I just moved into a Business Analyst role from a Developer position .  However, this is a new position within my company, where I am the only BA.  There are no Senior BA's.  Therefore, I have no mentor to guide me, and within the position I am not actually performing a lot of the work I would like to perform as a BA.  The experience I have so far is centered around gathering requirements from users.  Even as a developer I would be responsible for making sure we had the right requirements from users.  I am currently in graduate school where I am pursuing my Master's in IT with an emphasis in Business Analysis.  The coursework is focused around the BABOK, and I gaining very useful knowledge.  However, because no one else in my company is a BA, I am not getting experience based off the knowledge I'm learning, such as creating use cases, BRD's, diagrams, process flows, etc. 

From a Recruiter's perspective, how should one go about obtaining an entry level role as a BA, when a good bit of what I have to rely on is the knowledge I am learning?  Even with the entry level positions I have seen, experience with what I mentioned above is generally always listed.  I was ecstatic to finally move into my BA role, but now realize that I am not going to get the experience I desire without leaving the company.  Yet, I'm having no luck obtaining other positions I have applied for.  Any advice/thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. 

Sorry for the long post...wanted to give a little bit of background information first.

Hello everyone,

I am too working towards the role of Business Analyst. After completed my engineering, I have been working for four years now. I have worked in different fields such as Business Research, Knowledge Management and Analyst Relations.

I'm now very keen on working as a BA. To achieve this objective, I have

• Completed my BA course from an IIBA endorsed education provider
• Enrolled for IIBA membership

As I do not have experience working as a BA, I am looking for opportunities as an apprentice. This will help me to a great extent to practice all theorical concepts that I have learnt as part of my training. I am trying to seek opportunities in the USA and hence connecting extensively with BA communities thorugh LinkedIn. 

I will really appreciate if anyone shares information around an apprenticeship opporutnity with me. 

Many thanks.