Advice for a mature student looking to start Business Analysis career

MPS92

Hello everyone!

I graduated with a BA in Business Management in November last year as a mature student. Since then I've identified Business Analysis as a really good fit for me, so I'm pursuing opportunities through which to realise that career path.

However, I have not managed to get any interviews, despite applying to many junior roles. Granted, some roles -- even the junior roles -- have required certain skills and experience I do not have (and can only achieve through a BA role), but I applied anyway and hoped my cover letter and CV being tailored towards Business Analysis would help demonstrate how serious I am about this profession.

Does anyone have advice on how to get into Business Analysis? Is there something mature students without the relevant experience can do? Even unpaid internships seem difficult to attain. I've started to lose hope so any assistance would be appreciated!

Cheers

JReacher1

Without seeing your cv and jobs you’ve applied for it’s hard to know why you aren’t getting interviews. I would continue to apply as there are many BA jobs out there. 

How mature are you? Nobody should discriminate because of age but if you’ve not got much of an employment history and you’re reasonably mature then that might ring some alarm bells. 

Another option to look at is junior product manager as that’s not too dissimilar a role to BA. This could be something easier to get into which then allows you to move into business analysis if you wished. 

tacpot12

Please don't lose hope. It is possible to enter the field, but as you are finding it is not easy.

My advice would be not to apply for BA roles at this stage, but rather to look for roles in administrative functions where part of the role is (or might be) process improvement. As an example, my daughter was hired very recently as Admin Support for a busy local Council department, but has spent about 40% of their time (2 days a week) doing software development for them to speed up their processes using the software they already have on their desktops!

Look for any job that might involve process automation as well. Get some experience of admin processes and see if you can get involved in, or better still, drive, process improvements.

Make sure you are looking across all the different fields, from scientific, medical, engineering, logistics, finance, local government, civil service, etc. for any role that might give you expose to process change and improvement.

Even if you have admin role experience, look for a role where you can use this to quickly demonstrate improvements in a business. If you can get data that shows the level of improvement you have delivered, so much the better. 

MEM62

I would imagine that anyone looking for a business analysis candidate would want to see an amount of practical experience in the workplace.  This is a subject that, in my opinion, cannot be taken straight from the classroom and practiced effectively.  You really need to understand the real-world subtleties.    

MPS92

JReacher1 said:

Without seeing your cv and jobs you’ve applied for it’s hard to know why you aren’t getting interviews. I would continue to apply as there are many BA jobs out there. 

How mature are you? Nobody should discriminate because of age but if you’ve not got much of an employment history and you’re reasonably mature then that might ring some alarm bells. 

Another option to look at is junior product manager as that’s not too dissimilar a role to BA. This could be something easier to get into which then allows you to move into business analysis if you wished. 

Hi, thanks for your response. I'm 34 and my previous roles have been in hospitality (with responsibility), so I know there are strikes against me, so to speak. In my CV I've included MS Suite experience and the following opening statement and information about my studies:

I am a recent graduate of The Open University with experience analysing business strategies and producing reports. I am seeking an opportunity to leverage my data analysis and business understanding skills as an analyst. I am eager to complete deliverables, streamline processes, maximise efficiency, and foster professional relationships within organisations. I have a commitment to learning, a willingness to seek information, and possess strong interpersonal and teamwork skills.

2017-2021 – The Open University – Distance Learning

BA (Honours) Business Management (upper 2:1)

• Specialisms: financial accounting, communication in business management and financial analysis & decision making.

• Developed strong critical evaluation, research and data-gathering skills to produce internal and external analyses of companies, industries, and macroeconomic context.

• Final-year dissertation included developing a report on strategic issues within a UK company and making corresponding strategic recommendations to management and identifying risks.

Would love to hear your thoughts on these key elements of my CV!

Also, I'll look into the junior product manager roles and see what comes up.

Thanks again!

MPS92

tacpot12 said:

Please don't lose hope. It is possible to enter the field, but as you are finding it is not easy.

