50 Business Analyst Interview Questions and Answers

This blog contains a list of business analyst interview questions and answers. You will find it helpful if you are a hiring manager who is looking for business analyst questions to ask during an interview and also if you are a job seeker who is interested in business analyst jobs.

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Role of a Business Analyst: Skills and Opportunities

The role of a business analyst is not a single-dimensional one. The skills needed to become a successful business analyst span a broad spectrum of categories. Here are some of the key skills that a business analyst aspirant must possess to become a successful business analyst.

• Commercial understanding of different businesses.

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.

• Decision-making and problem-solving skills.

• Expertise in organization and time management aspects of tasks.

• Ability to analyze huge datasets.

• Good at leading teams of people from different backgrounds.

• Awareness of project management methodologies.

• The capability of adapting to new software systems and technologies.

Business Analyst job opportunities are not going to die down anytime soon in the future. The statement can be backed by the statistical facts revealed by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)*, where business analyst jobs are expected to grow 14% from 2018 to 2028. The pace is pretty fast when compared to other job roles. 

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So, if you are considering a career in the management field and aspiring to become a Business Analyst, read this blog to understand what kind of questions are asked in a business analyst interview. These questions will help you develop a good understanding of the role of a business analyst and provide you with an idea of what skills hiring managers to expect from a job applicant.

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50 Business Analyst Interviews Questions and Answers

We will now begin with the detailed business analyst interviews questions and answers. For your convenience, the questions and answers have been divided into five categories. 

1. Junior Business Analyst Interview Questions/Entry-level Business Analyst Interview Questions

2. Salesforce Business Analyst Interview Questions

3. SQL Interview Questions For Business Analyst

4. Technical Business Analyst Interview Questions

5. Senior Business Analyst Interview Questions

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Junior Business Analyst Interview Questions/Entry-level Business Analyst Interview Questions

In this section, you will find those interview questions for business analyst profiles that are usually asked for beginners in this field. We have also included the answers for each question to give you an idea about how to answer business analyst job interview questions.

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Q1. What are the four core responsibilities of a Business Analyst?

The four most important responsibilities of a Business Analyst include:

1. Elicit: A business analyst is expected to communicate with the business project stakeholders and recognize their expectations from the project.

2. Analyze: Understanding the stakeholders’ expectations and designing a set of steps that must be followed to change business processes, information systems, and business policies.

3. Communicate: A business analyst connects various stakeholders and customers in a business project. Communicating requirements and solving problems is a key responsibility of a Business Analyst.

4. Validate: Understanding the requirements and presenting them in a structured manner is done by a Business Analyst. The structured document is then used to understand the practical feasibility of project implementation.

Q2. List a few methods for eliciting requirements.

Document Analysis

Survey/questionnaires

Focus group

Prototyping 

Requirements work-shops 

Interface analysis 

Interviews Observation 

Brainstorming

Q3.  Describe a few categories of stakeholders in a business organization.

• Executive-level professionals who own a project from a business perspective.

• Experts of specific subjects who use the new project or system.

• Managers who are at the end of the user spectrum of the project.

• IT strategist who takes care of the technical aspects of the projects in a business.

Q4.What is the RUP method?

RUP stands for Rational Unified Process. RUP is a procedure of software development that is “iterative, architecture-centric, and use-case driven”. The RUP method involves listing requirements as use cases, which helps keep track of value to the lone business stakeholders for each piece of serviceability. The crucial principles of RUP include focussing on risks, primarily paying attention to the quality of the project, and prioritizing focus on value.

Q5. What do you understand by UML? 

UML is the abbreviation for Unified Modeling Language. Business Analysts use it to describe the requirements and outline of software systems. UML allows them to conveniently layout project workflows which help in visualizing the scope of the project. There are different types of UML diagrams like use case diagrams, complete domain diagrams, sequence diagrams, etc.

Q6. What are the problems associated with choosing the waterfall model?

In the waterfall model, each project process is completed linearly, and at the end, the deliverable is ready. This model is out of practice these days because pushing the choice of working software towards the end of the project is not fruitful as software picked using the waterfall methodology often fails to satisfy stakeholders’ needs and preferences. Another problem associated with this model is that it makes it difficult for an organization to get accustomed to changes as the requirements are pre-defined.

