide you some experience or certification so that you can use it as proof of knowledge regarding BA.
Show your experience relevant for the job role
Sometimes we do a lot but unable to present and it is easy too. But, showing whatever you have done in a ‘bigger form’ is challenging. But, if you want to get success in your career, you must know how to play around it. You need to explain the connection and importance of your experience with a BA job and how, as a business analyst you can help an organization to grow with your previous experience. You need to think carefully about your experience and prepare a note of how it is relatable to a business analyst role.
Conclusion
If you have no prior experience in the business analyst field, focus on your current role and try to filter out relevant responsibilities from it. This way, you can develop an experience for a BA role gradually. With your little steps, enter the world of business analytics, work on different projects, gain more knowledge and gain experience in various areas. Once you have enough experience, you can easily move to a stable BA position. I am sure these tips will help you to be a business analyst irrespective of your prior experience.
