Senior Business Analyst

Senior Business Analyst qualifications to look for

Senior Business Analysts prepare companies for change, identify and resolve key problems, and work to improve overall performance. 

They’re big on analyzing strengths and weaknesses within an organization to offer company-wide solutions that resolve core issues.

Your top hire will have a background in Computer Science combined with solid experience as a business analyst who has worked on diverse projects. Ask specific questions to gauge candidate skills in requirements analysis, documentation and testing. 

Keep an eye out for candidates who have:

• Solid knowledge of quality assurance systems and modeling techniques
• Exceptional analytical skills 
• A knack for explaining technical details to a non-technical audience
• A strong understanding of your company’s needs 
  

Top tip: Hire candidates willing to grow by making sure their personal career goals align with your company's mission.

Problem-solving interview questions

• How would you update or improve a critical process stemming from out-of-date technology?
• What advice would you give a new member of your team who asks about the best practices to follow while writing a use case?
• How would you handle a client or manager wanting to add a major feature to a project? How would this change the scope of the project? 
• There are differences between stakeholders regarding project priorities. How do you handle the differences and get everyone on the same page? 
• How do you get your team back on track if they fall behind on a tight deadline?
  

Role-specific interview questions

• How do you gather user requirements? Are some methodologies more effective in certain cases than others? Explain why. 
• Explain your step-by-step process when performing market, competitor and SWOT analyses
• What software, tools, and frameworks do you use for project management? What are your favorite features? What are its limitations? 
• What modeling technique would you use to visualize our relationship with a customer? Explain why. 
• What kind of technical documentation do you employ with your work?
• How can you use personas to explain user behavior? Are there limitations to this process?
  

Behavioral interview questions

• Explain a time you delivered a cost-reducing solution. How did you present it to your team and senior management? What was the outcome? 
• Tell me about a project you worked on that helped the company achieve its business goals. What was your role? 
• How do you overcome challenges with demanding user requirements? 
• Have you ever failed to deliver a project on time? What happened? How did you resolve it? Did you put new systems in place afterward? 
• What measures do you take to ensure your team is productive?