Why Choose to be a Business Analyst   by Stephen Waller

in Careers / Career Management    (submitted 2011-11-24)

Business analyst careers are expected to stay for as long as businesses continue to exist. A business analyst in particular is like a doctor or physician for a business enterprise. He/she examines the operations and designs of a company and comes up with the right solutions to the company's problems. He/she does the diagnosis by looking into the organization's model, objectives, and needs.

How then can one qualify for this job? Is there a specific college degree that will prepare a person for this position and what does it take to become a successful business analyst?

Educational Qualifications

The requirements for business analyst careers do not specify a particular degree in business administration or accounting. A strong background in business along with industry and analytical experience can be considered, while other companies require some technical exposure or a degree in Computer Science.

Experience and Skills

The specific skills that are expected from aspirants are mostly that of a liaison work which are considered "soft" skills, such as: certain intellectual, emotional and physical skills.

• Intellectual. A person must have the skills in analytical, problem-solving and critical thinking; knowledge and experience in a particular industry; ability to learn easily and to learn new products, applications, systems and technologies; and technical understanding of the system that is being analyzed and how it affects the different commercial units.

• Emotional. To qualify for the position, one must have the ability to work well with both internal and external clients; the ability to handle and meet deadlines; leadership skills to take charge of or facilitate requirement-gathering sessions; and a strong consideration to detail structural skills.

• Physical. A business analyst must have the experience in preparing business requirements, working with use cases, business process modeling or data modeling, or preparing use-case or sequence diagrams; presentation skills, and ability to communicate with various audiences, including end users, managers, and members of the IT team; multi-tasking skills and the ability to balance multiple priorities and keep up with project scope changes; and project management skills and/or certification.

The business analyst careers can attract many starters but only the persistent and persevering make these their lifetime vocation because of the qualities of being diligent and meticulous that these require of their practitioners. On the other hand, these jobs continue to challenge the intellectuals because of the nature of the jobs that require the frequent use of the brain. No one will get bored in this career for every situation is a challenge to overcome and a problem to solve.

About the Author

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