Q7. Briefly explain the Agile methodology.

Agile Methodology focuses on taking small steps to allow the users to decide upon a working software as early as possible Agile methodologies’ center of attention is collaboration, interaction, and responding to change over procedures, documentation, and following a master plan.

Q8. List a few categories of tools that a business analyst must know according to you.

• Microsoft Office Suite which includes text editors, spreadsheets, presentations tools.

• Defect Tracking Tools

• Modeling Tools

• Wireframing Tools

• Requirement Management Tools

• Project Management Tools

Q9. Name two diagrams that a Business analyst can use to outline a project.

Collaboration diagrams

Case diagrams

Q10. What are the essential stages of a business development process?

The four key stages are forming, storming, norming, and performing.

Q11. What do you understand by exceptions?

These are the unwanted errors that are revealed after one runs an application.

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Q12. What do you mean by Requirement Elicitation? 

Requirements Elicitation is the process of investigating and identifying the requirements of a system from users, customers, and other stakeholders. The process is also often referred to as “requirement gathering”.

Q13. List the differences between business requirements and needs.

A business requirement is a technically detailed description put forward by stakeholders for solving a business problem or objective. On the other hand, a need is a concise statement that summarises all the requirements.

For example:

Need

Requirements

I need to buy a house for my family.

The house should have:

3 Bedrooms

1 Hall

1 Kitchen

2 Washrooms

There should be a spacious balcony with a small garden.

The floor should be wooden.

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Technical Business Analyst Interview Questions

Here are a few common questions you will likely encounter in the second or third hiring interview round for a business analyst role. These are technical questions that allow the hiring manager to examine how deeply you understand the responsibilities of a Business Analyst.

Q1. What is a flowchart, and why does a Business Analyst need it?

A flowchart is a diagram that shows the workflow of a business system using signs and symbols. They provide business analysts with a straightforward way of highlighting the key processes involved in a business process. You can share your experience of using a flowchart if you have done it before.

Q2. Explain SRS and its components.

SRS stands for Software Requirements Specification. It is a document that specifies which software will be used and a justification for choosing it to fulfill the needs of stakeholders. It also highlights how the software is expected to perform and what goals it will achieve.

The components of SRS include: 

• Functional requirements of the business system

• Non-functional/Performance requirements of the system

• Goals of Executing a business process

• Design Constraints

Q3. What is BRD?

BRD stands for Business Requirements Document. It is a document that contains the objectives and solution methodology of a business project. It highlights the customers’ needs and expectations and the constraints that play a crucial role in implementing the business solution.

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Q4. Differentiate between BRD and SRS.

BRD

SRS

BRD stands for Business Requirements Document.

SRS stands for Software Requirements Specification.

A Business Analyst is responsible for creating a BRD.

A System Analyst or a Business Analyst handle SRS documents.

Primarily highlights the requirements of a business and its stakeholders.

Primarily highlights functional and non-functional requirements.

This document is used in the early stages of project development. 

This document is used during the planning phase of the project development.

Q5. What do you mean by Black box testing?

Black-box testing is a way of testing software to evaluate the functionality of an application without diving into its internal workings or structures.

Q6. What is BPMN?

BPMN stands for Business Process Model and Notation. It is a flowchart-based diagram that is used to project the layout of implementing a business problem’s solution end-to-end.

Q7. What is the significance of GAP analysis? 

GAP analysis is a method that companies utilize to keep track of their business growth. It is used to draw comparisons between the current performance and the expected performance. It reflects how well the company is utilizing the resources at hand and allows the stakeholders to identify how to reach its full potential.

Q8. What do you mean by Scope creep?

Scope highlights the work that needs to be done in a project. In project management, scope creep refers to an increase in the project requirements as the project work progresses. An example would be the number of expected deliverables from the project increased from one to five as the project life cycle progressed. Scope creep is usually caused when there is a conflict of interest among different stakeholders.

Guess-Estimate Interview Questions for Business Analysts

Apart from the business analyst technical interview questions mentioned above, specific technical questions target the guess estimate skills. Here are a few such business analyst interview questions with answers.

