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think like a business analyst in tech (3 core skills + solving case study) - YouTube
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after graduating college in 2019 i
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started my first job as a business
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analyst i was excited but i was also
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really scared because i studied music
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business at nyu and i didn't have any
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direct business analytics background so
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there were a lot of things i had to
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learn from scratch and with two and a
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half years of learning from my mentors
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colleagues and through my fair share of
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trial and errors these are the three
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most important skills to have as a
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business analyst in tech i'll talk about
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what they actually are with real case
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examples and how you can learn them
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whether you're a student or in your
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full-time job if you're interviewing
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these are also the key skills that
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companies are evaluating you on for a ba
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interview before we get started thank
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you glassesusa.com for sponsoring
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today's video i've worn glasses since
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elementary school and i break them all
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the time because i have this really bad
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habit of putting it near my pillow
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causing the glasses to get bent when i
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blocking lenses as a business analyst my
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eyes are basically glued to sql and
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google sheets all day so blue light
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you can upload a picture or take a photo
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look like on you if you're shopping for
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your glasses definitely check out
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glassesusa.com and i'll leave the links
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of the glasses i'm wearing in the
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description box so let's get started
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skill number one your technical skills
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especially if you want to work in tech
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with an analyst title sql is the most
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important than excel google sheets sql
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is a language that enables you to pull
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millions and billions of user
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information stored in databases to
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answer business questions let's say you
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work at netflix and some of the
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questions that you'll be asked would be
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things like how many monthly active
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users do we have per region per day or
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specifically how many monthly active
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users do we have per region that have
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finished watching the squid game if you
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know sql you can easily pull these
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numbers and answer questions fast
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instead of having to wait for data
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scientist deploy for you or rely solely
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on dashboards how can you learn sql so
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i'm going to talk about if you don't
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have any experience with sql and if you
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have some experience if you have zero
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experience with sql i would recommend
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starting with data camps class on intro
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to sql this is free and you get to learn
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the basic sql logics and comment lines i
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also love how it's super interactive so
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everything feels very real when you're
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coding on it if you have some experience
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with sql or if you're preparing for a
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sql tech screen i highly highly
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recommend going to lead code or
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interview query on these websites you
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will see all the sql tag questions from
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companies like facebook google that were
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actually ash during the interviews even
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if you're not interviewing i find this
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extremely useful just to see how sql is
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used to solve real business problems at
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specific companies i would definitely be
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sure to ace the easy question and get
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comfortable with medium questions so
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aside from sql data wrangling skills in
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excel and google sheets is another
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essential once you pull thousands of
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rows of raw data through sql the next
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step is to load the data into excel or
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google sheet to then organize your raw
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data and visualize graphs there in a
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typical ba interview for tech companies
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there's usually a take-home case study
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where you're given a set of raw data in
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excel and you have to analyze the data
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and extract insights and no you don't
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have to know all the formulas out there
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in my day to day i mainly use pivot
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tables some ifs vlookups index match and
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if anything it would just be more like
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advanced variations of them i think
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what's more important here is knowing
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how to solve the problem as an example i
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didn't know summit existed all i knew
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was i wanted to sum all the rows based
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on a criteria i googled exactly that and
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i realized the summit can help me do
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that so google is going to be your best
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friend when it comes to data wrangling
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how do you learn data wrangling skills
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my biggest tip to learn it is to play
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around with the data yourself and
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practice if you're in an internship and
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even if it's not related to data let
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your manager know that you like to gain
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data skills and love to see if you can
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work on related projects or even if
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there's anyone you can speak to when i
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was doing my digital marketing
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internship at roc nation my internship
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had almost nothing to do with data
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analysis but because i asked i was able
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to get time with analysts and see how
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they do their analysis in excel and how
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they wrangle their data and visualize
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things if you're working full-time the
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next time you get any data point ask to
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see what the raw data looks like in
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excel or google sheet form and try to
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see how people wrangle and structure
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their data what i used to do was making
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a copy of the sheet and try to do it
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myself and last tip is practice the more
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you do it the more you will see the
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pattern building your own systemic way
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of visualizing things skill number two
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problem solving skills this is about how
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you can break down ambiguous questions
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into smaller pieces in a structured way
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so as a business analyst you often be
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asked very ambiguous questions in your
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job or even in your interview during the
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case study round a classic question is a
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root cause analysis which i get asked
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all the time at work too so get ready
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for this question imagine you work at
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netflix we're seeing monthly active
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users declining on the netflix app can
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you recall the issue what
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recommendations do you have to approach
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any ambiguous problem there's a general
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structure to problem solving that i
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learned from my mentors break down the
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problem into smaller questions or pieces
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then use data to answer your questions
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after that you can consolidate your
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learnings into insights and based on
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your insights you provide your business
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recommendations so the first question i
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think about is you know impact size how
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long have we been seeing this mau
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decline and what is the size of this
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user decline also look at geography are
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we seeing this on a global level or in a
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specific market and seasonality two so
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did we see emiya declined last year
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around the same time too or did it only
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happen this year maybe it's a recurring
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pattern and related to seasonality and
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these are some other questions i would
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look into i then dive into the data to
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find insights for each of these
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questions the biggest mistake and that's
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what i used to do when i started was to
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dive straight into the data and i would
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drown myself in there for hours and not
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have a narrative and answer let's say
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after you analyze the data and you may
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be analyzing 10 to 15 metrics but when
