How to find a Business Analyst job in US?

A. Talk about yourself

Coming from a customer service background and not the conventional IT domain, I too had inhibitions about pursuing a business analyst job. However, I took the plunge with an open mind and a keen sense of learning—qualities that, in hindsight, were pivotal in my journey toward becoming a successful business analyst.

From a novice and completing more than 5 years in the IT sector, I am currently a QA Project lead with a major US bank.

What was I equipped with: –

• I was armed with an MBA degree having some internships at my disposal
• A strong professional customer service background which taught me people skills and to be calm under pressure.
• Being intellectually curious about connecting the dots with a positive and adaptable frame of mind.
• I am inherently a resilient person who can deal with rejections and is always open to constructive feedback
• Last but not least, networking skills, which is by far the most important in any professional endeavor

B. Top portals for finding jobs in that country

1. Indeed – 8000 + roles
2. Dice – 3000 + roles
3. LinkedIn – 37,000 + roles
4. CareerBuilder – 5000 + roles
5. ZipRecruiter – 10,000 + roles

 Personally, I feel LinkedIn has been so far my favorite as your professional profile also serves as a personal brand where recruiters and employers can also check your work history and skillset.

Important mention – Potential job seekers should also go to individual company websites to apply directly to the job postings there as that is the first pool of human capital that they filter to match their requirements.

Useful Link – How to Get Business Analyst Jobs in Canada | ECBA Certification Training

C. Show a couple of examples of JD

1. Business Analyst at Amazon

Source :- LinkedIn Business Analyst, Business Assurance

Arlington, VA ·
$106.4K/yr – $185K/yr
Full-time

About the job

Description

Amazon’s Global Risk Management & Claims team is seeking a highly skilled and detail-oriented Business Analyst with a robust background in economic theory, auto claims management, and data analytics. The ideal candidate will possess an in-depth understanding of insurance claims processes, a keen interest in economic principles, and proficiency in dissecting complex datasets. As a Business Analyst, you will play a pivotal role in extracting valuable insights from claims data, employing economic theories to evaluate risk factors, utilizing data metrics to optimize our claims management processes, and providing strategic recommendations to key stakeholders.

Key job responsibilities

In this role, the Business Analyst will partner with key stakeholders to dive deep into business challenges and loss trends, aiming to unearth crucial insights. The ideal candidate will cultivate partnerships across various business lines to gather business requirements, develop metrics and reporting, establish key performance indicators for third-party vendors, deliver actionable insights to mitigate financial and operational risks. This position demands an adaptable individual with exceptional analytical skills and outstanding business acumen. The ideal candidate is customer obsessed, both internally and externally, and will work back from the customer to meet business objectives.

The Business Analyst Is Responsible For

• Partner with cross functional business teams to consult, develop and implement metrics, automated reporting/process solutions, and process improvements to meet business needs.
• Apply economic theories and models to assess claims trends, evaluate risk factors, and predict future claim performance.
• Conduct in-depth economic analyses to evaluate the financial impact of claims and recommend cost-effective strategies for claims resolution.
• Utilize advanced data analytics techniques to evaluate large and complex claims datasets.
• Generating actionable insights through the development of key performance metrics, dashboards and analytics.
• Identify opportunities for process improvements and automation within the organization.

  Basic Qualifications
  

• Bachelor’s degree
• 5+ years of tax, finance or a related analytical field experience
• 3+ years of writing SQL queries and creating business intelligence reports using Tableau, Power BI experience
• Experience defining requirements and using data and metrics to draw business insights
• Experience with Excel
• Experience with SQL
• Experience making business recommendations and influencing stakeholders

Preferred Qualifications : – MBA

The above example shows the applicable education and skills required for a business analyst position, including a master’s degree. This job also prefers that candidates have knowledge of analytics and experience with Excel and SQL. This is a perfect example of a business analyst with business intelligence as a technical expertise.

Freddie Mac – Source LinkedIn

Business Analyst Senior (Hybrid – 3 Days in Office)

McLean, VA
$100K/yr – $150K/yr
Full-time
Freddie Mac · McLean, VA (Hybrid)

About the job

At Freddie Mac, you will do important work to build a better housing finance system and you’ll be part of a team helping to make homeownership and rental housing more accessible and affordable across the nation.

Position Overview:

Do you have passion for understanding customer needs and using technology to deliver value? Are you an analyst that’s interested in project management processes & thrive in a fast-paced and constantly evolving environment? Do you have risk and control experience, broad technical knowledge, sound judgment, and strong analytical skills? If you love problem solving, implementing process improvements, inspiring change, and collaborating with others, this may be the role for you! Apply today to the position to join our Automation and Analytics team in Internal Audit!

