Business Analyst Interview questions in Pune

Business analyst duties vary from company to company, but there are many questions you will inevitably hear when interviewing for this position. Overall, a business analyst is someone who helps organisations improve their processes and make the most profitable business decisions through data analysis and insights. An interviewer is looking for evidence of problem-solving, communication, critical thinking, negotiating, technical and analytical skills.

58,019 Business Analyst interview questions shared by candidates

Top Business Analyst Questions & How to Answer

Here are three of the top business analyst questions and tips on how to answer them:

Question No. 1: What do you think are the core competencies of a business analyst?

How to answer: Interviewers ask this to determine whether or not an applicant understands the skills and qualities necessary for success in the role. Your answer should include examples of both hard and soft skills (strong aptitude for numbers, analytical skills, clear communication, problem-solving, etc.) and mirror the requirements listed in the job description.

Question No. 2: How do you stay up to date with general business trends?

How to answer: Your response to this question is intended to show the interviewer how self-motivated and driven you are. An applicant who takes initiative outside of the workplace to improve their skills will leave a lasting impression. Include everything from reading the news each morning to attending conferences.

Question No. 3: What is your typical project approach?

How to answer: The hiring manager asks this to get a feel for your overall understanding of the analysis planning process. When answering, don't just list projects and processes. Instead, discuss the types of opportunities you might create and let the interviewer know you are able to customise your approach to suit individual projects.

Top Interview Questions

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Mu Sigma
Business Analyst was asked...20 February 2013

"estimate te total amount of data traffic in a railwaystation"

53 Answers

please mail me at harshas300@gmail.com

please mail me at bharathc@ivycomptech.com

plz mail me too at ankurvig@gmail.com

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Google

25 horses, 5 race tracks. How many races you have to run to select top 5 horses.

51 Answers

The answer is 9. Assuming: - There's no time measuring (stopwatch), just relative places. - The horses perform consistently. - A maximum of 5 horses per race. First we need 5 races (A to E) to get relative scores for all 25 horses. Let's take a worst scenario: the list was already ordered (A1 fastest and E5 slowest), so race A contained the top 5. The 6th race would be the winners of the 5 races (A1, B1, C1, D1, E1), and would give A1 as the fastest of all. This would also mean that some horses can be excluded (only 4 more places to fill): B5 C4, C5 D3, D4, D5 E2, E3, E4, E5 For the 7th race, A2 would replace A1, and A2 would be appointed as the runner-up (of all). We also can exclude some more (only 3 more places to fill): B4 C3 D2 E1 For the 8th race, A3 would replace A2, but as E1 has been excluded, we got a vacancy. Let's add C2 for worst case scenario. The winner would be A3, and we can exclude more horses (only 2 more places to fill): B3 C2 D1 At this point there're only 5 horses who have not yet been classified or excluded, so the winner and runner-up of the 9th race would give 4th and 5th overall. Less

You guys are not doing CS! 10 runs is my answer. 1. randomize 5 groups, each of 5 horses 2. rank them within each group, I will use Anuradha's notation (5 races) 3. pick the best of each group, race to figure the 1st place, call it A1 (1 race) It should be clear, it wins all times, every one lost once. 4. remove it. substitute 2nd best in. repeat 3 (in my eg. A2,B1,C1,D1,E1) now you have second place. keep going, you get the first 5 and ranking! So, 5+5=10 races in total. Less

Anuradha's solution still has problems. (Even if we go with Anuradha's assumptions that you can only race one horse per track, and also assuming that we don't have a stopwatch and must compare horses placing positions) What if the fastest five horses are A1, B1, C1, D1, and E1 ? In Anuradha's second step, he elminates two of the fastest horses (D1 and E1) . He's assuming that A2, B2, or some of the other horses from the other heats are faster, but he hasn't actually tested to see if that is true. Less

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Sahara India Pariwar

Document submission and verification Introduction->Skills->family->Interests->Work Experience->Why sahara

45 Answers

Till now no call from Sahara after interview.

