Business Intelligence is a rapidly growing field, and the BI Software market is growing at over 10% a year. BI analysts focus on understanding business challenges, technology integration opportunities, and bridging business and technology functions.

Whether you’re already in the field and looking for a promotion, or entering the field for the first time, it’s essential to prepare for an interview, and to find ways to stand out.

Here are 3 ways to distinguish yourself from the competition.

1. Ask about the day-to-day tasks, specifically around datasets and business challenges.

In any interview, you’ll have an opportunity to ask questions around the role.

When that opportunity arises, ask about the sort of datasets you’ll be working with, and what the key business challenges are. This gives you the two necessary ingredients to come up with solutions and value-add ideas, exceeding the expectations of the interviewer.

For example, if conversions are a key business challenge, and you’ll be working with Salesforce data, you can suggest using no-code AutoML tools like Obviously.AI to analyze Salesforce data and optimize conversions.

If traffic is a major KPI, you could suggest using AutoML to analyze and optimize traffic data from Google Analytics. Consider the overlap between the available data and the KPIs that the role analyzes.

2. Ask about the technical capabilities of the organization.

Similiarly, you’ll want to understand what the technical capabilities of the organization are.

Of course, do your own research before the interview, and look at current employees on their LinkedIn page. Does the company employ highly-technical people, such as AI Engineers and Data Scientists, or only less-technical roles like Business Analysts and BI Professionals?

By better understanding the company’s technical capabilities, you can suggest the right tools to help the company advance their Business Intelligence unit, for the right reasons.

For instance, if the company is highly technical and has a data science team, you can suggest AutoML tools to speed up their data science workflow and decrease time-to-value. If the company is less technical, you can suggest no-code AutoML as a way to quickly and affordably implement AI.

3. Prepare a Sample Report Ahead of Time

Well in advance of the interview, you should understand the company’s offerings, the industry that organization is in, its general growth rate, challenges, and competitors.

While you likely won’t find public datasets about that company before you start the role, you can likely find datasets around similar challenges that the company faces.

For instance, Kaggle features over 60,000 datasets, including data on web traffic, sales, site conversions, customer churn, employee attrition, and much, much more. By analyzing and reporting on relevant datasets ahead of time, you’ll stand out from other applicants.

Summary

Standing out in an interview is all about exceeding expectations, and even surprising the interviewer with your level of preparation.

If you simply meet expectations, you’re likely competing with hundreds of other people who are at that level as well. These tactics will help you rise above the crowd and be remembered when it’s time for the interviewer to make a hiring decision.