My advice would be not to apply for BA roles at this stage, but rather to look for roles in administrative functions where part of the role is (or might be) process improvement. As an example, my daughter was hired very recently as Admin Support for a busy local Council department, but has spent about 40% of their time (2 days a week) doing software development for them to speed up their processes using the software they already have on their desktops!

Look for any job that might involve process automation as well. Get some experience of admin processes and see if you can get involved in, or better still, drive, process improvements.

Make sure you are looking across all the different fields, from scientific, medical, engineering, logistics, finance, local government, civil service, etc. for any role that might give you expose to process change and improvement.

Even if you have admin role experience, look for a role where you can use this to quickly demonstrate improvements in a business. If you can get data that shows the level of improvement you have delivered, so much the better. 

Hello, thanks a lot for your response!

Yeah, I think this could be right. The BA field needs to be my destination after a step or two. 

I'll see what I can find out there!

Doshwaster

MEM62 said:

I would imagine that anyone looking for a business analysis candidate would want to see an amount of practical experience in the workplace.  This is a subject that, in my opinion, cannot be taken straight from the classroom and practiced effectively.  You really need to understand the real-world subtleties.    

Yes, I would say prior domain experience is very important for a Business Analyst. You can learn the techniques on a course but it's very different being a BA in the financial sector to life science research, transport logistics or retail. You have to be able to understand what the business and its people are doing.

Marcon

MPS92 said:

JReacher1 said:

Without seeing your cv and jobs you’ve applied for it’s hard to know why you aren’t getting interviews. I would continue to apply as there are many BA jobs out there. 

How mature are you? Nobody should discriminate because of age but if you’ve not got much of an employment history and you’re reasonably mature then that might ring some alarm bells. 

Another option to look at is junior product manager as that’s not too dissimilar a role to BA. This could be something easier to get into which then allows you to move into business analysis if you wished. 

Hi, thanks for your response. I'm 34 and my previous roles have been in hospitality (with responsibility), so I know there are strikes against me, so to speak. In my CV I've included MS Suite experience and the following opening statement and information about my studies:

I am a recent graduate of The Open University with experience analysing business strategies and producing reports. I am seeking an opportunity to leverage my data analysis and business understanding skills as an analyst. I am eager to complete deliverables, streamline processes, maximise efficiency, and foster professional relationships within organisations. I have a commitment to learning, a willingness to seek information, and possess strong interpersonal and teamwork skills.

2017-2021 – The Open University – Distance Learning

BA (Honours) Business Management (upper 2:1)

• Specialisms: financial accounting, communication in business management and financial analysis & decision making.

• Developed strong critical evaluation, research and data-gathering skills to produce internal and external analyses of companies, industries, and macroeconomic context.

• Final-year dissertation included developing a report on strategic issues within a UK company and making corresponding strategic recommendations to management and identifying risks.

Would love to hear your thoughts on these key elements of my CV!

Also, I'll look into the junior product manager roles and see what comes up.

Thanks again!

If you want to be an analyst of any description, you need to be able to analyse your own skillset and 'sell it' to maximum advantage. 

Your cv has a lot of buzz words/jargon (probably a bit too much) and plenty of claims, but unless you can back these up with concrete examples/hard experience, you're in danger of being dismissed as someone who talks the talk, but hasn't actually walked the walk. It's a bit chicken and egg: how do you get the experience if you can't get a job? That old chestnut of volunteering comes to mind - and it doesn't really matter too much what you volunteer for in terms of the organisation, provided you can use it as a cv builder.

In particular, what mileage is there in saying more about your dissertation? Did the company benefit from it, adopt it, would they provide a reference? Without any of that, it's an empty claim.

You say you've included MS Suite 'experience' - most potential employers would take it for granted that you could use such a widely known software package. Can you add anything more about your particular skills/fluency in any part of the package, how you've applied it to help a business, or similar?

Getting a degree via the OU requires discipline and dedication, so I hope it really pays off for you. Good luck!

Ditzy_Mitzy

MPS92 said:

JReacher1 said:

Without seeing your cv and jobs you’ve applied for it’s hard to know why you aren’t getting interviews. I would continue to apply as there are many BA jobs out there. 

How mature are you? Nobody should discriminate because of age but if you’ve not got much of an employment history and you’re reasonably mature then that might ring some alarm bells. 

