Will a Business Analyst position provide the IT experience that I am looking for?

bugzy3188

I am on the market for an entry level IT position, I am looking for something like Help Desk to get me in the door and get my feet wet. I have a MCTS in Windows 7 configuration and no official IT experience other than solving the occasional network and computer problems at my current job. I just got done with an interview at a technical temporary agency that specializes in the IT field. I explained to the lady that experience is the most important aspect of a job for me at the time. The lady mentioned to me that the majority of the positions are Business Analyst positions, I am not familiar with that job title but it sounded a lot like data entry which wouldn't provide ANY of the experience that I am trying to gain, which would result in me leaving one dead end job for another. Does anyone have any experience with this job title or "technical" temp. agencies? she said it would provide the experience that I am looking for but I'm just not sure.

ptilsen

Variations of the "IT business analyst" title seem to vary in meaning more than almost any other job title in the industry. It ranges from sysadmin to network admin to generalist to helpdesk to QA to software development. Maybe there is a more standard meaning behind it or it used to have a specific connotation. I have certainly not seen any consistency in what it means, at least not recently.

I will say that almost any variation I've seen would provide relevant experience, but I'd say you should find out the details of the job responsibility.

bugzy3188

Thanks for the info +rep. I also happen to be from the Twin Cities area, the temp. agency that I am referring to is the Latitude group, ever heard of them by chance?

ptilsen

I haven't -- there are simply too many recruiting companies to keep track of them. I made a list of all of them sometime in 2008. I believe the result was 33 different companies. I once had six different companies contact me on the same job posting. It's pretty ridiculous.

N2IT

BA's work with the business side to leverage technologies, processes, and business opportunities. They are the middlemen between the strategy team and the project managers sometimes. They use different tools like use cases and work flow diagrams. They are usually more business than IT, although having IT knowledge is helpful.

Like PT mentioned their roles can vary just like project managers. But what I wrote up is essentially what they do at a high level. Gather requirements and talk strategy with the executive/management ranks. Attempt to capture their thoughts and the direction they want to go and then document that in a way that can be adopted into a project. Usually the requirements document snaps right into the project charter. Before that however it has to be agreed that the financials make sense and if this business case aligns with the companies/corporations direction.

paul78

I actually have a pet-peeve about using the title of business analyst. To me, it's like a having a title that says "manager". A title like "Network Business Analyst" or "Business System Analyst" would make more sense.

The descriptions that ptilsen and N2IT provided are the most accurate.

ChooseLife

Business and Tech teams need to communicate with one another. Sometimes this communication is done through designated "negotiators" called Business Analyst and Technical Analyst. The two roles don't necessarily represent corresponding teams, but indicate primary focus/expertise - business-y or technical. While there are other functions in the company that participate in communication between the teams on the higher, more strategic level, Business and Technical analysts typically deal with ongoing, non-strategic work - projects, operations, software development cycles. In some teams the functions of project / product managers, business / technical analysts blend, in some others there is more distinction between them.

Now, to answer your question whether such experience would be useful - that depends on your goals. It may be a ticket to the management (typical path: Business Analyst -> Project Manager -> Department Manager or Business Bigwig), but not necessarily the best way into the depths of the technical world (IMO).

JockVSJock

Take it from someone who worked as a Business Analysis and hated it for all the time that I did it. The first manager that I worked for out of college said that working these jobs would lead to something more "techie," which wasn't true. I never could make the jump to Network Engineer or Sys Admin, because all I did was baby-sit end users' transactions, attend meetings where more work was dumped on me to clean data in the database, which typically was my only day-to-day function. Basically I got no real skill-set from doing these jobs.

If you want to do "tech" work, i.e., work with servers and routers and switches and do Information Security, I would strongly urge you to STAY AWAY from business analysis positions.