Q9. How many cups of tea Mumbaikars drank last month?

For keeping the solution of this problem relatively simple, you can weigh each day of the week equally; that is, the number of cups people consume per day is independent of which day of the week it is.

Mumbai has a population of 1.25 crores. Let us take that number to be one crore to make the calculations less complex. Roughly, you can assume that 20% of the population are children and likely do not drink tea. Also, you can consider the following assumptions:

• 30% Consistent Tea Drinkers (People who have 3 cups of tea in a day)

• 20% Daily Tea Drinkers (People who have one cup of tea in a day)

• 20% Casual Tea Drinkers (People who have one cup of tea in a week)

• 10% Non-Drinkers (People who do not drink tea)

The calculations for the above-mentioned categories will be as follows:

0.3*3*7 (percentage, number cups in a week = 1*) =6.3 for consistent tea drinkers

0.2*1*7 = 1.4 for daily tea drinkers

0.2*1*1 =0.2 for casual tea drinkers

0 for non-drinkers

Total number of tea drinkers= (6.3 + 1.4+0.2)*1.25 = 7.9*1.25 = 9.875 crores

Q10. How many cars do you think are there in Delhi?

You can restrict the discussion for this question by considering only personal-use cars.

The population of Delhi is about 1.9 crores, and we can 2.0 crores for simplicity. Let us consider that each family in Delhi has four members as Delhi is a metropolitan city. Now, not all families are capable of owning a car in the city. So, we will assume the population is divided into three categories based on their annual income (low, middle, and high-income class). In India, a large number of families fall under the category of the middle class, so it is safe to consider the following percentages:

30% Low-income class

50% Middle-Income class

20% High-Income class

Another assumption that seems plausible is that only 50% of middle-class families own a car. For the high-income class, we will suppose each family owns two cars.

So, the calculations will be as follows:

0 for Low income class

0.5*0.5*1 = 0.25 for Middle Income class

0.2*1*2 = 0.4 for High Income class

Total = (0.4 + 0.25)*2/4 crore = 32.5 lakhs (Dividing by four to count the number of families)

Q11. Estimate the number of people using the iPhone in India.

To keep it straightforward, we will not consider the version of the iPhone separately and suppose all the versions of iPhones together. 

Since iPhones are somewhat expensive, we will assume that only professionals and people in their 40s/50s own an iPhone. Thus, senior citizens (20%) and young adults and children(20%) will not be considered.

iPhones are expensive enough that they do not attract a large portion of professionals. Most young professionals have responsibilities and often find it challenging to afford an iPhone. So, we will assume only 5% of the professionals and senior citizens are eligible for purchasing an iPhone.

Now, not all professionals consider an iPhone as a worthwhile investment and often switch to other options available in the market. We will therefore consider that only 50% of such people own an iPhone.

The calculations will thus be: 

60% * 0.05 * 0.5 * 125 crore  ~ 2.4 crores iPhones are there in India

Q12. Give us a rough estimate of the number of ping-pong balls that one can fit inside a Boeing 747.

There are various sizes of ping pong balls available in the market. You can assume anyone that you want if the interviewee does not specify it.

For this problem, we will have to estimate the volume of a Boeing 747 aircraft. Let us start by assuming it can accommodate 400 people. This means it will have 400 seats. Let us now believe the aisle space can accommodate about two rows of 40 more seats. Additionally, we take into account the remaining space by assuming the space available above the seats is the same as that occupied by the seats. So, we have 960 seats now. Lastly, we count the space for the galley and washroom by adding 20 more seats. To make it less complicated, let us round the number of seats to 1K.

Now, for each seat, we will roughly calculate the space occupied by an average human in a sitting position. Taking that to be 4ft x 2ft x 1 ft, we have 8 cubic feet of space. 

So, the plane has 8K cubic feet ~1.4 x 107 cubic inches of space. If we consider the volume of a ping-pong ball to be 5 cubic inches, then the number of balls that can be accommodated with 70% packing efficiency is ~ (0.7*1.4 x 107)/5 = 1960000.

