With having spent so many years in IT industry and Business Analysis profession booming in multiple folds, the urge for career transition is at its peak now. But something worth considering is the lack of judgement amongst the candidates and the hiring team. I being fortunate enough to be at both sides as candidate as well as an Interview panel can easily figure this out. There are millions of resumes in the job board database which clearly do not have a Business Analyst designation. There are fair chances of fake information on it but who are we to judge it without interviewing the candidates. The hiring team often ignore resumes with clear designations as that is the preliminary checkpoint set to them. But at the same time if someone want to hire a credible resource then they need to walk that extra mile. We are in the era where these nomenclature type-casted designations do not have any substantial significance. Instead people have been focusing on what they need out of the role. Business Analysis being the only dynamic role in the IT industry has its own advantages and challenges. But what about the people who are doing business analysis work and they are unable to put it on their resumes as their designation and role are not aligned correctly. Here are some pointers you may like to work on:
1. Align your Business Analysis work
Its very interesting and important to align your business analysis work. For instance, a Developer willing to transition to Business Analysis role may be involved in many Requirements feasibility meeting, BA Workshops, Technical documents creation. Try to extract the development element out of it and understand how BAs have worked and what was their scope while executing each of these activities. Try shadowing a BA from your team and consult them for clarifications. Ask them for assigning you some BA activities and once you are confident enough put these experiences in your resume.
2. Forget your irrelevant Designations
There are case where people are working as BAs and just because they do not have a clear designation are afraid of putting them in their resumes. The solution to this is add a sub designation aside your official designation like: Process Consultant (Business Analyst).
This would trigger the recruiter search towards your profile in a particular job board.
3. Briefly Describe your role in the context of Business Analysis
As explained in pointer #1, If you do not have a clear Business Analyst designation you are liable to get more challenging questions in interview. Even I have done this in my career while interviewing candidates just to ensure any fake candidate is not on boarded. These questions are typically scenario based like: How would you prioritize requirements ? or how would you trace through the source of a requirement ? and so on. Show the panel that you have the right skill sets for this role by briefly describing your situation in context of these business cases.
4. Get the needed soft skills
Irrespective of your skill sets, the attitude towards the work is more important. As a BA you need to be excellent as Communicator, Listener, Collaborator, Negotiator and People manager. If you have these skills then you are here to excel.
5. ACT, WALK, TALK like a BA
Having said that you need to be high on Analytical thinking and Time management. Business Analysis is not a profession for people who like to do monotonous work for the rest of their life. This profession have evolved a lot and would continue to do so. Be ready for the change. Be very high on adapting the changes else you would be out of the market in no time. Flow with the flow with some scope for your original value creation to the companies. As most of the work BA does are value driven which could be subjective. You are responsible to convert this hypothetical subjective perception in the minds of people to an meaningful valuable impact.
Happy Reading!