Hi I have been reading articles from ModernAnalyst and its a very good website.

I am kind of new to Business analyst.  But I really like it and want to get a new job as a business analyst (mostly in the IT section) in NJ/NY area.  So how do I go about it and what kind of things I have to learn (tools, softwares etc)?

To summarize myself, I have done 2 years as a C programmer and then moved on to be a web developer ( did design, usability, best web practices and javascript, xsl coding etc).  Also while I was doing these did some business analysis for a big project I worked.  So I mainly used microsoft word for that.

Now for the last 2 years I have been working as a ASP.Net programmer (C#). 

Since the time I moved to this I really feel like working as a BA is much better than a backend programmer since you really get to the product and hammer out all the bits and pieces into requiremets.

I learned a bit of Visio on my own for the last month.  So please advice how I should proceed with my next career?

Hi there,

Tom made some good points about evaluating the career choice.

If you feel that BA is a good career choice for you, rather than focusing on a technical skill, I would suggest focusing on communication skills. The more you can get yourself in situations where you are interacting with project stakeholders about the project, working with real users of your software, or even supporting your software, the more you'll get an outside perspective and move yourself more into a requirements position than a developer position. If these scenarios are comfortable to you and you enjoy them more than programming, a BA role might be a good fit.

Best,

Laura