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SQL Interview Questions For Business Analyst

Apart from testing your knowledge about the jargon that is required for a business analyst role, the hiring manager will also ask you SQL business analyst interview questions. SQL is database management software that business analysts widely use to analyze the company’s growth and business performance. In this section, you will learn how to answer common business analyst SQL interview questions.

Q1. Differentiate between unique key, foreign key, and primary key.

Unique Key

Foreign Key

Primary Key

A unique key is a set of values present in one or more columns of a table that uniquely identify each record/row in that table.

A foreign key is a set of values contained in a column of a table that point to the primary key of another table. A foreign key is a connection between the two tables.

A primary key is a set of values contained in a column of a table that can be used to label each record in that table uniquely. There can be only one primary key in a table and should not contain NULL values.

 

Q2. Explain different types of joins.

Here are the different types of joins available in SQL that one can use while extracting data from a table.

• Full Join is used to extract all the rows that are present in the two tables.

• Left Join is used to extract the common rows between two tables and all table rows that are mentioned on the left-hand side of a query.

• Right Join is used to extract the common rows between two tables and all table rows that are mentioned on the right-hand side of a query.

• Inner Join is used to retrieve rows from tables that match with each other.

Q3. How are the TRUNCATE and DELETE commands different?

TRUNCATE

DELETE

The TRUNCATE command is used to discard all the rows from a table.

DELETE command is used to remove a particular set of rows from a table using the WHERE clause.

One can not use ROLLBACK after using TRUNCATE in a query to nullify the effect of the TRUNCATE command.

One can use COMMIT and ROLLBACK after using DELETE in a query.

 

Q4. Can one create user-defined functions? If yes, justify with the help of an example.

Yes, one can create user-defined functions in SQL to avoid writing queries with the same logic repeatedly.

Q5. What does an ALIAS command do?

ALIAS command is used to define a new name for an existing table. For example, consider a table with the name Student, and one wants to use the name stu for it.

‘Select stu.StuID, Ex.Result from student stu, Exam as Ex where stu.stuID = Ex. StuID

Q6. Write an SQL query for creating an empty table from an existing table.

Here is an example.

Select * into xyz from student where 2=3

Q7. How will you perform pattern matching in SQL?

Pattern matching in SQL can be performed using the LIKE operator. One can use ‘%’ to identify pattern zero or more characters and ‘_’ for identifying patterns that match precisely one character.

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Q8. What is a database cursor?

A database cursor is a pointer that points to a particular row in a table. It is capable of traversing all the records in a table and is thus used for adding, retrieving, and removing rows from a table.

Q9. List and explain the different types of indexes.

The three types of indexes are: 

Clustered Index: A clustered index is an index that reorders the values in a table based on the values present in a particular column of a table. One table can only have one clustered index.

Non clustered Index: Non clustered indexes are the indexes where the order of row values in a table column does not align with the implicit order of values in the table.

Unique Index: A unique index is a column in a database used to uniquely identify each row in a table. It makes sure that no two rows have the same key values.

Q10. Please point out the difference between SQL and MySQL.

SQL

MySQL

SQL stands for Structured Query Language. It is a query language that is used to fetch data from a database.

MySQL is a relational database management software that is open source and relies on SQL for querying a database.

SQL is a language for querying data, so it doesn’t get frequent updates, and the commands remain valid.

MySQL is software for managing database systems and is updated frequently.

Q11. Explain how to write SQL code to extract column mappings and store them into a final table?

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Microsoft Excel Interview Questions For Business Analyst

Microsoft Excel is a popular tool among business analysts for analyzing databases and drawing insightful conclusions that assist in decision making. This section will teach you how to excel at answering business analyst interview questions that will test a candidate’s analytical skills in MS Excel. 

Q1. What is the order of mathematical operations that are followed in MS Excel?

MS Excel follows the order denoted by the PEMDAS acronym for performing mathematical operations.  PEMDAS is an abbreviation for Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction.

Q2. What are macros in MS Excel?

A Macro in MS Excel is a set of operations or a single operation that one can execute as many times as one wants. One can save macros and name them as per their choice. Macros are extremely useful as they save their users time in performing repetitive tasks.

Q3. How are SUBSTITUTE and REPLACE functions used differently?