Another option to look at is junior product manager as that’s not too dissimilar a role to BA. This could be something easier to get into which then allows you to move into business analysis if you wished. 

Hi, thanks for your response. I'm 34 and my previous roles have been in hospitality (with responsibility), so I know there are strikes against me, so to speak. In my CV I've included MS Suite experience and the following opening statement and information about my studies:

I am a recent graduate of The Open University with experience analysing business strategies and producing reports. I am seeking an opportunity to leverage my data analysis and business understanding skills as an analyst. I am eager to complete deliverables, streamline processes, maximise efficiency, and foster professional relationships within organisations. I have a commitment to learning, a willingness to seek information, and possess strong interpersonal and teamwork skills.

2017-2021 – The Open University – Distance Learning

BA (Honours) Business Management (upper 2:1)

• Specialisms: financial accounting, communication in business management and financial analysis & decision making.

• Developed strong critical evaluation, research and data-gathering skills to produce internal and external analyses of companies, industries, and macroeconomic context.

• Final-year dissertation included developing a report on strategic issues within a UK company and making corresponding strategic recommendations to management and identifying risks.

Would love to hear your thoughts on these key elements of my CV!

Also, I'll look into the junior product manager roles and see what comes up.

Thanks again!

That CV is, to put no finer point on it, excruciatingly dull.  Nobody is eager to 'complete deliverables', suggesting that you are sounds almost flippant.  Some people, however, are keen to do a good job and to help.  Some people really do enjoy the cut and thrust of business.  Do you?  You ought to, if minded to pursue a career in business analysis.  

'I have previously held roles in hospitality, including being responsible for X, and through the course of that work realised that the 'how' and the 'why' of business interest me as much as what the company does.  Processes, how things are done and why, fascinate me; I have a questioning mind and a desire to analyse, to streamline and, to put no finer point on it, to get the most from every pound.  I realised that business analysis was a field that allowed me to develop and refine those interests in the academic sense and I would now like to put them into practice professionally.  My aim, ultimately, is to become someone who can help businesses do business better.'  

Or similar.  I'm not commercially minded...

MPS92

Marcon said:

MPS92 said:

JReacher1 said:

Without seeing your cv and jobs you’ve applied for it’s hard to know why you aren’t getting interviews. I would continue to apply as there are many BA jobs out there. 

How mature are you? Nobody should discriminate because of age but if you’ve not got much of an employment history and you’re reasonably mature then that might ring some alarm bells. 

Another option to look at is junior product manager as that’s not too dissimilar a role to BA. This could be something easier to get into which then allows you to move into business analysis if you wished. 

Hi, thanks for your response. I'm 34 and my previous roles have been in hospitality (with responsibility), so I know there are strikes against me, so to speak. In my CV I've included MS Suite experience and the following opening statement and information about my studies:

I am a recent graduate of The Open University with experience analysing business strategies and producing reports. I am seeking an opportunity to leverage my data analysis and business understanding skills as an analyst. I am eager to complete deliverables, streamline processes, maximise efficiency, and foster professional relationships within organisations. I have a commitment to learning, a willingness to seek information, and possess strong interpersonal and teamwork skills.

2017-2021 – The Open University – Distance Learning

BA (Honours) Business Management (upper 2:1)

• Specialisms: financial accounting, communication in business management and financial analysis & decision making.

• Developed strong critical evaluation, research and data-gathering skills to produce internal and external analyses of companies, industries, and macroeconomic context.

• Final-year dissertation included developing a report on strategic issues within a UK company and making corresponding strategic recommendations to management and identifying risks.

Would love to hear your thoughts on these key elements of my CV!

Also, I'll look into the junior product manager roles and see what comes up.

Thanks again!

If you want to be an analyst of any description, you need to be able to analyse your own skillset and 'sell it' to maximum advantage. 

Your cv has a lot of buzz words/jargon (probably a bit too much) and plenty of claims, but unless you can back these up with concrete examples/hard experience, you're in danger of being dismissed as someone who talks the talk, but hasn't actually walked the walk. It's a bit chicken and egg: how do you get the experience if you can't get a job? That old chestnut of volunteering comes to mind - and it doesn't really matter too much what you volunteer for in terms of the organisation, provided you can use it as a cv builder.

