Start Your Business Analyst Career

Are you looking for your first business analyst job? Do you find yourself wondering what that the best path forward looks like?

Would you be interested in finding your entryway into a business analyst career?

This guidebook offers an approach to starting a business analyst career that’s based on discovering and building transferable business analysis skills.

• You’ll explore the role in detail and read stories from successful business analysts about their career transition paths.
• You’ll walk in the shoes of a business analyst, identify transferable skills from your work experience, and discover how to expand your business analyst work experience.
• You’ll find BA-specific job search advice about resumes, work samples, and interviews.

How to Start a Business Analyst Career will help you build a personalized road map for finding your first business analyst position, accelerating your transition into the BA role. The 84-page PDF guidebook includes 28 practical action steps that you can take to get moving right away.

A must-read guidebook for anyone interested in developing a career as a business analyst. Full of extremely valuable advice for new BAs and job seekers, this eBook explains in practical and actionable terms how to transition to a business analyst role, find a business analysis job, and plan one’s future growth. Highly recommended. – Adriana Beal

I wish I had this book last year when I was seeking information out about how to become a business analyst.” -Douglas Hill, Senior Business Analyst

Click “Add to Cart” to get your copy – for a $27 investment you’ll receive an immediate download in PDF format – or keep reading to learn more about what the guidebook covers.

Upon completing your investment, you’ll receive immediate access to the PDF file via a secure download link. The PDF file is fully printable and recommended resources are hyperlinked electronically for your convenience.

But if you’d like more information, I invite you to keep reading. We’ll go through what’s included in each chapter.

Chapter 1: What Is It Like to Be a Business Analyst?

You’ll start by by walking through a typical day in a business analyst job. Or, really, since there is no “typical day” (they all tend to be different, which is one of the things many BAs like about the role), you’ll look at the types of days and activities a business analyst can expect to experience.

Then we look at frequently asked questions, such as:

• What types of projects will I work on?
• How will I be managed and who will I report to?
• How difficult will it be to find a job?
• Will I ever be bored as a business analyst?
• Will I be required to travel? And is telecommuting an option?

As the Chief “Evangelist” Officer for IIBA, I often have people come up to me after a presentation and share their excitement that they now have a formal name for the role they have often performed for years within their organizations – Business Analysts. But how do they take that knowledge and use it to enhance their positions further within their companies? IIBA® and the BABOK® have formalized the BA profession and given its practitioners a structure in which to evaluate and improve their practice of business analysis. Laura Brandenburg, in her book in How to Start a Business Analyst Career takes that information and builds on it to provide both new and seasoned BAs with a roadmap to take their career to the next level. There is no one path to becoming a Business Analyst. Laura’s book helps you leverage what you have and succeed in this fast growing profession. -Kathleen Barret, CEO, International Institute of Business Analysis®

Chapter 2: What Do I Need to Know About Business Analysis?

In this chapter, you’ll find a definition of business analysis and a list of the key skills required to be successful as a business analyst, with jargon-free descriptions of what each skill means.

The skills include:

• Elicitation techniques used by business analysts and who gets involved in the elicitation process.
• What analysis and specification techniques are most commonly used for determining scope, functional requirements, visual requirements, and data requirements.
• The critical communication skills for business analysts and how these intersect with the most common BA responsibilities.
• The software development methodologies business analysts need to be familiar with and how BA work is impacted by different methodologies.
• The types of tools and technologies you might encounter as a business analyst.

Before closing this chapter, you’ll identify the positions of strength you bring to the BA profession, craft a plan for building on your strengths, and a develop a list of skills you need to learn to be a successful business analyst.

Chapter 3: How to Accumulate Valuable BA Experiences

This chapter will help you find tasks and skills in your current work in which you can build business analysis experiences so that you can move further along towards your BA career.

This chapter is organized into three parts:

1. The types of experiences typically available to professionals employed in a technical environment, including ways to get more customer or user exposure.
2. The types of experiences more typically open to those working on the business side and the types of projects you might want to get involved in.
3. Opportunities available to both technical and non-technical professionals and how to reframe your current tasks as business analyst tasks with simple techniques such as observations, active listening, and practicing your systems mindset.

You’ll leave this chapter with a plan for gaining business analyst experiences and enabling one experience to lead to another, and another…

For those of you who are looking to begin a BA career, I highly recommend Laura’s e-book How to Start a Business Analyst Career. I took her advice and I made a call to a nonprofit organization in my city to be matched to opportunities where I could apply and hone my BA skills. Fortunately, I was given an opportunity very quickly, and have been working to document processes in the form of a training guide for this nonprofit. I love the work and I love the people. But more importantly, the e-book spelled out what I needed to do to put myself on the right path to landing a BA job. -Kimberly Heath

Chapter 4 – Professional Networking

Professional networking is an inexpensive way to learn about the profession and meet people that might help open opportunities for you. But it can also be time-consuming and a bit overwhelming.