SUBSTITUTE

REPLACE

Substitute function is used in excel to replace a given set of characters (one or more) in a string with a user-defined string of characters.

Replace function is used to edit a specific set of characters in a string with a string of the user’s choice by specifying the position of the characters to be replaced.

 

Q4. Is it possible to use pivot tables for filtering data?

Yes, one can use pivot tables for filtering data in MS Excel as per their requirements. All they have to do is keep the field that you want to use for filtering data. After that, go to the ‘Analyze’ button in the menu bar and choose ‘Insert Slicer’ option. Next, select the field you want to generate slices for, and press OK. Now, you will see the option of choosing items that you want to display in the pivot table. That’s all. Here is a sample video by Microsoft that will help you understand how to filter data using pivot tables.

Q5. Describe the steps of creating a dropdown list in MS Excel.

• Select the cells where you want to have a drop-down list.

• Switch to the Ribbon Data tab. 

• Select  Data Validation from the Data Tools Community. 

• Then head over to Setup>Allow>List to navigate 

• Choose the array of the source list and click OK.

Senior Business Analyst Interview Questions

This section contains those interview questions and answers for business analyst jobs that are usually asked for someone who has been a business analyst before and understands the role thoroughly. The questions for such candidates are usually aimed at understanding the behavioral aspects of the candidates and their ability to handle difficult situations. These questions do not have a fixed answer and are based on a candidate’s experience. Therefore, this section will give you a general overview of how to respond to such questions and excel in an interview.

Q1. How do you plan to deal with a difficult stakeholder?

This question aims to test your ability to handle a conflicting situation and come up with relevant suggestions. You can display your problem-solving approach here by explaining s situation where you took such a situation in the past. 

Q2. Which business analyst tools do you prefer to use for enhancing your efficiency?

Through this question, the hiring manager would want to know how aware you are of the widely used tools in the industry. They usually expect you to have had hands-on experience with popular Business Analysis tools. If you aren’t that aware of such tools, it would be good to first work on a few projects that will help you polish your skills in this domain.

Q3. How would you respond to a situation where a delay in work completion affected business processes?

This is one of the most common business analyst behavioral interview questions asked in a senior business analyst interview. The idea is to understand how well a candidate can handle delays and devise a business growth plan. It would be nice if you could highlight your experience in managing such a situation previously. Additionally, you can highlight your time management skills to suggest how you usually avoid delays.

Q4. So far in your career as a business analyst, what is the most challenging problem you solved?

This question is the perfect opportunity for you to showcase your talent and skills in overcoming challenging situations. You are expected to explain how your personality and skills truly complement a senior business analyst’s role and how you have utilized them to figure out your way of solving complex problems.

Q5. How do you go about convincing a company about adopting new business methodologies?

Here you must reflect on your communication skills and your capability of communicating a business idea and its implementation. Talk about how you are interested in testing newer methodologies and analyzing how they benefit a business.

Amazon Business Analyst Interview Questions

Q1. Share an instance where you worked with an extensive dataset.

Q2. Describe when you performed predictive analytics over a dataset, and the conclusions escalated a business’ growth.

Q3. Share your experience of handling a complex interaction with a senior stakeholder.

Q4. Why do you want to work at Amazon?

Salesforce Business Analyst Interview Questions

Q1. How is Salesforce able to track sales?

Q2. Share your views on enterprise resource planning (ERP) system upgrades.

Q3. What do you know about standard and custom object records in Salesforce?

Q4. What do you think would be the best practice tips and advice to keep clean data in Salesforce?

Q5. As a business analyst, what criteria do you follow for describing a good quality requirement?

Data Analytics Projects Ideas for Business Analyst

You have gone through some of the top business analyst interview questions in this blog. Apart from knowing these questions, a business analyst is expected to work on a variety of technologies. These usually include artificial intelligence-based skills as well. IIf you are interested in developing your expertise in that domain and want to work on business analytics projects that help you develop skills on big data and analytics from scratch, check out the projects from the ProjectPro repository. We have end-to-end solutions for industry-relevant projects on Data Science and Big Data that you can customize as per your needs to solve a business problem.