Our Impact:

Members on our team are highly skilled audit, risk management, and technical developers with a proven track record of providing valuable audit and advisory services to Freddie Mac. The team plays a meaningful role by leveraging automation and analytics to transform traditional control testing into streamlined, technology-driven workflows that provide deeper insights into risk and compliance. Our team collaborates across the company to develop innovative solutions that allow continuous monitoring, improve decision making, and enable combined assurance.

Your Impact:

The Business Analyst Sr. will be a key member of the Automation and Analytics team within Freddie Mac’s Internal Audit division. This role will collaborate with stakeholders to develop, enhance, and implement automation and data analytics solutions to support control testing automation. The Business Analyst Sr. will be responsible for gathering and writing business requirements, facilitating communication between audit teams, management, and technical developers, and ensuring the successful delivery of innovative assurance solutions.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Accounting, Information Systems, Data Analytics, or a related field or equivalent work experience
• 5-7 years of experience in business analytics, process improvement, internal audit, or operational risk management.
• Familiarity with internal audit processes or financial services operations is highly preferred.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present complex information clearly, facilitate effective meetings, and develop and deliver presentations to various levels of audiences.
• Knowledgeable with eliciting requirements from stakeholders, then translating, simplifying, and analyzing the feasibility of the requirements and data needed.
• Experience in developing positive relationships, instilling trust, and influencing individuals at all levels of an organization.
• Strong knowledge of data visualization tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau).
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience working with cross-functional teams, including technical developers and business stakeholders.
• Detailed understanding and ability to communicate various change and project management methodologies (Scrum Agile).
• Basic SQL, Python/R skills.
• PMP, Scrum Master Certification, CISA, CRISC, CPA, or CIA is preferred.

Keys to Success in this Role:

• Works well in a collaborative environment as well as individually.
• Demonstrates effective verbal and written communication skills.
• Exhibits independent judgment, strong problem solving, deep analytical ability to identify, assess, and mitigate risks and test controls.
• Ability to develop and sustain trusting relationships with leaders across the Internal Audit division and Freddie Mac.
• Works in a consistently changing environment and adapts to situations with no prior precedent.
• Proactively manage multiple tasks and projects with limited supervision.
• Collaborates across multiple departments to communicate and resolve issues quickly.
• Takes initiative, pays attention to detail, and achieves results.
• Constantly seeks to gain knowledge of Freddie Mac’s business processes and uses that knowledge to understand the needs of our business partners and stakeholders.

Current Freddie Mac employees please apply through the internal career site.

The above example gives a very detailed and exhaustive description of the role of business analysts and also the company’s vision and impact. It also specifically asks for certifications which will be preferred. This JD is a very good example of a business analyst with financial domain experience along with needed technical skills like power BI, SQL, Python etc.

DMI (Digital Management, LLC) – Source LinkedIn

Functional/Business Analyst

About the job

DMI is a leading global provider of digital services working at the intersection of public and private sectors. With broad capabilities across IT managed services, cybersecurity, cloud migration and application development, DMI provides on-site and remote support to clients within governments, healthcare, financial services, transportation, manufacturing, and other critical infrastructure sectors. DMI has grown to over 2,100+ employees globally and has been continually recognized as a Top Workplace in both regional and national categories.

DMI, LLC is seeking a Functional/Business Analyst to join us.

Duties And Responsibilities

• Work across business and technical teams to help identify, track, and manage business, functional, and technical requirements throughout the full lifecycle of the solution
• Provide support for functional, integration and end-user testing against the requirements
• Documents meeting notes, decisions, and functional design details for information systems.
• Understands complex business requirements and works with technical team to translate requirements into clear agile user stories
• Drafts and maintains system documentation, system training content, design artifacts, etc.
• Develops, documents, and executes detailed test cases, test scenarios.
• Validates and documents test results conform to design.
• Updates defects, test cases, and user stories in tracking system.
• Creates and manages production support incidents from inception through closing.
• Supports and works directly with system users during user testing, training, and system rollout.
• Communicates functional design, test results, and feedback with both development and business/user teams.
• Provides support for end users during rollout of systems

Qualifications/Education and Years of Experience:

• Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited college or university.
• 3+ years of experience

Required Skills/Certifications

• Experience with providing support to Agile delivery teams, including help with backlog maintenance, sprint planning, and release planning
• Experience collaborating with diverse business and technical teams to capture and communicate requirements with various stakeholders
• Experience developing and tracking requirements using Jira or similar system, and working with testing specialists to develop use cases to test against the requirements
• Proven experience effectively prioritizing workload to meet deadlines and work objectives
• Experience performing analysis and summarizing/communicating complex processes and information.
• At least 2 years of experience in using MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio)
• Strong ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical teams and users.

Useful Link – How to Get Business Analyst Jobs in Canada | ECBA Certification Training

Desired Skills/Certifications

• Experience as a technical writer
• Experience as a software tester or test engineer
• Experience with IT strategy and communications
• Experience as a Jira Administrator, including setting up and maintaining Jira projects, custom workflows, issue types, configurations, etc.
• Experience with relational databases and using SQL to query data during analysis/testing.