No,not yet

Yes i was also told that they will call at the end of this month. Just waiting for their call. Less

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McKinsey & Company

how many golf balls fit in an airplane

33 Answers

The people who require more info are missing the point. In real life decisions, you are often working on too little data to make an "easy" decision. There is no right answer to this question. What they are looking for is your ability to think the problem though, make estimates and arrive at an answer. My advice with a problem like this is to take a sheet of paper and think out loud as you work through it. Let the interviewer in on your thought process. The WORST thing you could do is ask "what sort of golf ball?"! Less

That's a trick question. Everyone knows that golf balls are now banned by TSA. This question is devised to see if you can go on a business trip without ending up being branded a terrorist. Less

So this type of question is to see how you think and if you can do it under pressure. The question is structured to allow you to ask questions, like what kind of plane is it? On the other hand, the interviewer might have an answer from an interviewing book for golf balls in a 757 or whatever he might tell you the plane is. You might have the opportunity to take control, so pick a plane you are familiar with from a recent flight, say “I flew in on a 727 yesterday, so can I use that for my estimate?” (You will probably get a yes answer and he probably does not know a 727 from a 737, so he can’t challenge your numbers if they sound reasonable). “Ok, when I made reservations on Orbitz and picked a seat, I remember there were 32 seats with 2 on one side of aisle and 3 on the other. I have not done geometry recently, but I think the area of a circle is Pi-R-squared, so a plane is basically a cylinder which means I can multiply the circle area by the length to get volume. (so you can offhandedly ask the interviewer something like “that’s what we learned in junior high right?” – and probably get a confirmation). So it seems like the plane was widest at the floor level and each seat was about 3 feet including arm rests and the space in between, plus the aisle width gets you a diameter of about 18 feet so radius is 9 feet. Let me do a little math over here on the white board: the area of the circle is 3.1415x9x9, so I am estimating and will use 3 instead of PI, so we get 243 square feet.” “So there were 32 seats and it seemed like about 3 feet for the seat and the tiny leg room x32=96 feet. But there was more space for exit door rows, bulkhead, attendant station, kitchen, bathroom and first class leg space, that adds about 30 feet = 126. The cockpit is probably 12 feet long, but tapers down, so we will use 9, plus 8 effective feet for the tapered tail area = 143 feet. Given the inaccuracy of this estimate, we can ignore the .1415 I dropped off PI to make math easy on the whiteboard earlier. (Back to the whiteboard and) 143 x 243 = 34,749 cubic feet. When I toss the golf balls in, I will assume the seats and equipment is there, but the overhead bins are open for the balls. That other stuff probably reduces usable volume by 20% or 6800 leaving about 28,000 cubic feet. So now I need to figure out the volume of a golf ball.” “I have only played golf twice, and was really bad – nearly killed somebody with a slice!” (just adding some humor to the interview - so I make a circle with my finger and say) “I think the golf ball was about this big – looks like less than 2 inches, maybe 1 and three quarters? Do you golf a lot? Does that sound reasonable?” (so he might give you a clue or a nod or admit he doesn’t really know either). “Ok, back to the 8th grade. Volume of a sphere – man, that one’s tough, I kind of forget. Area of circle was PI-R-squared, so that has to be multiplied by something like we did for a cylinder. The “height” of a sphere is the diameter, but it is not a full cylinder, so it would be less than multiplying by the length of the “side” or diameter in this case. So, Mrs/Mr interviewer, I know this question is about estimating, not remembering junior high math, so can you give me a hint on this one? (Yes: it’s V = (four/three)*area of the circle) – (or no, just guess. So then you take the volume if it were a cylinder and reduce it by a reasonable amount. He doesn’t know unless he has a book). “Now we do painstaking math on the whiteboard, ask for a calculator, or take a guess. 3.1414xR2x four thirds = 3.2 cubic inches. Golf balls will leave gaps when packed into a container, but not too inefficient, let’s say instead of 3.2 cubic inches, let’s say 3.4 (just needs to sound reasonable). How many cubic inches in a cubic foot? 1 foot by 1 foot by 1 foot = 12x12x12 inches = 1728. Now divide that by 3.4 and get 508 golf balls in a cubic foot and we estimated 28,000 in the plane, so that is about 14 million golf balls.” (sidenote, this involves tedious math on paper or whiteboard, but it gets you an answer. It may be that he is happy with you reasoning out your methodology, but he probably has a number in mind, so when you ask, he will let you do it out on the whiteboard) So I actually did this by scratch just now and it does take a while. I used Excel for the math so it would take longer on a whiteboard. More importantly, not a single one of my numbers is right, but they don’t seem unreasonable. Does the interviewer know how many seats, rows, wasted space, etc on the plane you are using? No. But he sees an analytical thought process and ability to reason and estimate. Don’t panic. Don’t make a random guess right away. I might give a few hints if I asked this question. So if the real answer is 1 million or 50 million then I sounded dumb, but you have to assume he is asking this to everyone else and they might not do much better, so stay confident and calm. Less