You’ll leave this chapter having learned:

• How to put together realistic and valuable goals for professional networking, so this set of activities helps you move your career forward in a concrete way.
• How to pay it forward and what you have to offer seasoned business analysts even if you are not yet a business analyst yourself.
• How to conduct an informational interview with a business analyst and a list of questions you may want to ask.
• How to find the best networking events in your local area and what to do when you get there.
• What authoritative, online resources you can use to further your professional development and meet other business analysts.

How to Start a Business Analyst Career is a very thorough and well-thought handbook on what it takes to break into a career in business analysis. The definition of the role and description of what to expect as a BA are spot on. The networking piece is a particular gem. I don’t think you’ll get that in most books of this kind, but networking and use of online resources is an invaluable part of obtaining and nurturing a career in business analysis and she’s got covered both nicely. -Jonathan Babcock, Business Analyst Manager and Blogger at PracticalAnalyst

Chapter 5 – Is Business Analysis Your Passion?

Before we get into the concrete details of finding your first business analyst position, we look at whether or not, given everything you’ve learned and discovered about yourself so far, this is really the right career option for you, right now.

Chapter 6 – What Kind of Business Analyst Job Is Right For You?

There is no one path in or to business analysis. The profession offers many different opportunities. In this section, you’ll explore what type of position is the best option for you.

We’ll cover:

• Five different types of business analyst positions and five different types of blended business analyst roles.
• A quick list of criteria you can use to determine whether a particular job is really a BA job.
• The balance of responsibilities between business and IT and how the balance impacts the type of roles you might fill.
• The approaches you might take to find your first BA opportunity.
• How to decide if a transitional role or continuing to build BA experiences in your current position are the best next steps for you.

You’ll leave this chapter with a clear next step into business analysis.

Chapter 7 – Finding a Business Analyst Job

To increase your chances of finding a business analyst job, there are certain things you need to do to put your best foot forward. This chapter walks you through how to approach your resume, work samples, and interview preparation.

We’ll cover:

• A strategy you can use to optimize your resume to highlight your business analyst experiences.
• How to build a list of references appropriate to a BA job.
• What work samples a hiring manager might look for and how to create them.
• A list of job boards for finding business analyst jobs, keywords to use to find business analyst jobs, and a list of possible job titles under which you might find a business analyst role.
• How to prepare for a BA job interview. You’ll learn the types of people you might interview with and what they’ll be looking for in a BA job candidate.

Here’s How to Get the Guidebook

How to Start a Business Analyst Career is your how-to guidebook walking you through a process to find your first business analyst opportunity. The 84-page guidebook includes 28 practical action steps (called “Putting it to Practice” techniques) that you can take to get moving right away.

Click “Add to Cart” to get your copy – for a $27 investment you’ll receive an immediate download in PDF format.

Upon completing your investment you’ll receive immediate access to the PDF file via a secure download link. The PDF file is fully printable and recommended resources are hyperlinked electronically for your convenience.

Other formats available!

In print (paperback) via Amazon - $29.95

For the Kindle via Amazon - $9.95

For the Nook via Barnes & Noble - $9.95

This book actually can save you from running like a headless chicken through every BA blogs, forums, speak to specialists, or podcast you can find. Trust me, I was the headless chicken. – Reno

 

If you are considering becoming a Business Analyst, you owe it to yourself to get a copy of Laura Brandenburg’s, “How to Start a Business Analyst Career”. It is well written and covers an incredible amount of territory. This book also builds your confidence and self-discipline while revealing how much you “already know”. Read each chapter and work each of the “Putting it to Practice” lessons. Even before you get to the end of the book you will figure out why Brandenburg structured the book and the short lessons as she did. – Gomez Cooley

 

I downloaded your ebook a few days ago and I wanted to commend you on your excellent work! It’s such a pleasure to read … It is such a relief to see a business analysis text so clearly written, so well organised and so engaging.  Thanks so much for all your hard work — I know it’s going to prove invaluable in my future plans! – Nicole Salisbury-Gaumont

I think you’ll find How to Start a Business Analyst career helps you create an action plan to achieve your business analyst career goals (or discover a BA career is not the right decision for you without over-investing in getting where you don’t want to be). But if you find the book is not a good fit for you, we offer a no-questions-asked 30 day money back guarantee.