In particular, what mileage is there in saying more about your dissertation? Did the company benefit from it, adopt it, would they provide a reference? Without any of that, it's an empty claim.

You say you've included MS Suite 'experience' - most potential employers would take it for granted that you could use such a widely known software package. Can you add anything more about your particular skills/fluency in any part of the package, how you've applied it to help a business, or similar?

Getting a degree via the OU requires discipline and dedication, so I hope it really pays off for you. Good luck!

Thanks a lot for your response. This is the sort of detailed feedback I really appreciate/need. 

Really interesting to hear how the CV comes across. Do you think mentioning the dissertation is a bad idea, even though I was trying to extract some sort of evidence of analytical/report-writing skills from it? With my experience being mostly within the degree I just thought it was good to extract as much from it (esp with the need to orient experience and skills towards BA). Are there better ways of doing this?

That's true about the MS Suite skills -- I could refer to a couple of examples of Excel usage, although not necessarily super complex ones. 

Thanks again!

MPS92

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

MPS92 said:

JReacher1 said:

Without seeing your cv and jobs you’ve applied for it’s hard to know why you aren’t getting interviews. I would continue to apply as there are many BA jobs out there. 

How mature are you? Nobody should discriminate because of age but if you’ve not got much of an employment history and you’re reasonably mature then that might ring some alarm bells. 

Another option to look at is junior product manager as that’s not too dissimilar a role to BA. This could be something easier to get into which then allows you to move into business analysis if you wished. 

Hi, thanks for your response. I'm 34 and my previous roles have been in hospitality (with responsibility), so I know there are strikes against me, so to speak. In my CV I've included MS Suite experience and the following opening statement and information about my studies:

I am a recent graduate of The Open University with experience analysing business strategies and producing reports. I am seeking an opportunity to leverage my data analysis and business understanding skills as an analyst. I am eager to complete deliverables, streamline processes, maximise efficiency, and foster professional relationships within organisations. I have a commitment to learning, a willingness to seek information, and possess strong interpersonal and teamwork skills.

2017-2021 – The Open University – Distance Learning

BA (Honours) Business Management (upper 2:1)

• Specialisms: financial accounting, communication in business management and financial analysis & decision making.

• Developed strong critical evaluation, research and data-gathering skills to produce internal and external analyses of companies, industries, and macroeconomic context.

• Final-year dissertation included developing a report on strategic issues within a UK company and making corresponding strategic recommendations to management and identifying risks.

Would love to hear your thoughts on these key elements of my CV!

Also, I'll look into the junior product manager roles and see what comes up.

Thanks again!

That CV is, to put no finer point on it, excruciatingly dull.  Nobody is eager to 'complete deliverables', suggesting that you are sounds almost flippant.  Some people, however, are keen to do a good job and to help.  Some people really do enjoy the cut and thrust of business.  Do you?  You ought to, if minded to pursue a career in business analysis.  

'I have previously held roles in hospitality, including being responsible for X, and through the course of that work realised that the 'how' and the 'why' of business interest me as much as what the company does.  Processes, how things are done and why, fascinate me; I have a questioning mind and a desire to analyse, to streamline and, to put no finer point on it, to get the most from every pound.  I realised that business analysis was a field that allowed me to develop and refine those interests in the academic sense and I would now like to put them into practice professionally.  My aim, ultimately, is to become someone who can help businesses do business better.'  

Or similar.  I'm not commercially minded...

Thanks for this response too! These are really valuable insights -- if that's how the CV comes across then I might tweak it to sound more personable. My original intro/bio para was more like that until my project manager brother helped tweak the entire CV. Perhaps we went too far in the other direction and I need to find more of a middle ground.

I like what you've put so might 'borrow' some of those sentence templates, if that's OK. It actually reminds me what I enjoyed in my studies, which was the resource-based view of organisations and the considerations for company performance, which BA plays a large part in, so it actually feels right (rather than just saying what they want to hear).

Thanks again!