Hello everyone!!!!

First, thanks every one to update such valuble information for BA's. I recently finished my contract as a BA in an educational company.Now, I am looking for new roles and I find recruiters ask for BA who is specilized in feilds like financial backgroung or expereince in insurance,banking, supply chain, e-commerce, totallly customer focused role etc. They don't want a simple BA who do requirements, UML, UAT and other....

I am a BA with experience in agile..I don't have any domain expertise in the above feilds where more jobs are there in the market. Now due to recession, I find recruiters are more specific in candidates with domain experience,specialized BA, etc .

Now I want to know how far is it important for me to build knowledge in such field? If so ..how can I get expereince in such fields?

Is there a suggestable way, where I can be picked up easily in the market with certain skills which I can learn and keep in my CV.

I understand, that candidates with domain experience/knowledge in such fields becomes easy to get in flow. But how about the candidates with good analysis skills and no expereince in such fields-how do we justify?

Please suggest me how to make a better way to get picked up...?

Regards,

Srikanth.

Hi Srikanth,

I'm a "serial contractor"; that is, I work on various assignments in varying industries in varying domains most of the time and therefore I have a lot to do with recruiting agencies. Adrian is making a major assumption that the recruiting agency has the ability to ascertain the candidate’s experience. Now there are recruiting agencies and there are recruiting agencies!. I was recently interviewed by a reputable agency (or so I thought) for a banking role. During the interview I ascertained that the recruiting officer did not understand my answers so I asked him about his background and how long he had been a recruiter. I was quite surprised at his honesty. The reply was "Mate, I've been doing this job for about three months. Before that I was a LANDSCAPE GARDENER; but I hurt my back and this opportunity came along". I was totally floored!

I related this story to a friend of mine who is a senior Test Manager who reports to the CIO on projects. He recounted his experience where he was interviewed by an ex-CHEF with 2 months recruiting experience.

This is our dilemma; we are in an industry where we have so many middle men (gate-keepers), who keep us away from the real client. Some agencies are squeezed for margins, so they pick people who do not command a high salary and who has no or very little  IT experience to work for them.

My most successful attempts at getting assignments are to contact clients directly. Get a friend to introduce you their employers.

All the best!

Warm regards,

K.

PS. INTERVIEW THE INTERVIEWER you will be surprised.