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you communicate the insights in your
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email to your manager or in your
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executive summary and your presentation
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communicate them in a top-down way so i
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would say it like this
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top-down communication is when you start
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with your key message and then go into
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your supporting details there's also a
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video about top-down communication like
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this one and i highly recommend you to
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check it out how do you learn
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problem-solving skills first tip is to
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watch my case interviews i'll link some
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good ones down in the description box i
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also love seeing product managers do
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their mock interviews especially these
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two on the exponent channel since it's
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more tech driven in terms of what jobs
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or internship experiences that are more
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relevant consulting is a big one and the
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secret is that's where most tech
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companies recruit their base from
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internship wise i highly recommend
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insights internship analytics or market
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research internships basically
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internships that have something along
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the lines of using data to drive
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actionable insights it can be
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quantitative data or qualitative data
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doesn't matter what you're trying to
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learn here is to turn data into insights
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and tell a story and regardless of
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whether you're in school or in a
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full-time job the next time when someone
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presents pay attention to the structure
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of their presentation see how they go
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from point a to point b to point c think
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about what they did well and what you
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would improve on if you were the one
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presenting skill number three strategic
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thinking and business sense what sets
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great analysts apart from average
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analysts is their ability to turn data
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into actionable insights to guide the
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business recommendations basically how
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would this specific piece of data be
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actionable for the business it's not
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about how many coding languages you know
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it's about what the business could do
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based on the data you provide that
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matters most
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so using your example again we're seeing
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monthly active users declining on the
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netflix app can you recall the issue
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what recommendations do you have
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previously we aligned on a few questions
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that we'll answer with data but before
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we go analyze the data i learned that a
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way to sharpen my strategic thinking is
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to pause and think first about the so
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what of getting each data point so your
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insights are actionable role-playing
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helps so imagine let's say we are the
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ceo of the company how can this data
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help us make a decision for impact
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sizing the software is that if it's a
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large amount of users declining then we
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should be alarmed and come up with
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large-scale counteractions also looking
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at the mnu trend if it's a spike drop it
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likely will be a one-time event perhaps
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a bug if it's a gradual trend perhaps if
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we aren't finding values using our
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services if it's a step change perhaps
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we made some changes on our product and
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it's hurting our growth so seasonality
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so what if it's a recurring trend that
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happens every year there's not much we
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can do but we'll closely monitor
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geography so what if we see it on a
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global level then it may be a bug in our
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data that's driving down the numbers
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everywhere and you'd be surprised that
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these things actually happen
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if it's a specific market then perhaps
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our competitor launched a new feature
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that's taking away our users or there's
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a macro level trend happening in the
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market that we should be aware of
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external factors such as competition the
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silva here is we should understand what
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it is and if it makes sense for us to
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build something similar or have some
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counteractions demographic specifically
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age group the so what here is if it's
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happening a specific age group perhaps
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we're underserving this cohort of users
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and we can think of strategies to make
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our product and experiences more
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appealing to this age group breaking
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down the mau metric so what if it's less
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new usage coming in we need to think
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about our acquisition strategy if it's
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more users turning out we need to think
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about engagement strategy to retain
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users what's really good about doing the
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so what exercise is it forces you to
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think strategically before you even pull
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the number so our insight on netflix and
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mayu decline was around competition and
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higher churn rates among 25 to 34 year
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olds in the us based on the insights
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what are some business recommendations
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you can provide looking back at our so
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what's you can then build upon them
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first i would think about understanding
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the competition we can conduct user
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research to understand the new feature
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that the competitor has launched and how
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we can come up with appropriate
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counteractions second double down on
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engagement strategies to reduce churn
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among 25 to 34 year olds in the us one
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we can understand the types of content
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or feature that this cohort tend to
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consume the most and increase awareness
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of them for instance we can service a
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specific content on home page talk about
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a feature via email communications or do
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a pr announcement of a specific show
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second we can perform a cohort analysis
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to identify the key behaviors that make
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a user highly engaged for instance is it
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about using a specific feature or the
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number of content watched or the
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diversity of genre they see that make
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them a highly engaged users based on
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such we can then take steps to encourage
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unengaged users to follow the behavior
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of engaged users to prevent churn so how
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do you learn strategic thinking and
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business sense first before you analyze
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any data point pause for a second and
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think about the so what of knowing the
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data point why does the ceo need to know
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this data and what can the ceo do about
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it so your insights are strategic versus
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just plain numbers for business sense
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this was probably the harder one for me
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to learn but a good tip is to have
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regular conversations with people
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outside your team to learn how things
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work at your company so for instance ask
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the user research team if you want to
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start a user research what do you need
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and what is intel ask the marketing team
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what tactics have been done for the
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engagement strategy and what worked well
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talk to the product team and see how
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they will evaluate the strength of a new
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feature as you become more senior in
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your role you will then be the one
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implementing these recommendations end
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to end with cross-functional
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stakeholders so it's better to know how
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things work from their end so hopefully
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this was helpful in shedding some light
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on the core skills of a business analyst
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intern and again thank you
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glassesusa.com for sponsoring today's
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video you can shout my glasses in the
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link in the description box thank you
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all for watching and i'll see you in my
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next video
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