Reader Question:
My question is about BA resumes. I have 5 years of experience in IT and around 4.5 in BA. I am a developer/BA blend, as I understand from your book 
My resume lists my experiences chronologically. I remember from your IIBA presentation on resumes that a resume should contain accomplishments vs just responsibilities. What proportion of these two things do you suggest?
I don’t want the resume to sound like I am just blowing my own trumpet but balance it with something like this is what I helped the company with (in other words, accomplishments) and these are the additional responsibilities that I handled.
Laura’s answer:
Blow your trumpet away! Your business analyst resume is a marketing document. It should present you in the best possible light. But yes, you make a great point that you need to back up any claims you make with hard evidence. I think your approach of using responsibilities to back-up your accomplishments could be a good one.
I’d recommend focusing each bullet on an accomplishment that highlights your business analysis experience.
For example,
Achieved alignment across four departments about a new, user-friendly navigation scheme by creating mock-ups, identifying stakeholders, and facilitating review meetings.
Or, as another example,
Improved communication between product managers and the software development team by modeling requirements in use cases and holding combined walk-through meetings, resulting in fewer changes in test.
This way your list combines accomplishments and responsibilities in one statement. Written this way, I think many positions could be represented purely by accomplishments.
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Laura
I wanted to point out something that I look for in resumes and that you unwittingly achieved n the two examples that you provided. I notice quite often that candidates mention in the resume details that they have done something, but provide little to no detail about what they did or how they did it. For example, a person might say, “…interfaced with stakeholders to create requirements…” or “…assisted developers in design…”.
I think, for what that’s worth, that one should never a leave a reader, especially on a resume, wondering what something means or asking, “…and???” or “…so what???” or ” and that is what exactly???”
If there is an accomplishment worthy to note, ensure that it not only trumpets the value that a candidate has provided, but how that occurred. Enhance the vague statements with detail that speaks to the understanding of best practices and how it applies what the task is. In your example, you clearly delineate what you did and then back it with techniques right out of the BABOK, “…by creating mock-ups, identifying stakeholders, and facilitating review meetings.”
This is important for a reviewer for two reasons. The trumpeting says that the candidate is proud of the accomplishment (as you said, a resume is a marketing document). The details make it clear that the person knows what job to do and how to do it. The details can also be adjust to help tailor the resume toward a specific position.
Best Regards
Doug
Thank you for the replies Laura and Doug.
Doug, so if I understand this correctly, a resume should contain ‘Action- Effect’ statement. By that I mean, that an action that you took, and the effect it produced. Although in resumes we begin by stating the Effect first and state the Action/How in the later half of the statement but that doesn’t matter, the crux remains the same. So for example, ” Increased the sales by 20% by introducing new promotion strategies” or “Ensured full coverage of design elements by maintaining a Requirements Traceability Matrix to keep track of requirements and related test cases” .
Disha
I don’t think it’s really an effect, but rather an important qualifier. In your examples, the qualifying piece doesn’t change the result of the accomplishment, but you can definitely see how much it adds to the statement if you try to remove it. In doing so, the accomplishment returns to a flat, unsubstantiated bullet point.
hmn…May be I chose the wrong word, I meant impact. However, I see what you are saying. Thank you for following up!
Happy Holidays everyone.
I like the word “impact” and the idea of using “action/impact” statements on your resume to sell and support your accomplishments.
And further on the point behind how to blend these. As I see it all of your responsibilities help your company in some way. It might help to dig a bit deeper behind the responsibilities to figure out the value they produce for your company, thereby framing what might seem like mundane responsibilities as accomplishments in the action/impact syntax. The ability to do so shows that you understand your role and how it helps the organization as a whole.
I have a copy of a resume format from http://www.bacollective.com but cannot find it on their website. If your interested, send me an e-mail and I will send you a copy.
It might be helpful.
Tom
True Laura…
Sure Tom. Will do so.
I have been in contact with the bacollective.com
“Thanks for the email. We do not have it posted. They can sign up for the
bacollective and then send a note to info@bacollective.com and one of our
web gurus will send it to them.”
The name of the file is: Collective Genius TOP Business Analyst Resume Format
Tom
Tom,
Thanks for the document and contacting Collective Genius folks.
-Disha
Hi Tom,
I would like to have a copy of the resume format.
Would it be possible to send it to me?
Please let me know.
i like to know how to write a resume
I don’t have your e-mail and besides the ba collective has the file. Here is the URL: http://www.bacollective.com/
There are two formatting ideas I got from http://www.dice.com 1) create a section near the bottom of your resume that summarizes all your I.T. Skills. 2) Instead of a “job objective” write a “Headline” which may have several sentences.
“… For more ideas about how to position yourself as a qualified business analyst candidate and land more interviews for BA jobs, consider our on-demand virtual job search workshop, Tackling the BA Job Market….”
The URL at the end of this paragraph produces a 404 missing page. Need to make sure all links are working on the website. There are stand alone link checkers as well as ones builtin to web developer tools.
Tom
Hi Laura,
I am having trouble perfecting my resume, and doubting if I should re-write from scratch.
For I am having huge trouble bringing my past experiences in BA context.
With your resume evaluation service, is it still suitable for me if it is so bad it might need to start from scratch?