The above JD is good example of a functional business analyst with 3 years of experience, with some basic business knowledge and business analysis skills which constitute as a core function.

Position:  Business Analyst with Banking and financials domain

Location: Atlanta, GA

Duration: Full Time

Interview: Phone/ Skype

Job Description:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Business Management, Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, IT, Statistics, Mathematics, or related field preferred
• 5-7 years of experience in consulting services with consistent record to creatively assist client with their business challenges
• Have shown experience of one or more industries or sectors, with broad knowledge of current as well as new technologies
• Have experience in Agile framework participating directly in Agile practices and producing common artifacts
• Understand product development and delivery framework especially Agile framework, DevOps practices and micro services
• Strong confirmed experience in either an internal or external business analysis role, or similar, evidenced by adding significant business value through research, challenging the status quo where appropriate, supplying material improvement ideas and developing/communicating full business cases
• Good technical knowledge and experience in delivering IT solutions, providing comprehensive technical advice and understanding user requirements.

Detailed list of the best states for a business analyst

Source :-  10 Best States For Business Analysts In 2024 – Zippia

Remote Job Opportunities

As per LinkedIn survey, there are more than 3000 remote job opportunities in the USA. Many roles ranging from business analyst, quality analyst, project and product manager positions are available in the job market.

But the challenge is to get a suitable opportunity which is suitable for your skillset and expertise.

Flexjobs and LinkedIn are good sources where one can seek remote positions.

But in my personal experience, after the pandemic many companies are calling their resources back to office offering a more hybrid working model as it has makes a big difference in employee productivity and engagement.

List of companies that offer remote and hybrid positions: –

1. 3M

Headquarters: Saint Paul, Minnesota
Employees: 85,000

2. Adobe

Headquarters: San Jose, California
Employees: 29,945

3. Airbnb

Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 6,907

4. Atlassian

U.S. Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 10,726

5. Intel

Headquarters: Santa Clara, California
Employees: 124,800

Source :- 30 Big Companies That Hire Remote and Hybrid Workers | Careers | U.S. News

Tips from your own experience

Useful Link – How to Get Business Analyst Jobs in Canada | ECBA Certification Training

Along my professional business analysis journey, I have gathered some key learning and observations that I would like to share with all the potential candidates :-

• Embrace the Learning: – The most important of all I would like to point out that be a learning magnet absorbing and learning from everyone around you – be it developers, QA’s, project managers and product owners, as this will be your arsenal going forward. As I mentioned earlier about my customer service background, I have done BA projects ranging from retail, banking and healthcare which required me to constantly learn new things.

• Comfortable with change: – Change is the only constant in life, this holds very much true in your professional career. Be very flexible and adaptable to changing situations and environments. You will have to constantly upskill yourself and be ready to apply the knowledge and skills that would be needed to your role in this volatile and dynamic labor market. To give a perspective, I have moved to more than 10 states in the US in search of new job opportunities.

• Technical expertise: – For candidates who come from non-technical backgrounds, this forms a major psychological fear of not been able to grasp the technical nuances in the project. All I can say is not to be intimidated by this lack of expertise. One needs to differentiate on must need skills v/s nice to have skills and focus on all their efforts on gaining the knowledge required for that role. At the end of the day companies need people to get the job done and do not expect experts in the field.

• Handling rejections: – In today’s hyper competitive job market, it is more than difficult to land a dream job. But one needs to have a good strategy in place where he/she needs to have a rock-solid resume, should be able to push through the rejection cycle and have a professional network to navigate through the entire process. To give a rough estimate, for every role that I have landed, there were more than 150 to 200 applications that I had to put through, where it gave me around 10 interviews which got converted into one position.

• Strategy: – There are some things that an aspiring BA should know while entering the job market.
• Functional knowledge of what a BA does :- SDLC, Agile, Use case, User stories etc
• Particular domain knowledge – Banking, healthcare, retail
• Important Technical skills:- Advanced Excel, SQL, Power BI
• Certifications from IIBA, Scrum Master, Product Owner, PMP etc

Also, as I have mentioned earlier as well, networking skills play a huge role in being at the right time and right place. One needs to be on a lookout for seminars, events and mentors in their professional journey.

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a growth rate of 18 percent for business analysts between 2019 and 2029. This should lead to a predicted 495,500 jobs, which is significantly faster growth than most positions and industries are seeing in the United States. This data suggests there is a strong need and there are opportunities for business analysts looking to advance their careers.

Conclusion:

Finally, I would like to conclude by saying that each one must have immense confidence in their abilities, which is the most important of all as your professional journey is like running a marathon v/s a short sprint where you need careful planning and execution.

Lastly, I would like to thank Techcanvass for giving me a good learning platform to hone me BA skills.