I receive lots of request for business analyst interview questions so in this post, i am adding some of the most commonly asked interview questions in business analyst interviews. These questions are relevant whether you are applying to business analyst positions at IT companies like IBM, Accenture, TCS, Wipro, Infoysis, Cognizant or any other company looking for BA position.

Alright so let's start with business analyst interview question

Business analyst interview questions

Introduce yourself

This is the first interview question in any interview you appear. This is your chance to shine in the interview but lot of time we just talk about our experience and hobbies in a very generic way. 

Response to this question should always be aligned with the job profile. Always go carefully through the job description and align your answer according to the requirement of the job.

For example, if a bank is looking for a business analyst or a IT company is looking for a BA for a banking client, it will be helpful if you highlight this part in your response. 

So your response could be something like;

Hi, I am XYG, i have over x years of experience in banking operations and i have handled abc process. You can add lot of details including minor details about your knowledge. If you are fresher (college grad) with no experience, you can talk about relevant domain knowledge to convince interviewes that you are right fit for the role. 

This question is fixed in all interviews so always prepare in advance for this question. If you still can't figure out how to handle this question. Leave a comment with your background  and a job for which you are appearing or would like to appear, i will help you with that.

What is business analysis

As per BABOK guide, business analysis is enabling change in a organization so identify gaps and coming up with requirements to build software applications to address business need is business analysis. Business analysis includes doing research, identifying gaps between current and desired state, doing impact analysis which the change could bring and writing requirements.

How do you do research.

I haven’t done personal interviews so no primary market research but I do lot of document analysis, online research so primarily secondary market research.

Why should we hire you?

Sample response

1^st reason I have over 5 years of insurance experience. I am comfortable with insurance domain. I understand the pain points of a end user so I will able to create better requirements.

2^nd reason, during my experience I have worked with team generating MIS reports and IT teams for coordinating requirements, scheduling walk throughs of BRD or user stories. I understand the fundamentals of software development process, how business analyst approach a problem, how they write requirements, how they prioritize them.

3^rd reason , I am self driven and as a mother, I know how to juggle different responsibilities and organize my time. So I am well suited for this position because I will be able to prioritize and organize my work.

How do you prioritise requirements or work.

I know that we use MOSCOW technique which is;

• Must have
• Should have
• Could have

So I focus on most important items, they should be shipped first, followed by lesser important tasks or features.

What are types of requirements

There are primarily 4 types of requirements

• Business requirements which are given by business to address business problem for example as an underwriter I would like have ability to accept or deny an application
• Functional requirements are requirements to address the business requirements like adding radio buttons or some kind of software feature to accept or deny a case.
• Non functional requirements are technical requirements which are needed to implement the functional requirements like setting up the software development setup like getting required softwares or servers etc.
• Transitional requirements are requirements which are needed during transition phase for example if a company is planning to implement a new software so the time between moving from old to new system, we might need some kind of setup to help that transition. For example if windows is upgrading their Operating system, they keep support for old software for a specified period so that users have time to make that transition. Transition requirements cease to exist once the transition phase is over.

What are user stories

User stories are new format for requirements, earlier requirements will be bigger and might address multiple features or functionality at higher level, but user stories are very specific and written from end user’s perspective. How they plan to use the application.

How do you write user stories?

Business requirements are broken into smaller tasks or features, and they are written as user. For example- as an underwriter, I need ability to accept or deny an application.

A user stories will have definition of done and acceptance criteria .

What is definition of done

Definition of done is like a checklist, steps which should be completed before a user story can be marked as done like unit testing done, functional testing done etc.

What is acceptance criteria

Acceptance criteria defines the condition under which a user story can be marked done. It defines the business condition which should be done. For example if there is a user story to add feature for accepting or denying the application, acceptance criteria will include something like;

• User should be able to make the selection for accepting or deny the application
• Application’s status should be updated with the selected value.
• Backend system or policy admin system should be updated with the selected value.

What is the difference between DOD (definition of done) & acceptance criteria

Definition of done indicates the development process and acceptance criteria indicates the business conditions which should be met in order to mark a user story as complete. So definition of done might highlight the technical or development steps whereas acceptance criteria will address the business need.

What is the role of business analyst

In short business analyst is responsible for doing market research, doing gap analysis, impact analysis, writing requirements and organizing walk throughs of the requirements and getting sign off from the stakeholders.

How do you estimate requirements or user stories?

In scrum, we classify them as small, medium or big and then use some kind of mechanism to rate them like S for small, M for medium or L for large.

Few more Business analyst interview questions

• Explain different stages of a project.
• How does a business analyst analyse a complex problem and develop a
• solution?
• How do you ensure that the solutions you propose align with the overall goals
• and objectives of the organization?
• Can you provide an example of a project where you had to deal with
• ambiguity or uncertainty?
• How do you handle conflicting viewpoints and competing priorities?
• How do you communicate your findings and recommendations to
• stakeholders?
• What is Pareto analysis?
• What is Process facilitation

Final words

whenever you are preparing for any interview;

• Always write and speak while practicing before interviews.
• Try and if you can get a friend to play the role of interviewer, practice with them.
• Use power posing.
• Be loud (not very) and clear.
• Try to engage interviewer and try to take most of the time alloted towards interviews. If your interviewer is speaking most of the time, you are rejected. 

If you need help with business analysis, whether you want to prepare for the job or interview, you can check out my course.

More posts on business analyst interview questions;

1. Insurance domain business analyst interview questions
2. Interview questions for business analysts, product owner or scrum master
3. Need detailed answers for these questions, click here