Brian Vander Mey shares how his persistence in pursuing business analyst roles, as well as tweaking his job titles and leveraging a titled position (even though it wasn’t really a BA role) helped land him in his first business analyst job!
I spent a very, very long time unemployed or underemployed before I caught a couple small breaks. The first was working on a contract basis for a small healthcare firm that resulted in producing a document that was published by the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA). Then an old colleague hired me to work at a tiny web-based startup which, subsequently failed 7 months later. Neither of these roles were formal BA jobs, but through your website I got some good advice about how to talk about them as BA jobs.
When the startup failed, I set about connecting with many recruiters, and changed all my LinkedIn profile names to something resembling Business Analysis. I also joined BA LinkedIn groups. Through a connection, I landed a job in July that was titled a Business Analyst… but was not at all. However, during that time, I went on to obtain my CAPM certification. In being currently employed, having a formal BA title, and being connected with many recruiters, I got bombarded with recruiters looking to fill BA roles. It would appear there’s a strong BA need in Nashville, TN.
However, it wasn’t until I heard from an in-house corporate recruiter that I took the bait. That company was HCA, and they sold me on their Business Analysis Center of Excellence. Up until now, I’ve been the only business analyst that I know. HCA is a very personal development-/education-
They ended up liking me, but feeling I wasn’t qualified for the II level. So they downgraded the role and hired me anyway! I recently started as a Business Solutions Analyst I, in my first official, formal business analyst role, in one of the largest and most well-respected healthcare companies in the world.
Congratulations Brian and thank you for sharing your story!