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Capital One

You have 3000 bananas at point A, which is 1000 feet removed from point B. You must move as many bananas to point B, but you can only carry 1000 bananas at any time, and traveling 1 feet requires you to eat 1 banana. You can drop off bananas at any point between A and B, and pick them up later.

31 Answers

It's not 500. Not sure if correct but I calc 666.

Hey G It goes like this 1000-2x+1000-2x+1000-x=2000 ( equate it to 2000 because after this u will wont need to go back third time as the maximum u can carry will be over in two time) x=200 (first stop point @ 200 feet) 1000-2y+1000-y=1000 ( equate it to 1000 because after this u will wont need to go back second time as the maximum u can carry will be over once y=333 (second stop point @ 533 feet) so you can move the remaining 1000 distance in (1000-533)=533 to Point B. So 533 bananas left Less

Sorry for the fat fingers in my answers! I ate too many bananas and was feeling ill, lol Less

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Evalueserve

Name 5 uses of a stapler without staple pins

30 Answers

1) stapling papers together (Staplers don't use pins...they use staples). 2) hemming pants that are too long. 3) nailing co-workers to the cubical wall 4) melting it down and casting 25 mm figures for wargames 5) Sell it on Craigslist to someone that has staples but no stapler. Less

1. staple remover 2. paper weight 3. door stop 4. hammer 5. weapon

1. paper weight 2. wall decoration (Art work, Conversation piece, etc.) 3. spare parts for my working stapler 4. decoy stapler (for my co-workers to 'borrow') 5. parts for a desk catapult Less

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Shell

1. Experience and handling issues 2. Conflict management 3. issue resolution 4. Project Management

29 Answers

Hi, I have also received an offer from Shell.They are actually looking for real time experience.All the questions are required to be explained with examples and how it was handled.Good Luck Less

within a week. first call then email.

Hi.. No based on your telephonic interview they call you for f2f interview. It doesn't happen on same day.. give it a week or so.. it's pretty fast.. max a fortnight.. all the best. Less

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Deloitte

Behavioral: what is the similarity between a milk carton and a plane seat

18 Answers

Both have expiration date. If they are not sold/used by the expiration date/flight time, they are useless Less

Both are designed for efficient transportation

They are both designed to be lightweight, which translates into saving on transportation costs and energy. Less

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Mu Sigma

i have a gun in each hand, one with 3 bullets and other with 2. i fire them together at you, what is the probability that you die?

17 Answers

1 - P(gun1 failed) * P(gun2 failed) = 1 - (3/6)*(4/6) = 2/3

probability of 1st gun firing a round is P(a)=3/6. and probability of 2nd gun firing P(b)= 2/6. probability of 1st gun FAILURE P(a')=3/6 probability of 2 nd gun FAILURE P(b')=4/6 3 conditions are possible p(a)*P(b')+P(a')*P(b)+P(a)*P(b)=2/3 Less

I guess it is a six revolver. 1-3/6*4/6=2/3

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3H Partners

You have a cube which is built from smaller cubes, dimensions are 10x10x10cubes. The cube fell into a bucket with red paint. How many cubes left uncoloured.

14 Answers

400 cubes is incorrect? As the cube will have adjacent corners therefore a smaller cube may already be painted on a different face. Less

The "cube" in the second sentence, is in reference to the "cube in the 1st.

Not sure how so many people are getting tripped up by this, all the outer cubes will be coloured so take one layer off each side to get an inner cube made of 8x8x8 = 512 cubes. Less

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