Hardest Benefits Analyst Interview Preparation Guide

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Again, the hiring manager wants reassurance you have the skills to get the job done and know case, activity and sequence diagrams.

Asking this question helps hiring managers understand the level of responsibility that candidates are comfortable with, and will ultimately allow them to determine if their management style matches candidate expectations.

If candidates have worked for the company in the past, hiring managers will need to check rehire eligibility.

Your candidates’ responses can tell you a lot about their current work situation and the likelihood that they will accept a new offer. This question even provides insight into the possibility of a counter offer from their current employer.

Your lingo acumen is being tested when you get one of these types of questions. Explain that the system design document (SDD) is a middle step separating business users and developers.

This question is a variation of “Why should I consider you for this role?” However, it is usually so unexpected that the responses are pretty telling. You quickly see what candidates value in their own experiences and gain a little more insight.

The following are the best practices that are followed to write a clear and well documented use case:

☛ Capture both functional and non-functional requirements in a use case.
☛ Include use case diagrams along with the use case.
☛ Include the UI details/notes in the use case.

Cite the specific tools and how you've used them. If you have used a system the company employs, mention your experience to the hiring manager. If you're not familiar with the technology the employer uses, discuss how you plan to get up to speed quickly.

This one seems obvious but it’s important to ask. You’d be surprised how many candidates can’t really answer this question, or answer it in a way that underwhelms such as “I need a job and this was hiring.” Candor is a plus, and in situations like this is a huge benefit. It gets bad candidates in and out the door faster.

The elicitation strategy depends upon the type of the project.

One can take advantage of direct collaboration with client and have facilitated workshops, interviews and observe the end users. In conjunction, we can use techniques that provide us with more precise information like prototype and scenario building.

A business analyst must possess fundamental skills such as elicitation skills, problem solving skills, communication and management skills. Alongside, he must have knowledge of IT skills, Software development understanding and domain knowledge regarding the domain he is working in.

This is a must to ask. By asking the candidate to tell you what they see as their day to day responsibilities, you will get a great idea of how well they will fit to the role. If they think they will be running the marketing department as an entry level analyst and refuse to accept why they wouldn’t be given the chance, you can assume they are a bit out of touch and may be a problem to manage later on. If you let them know politely though that they are a bit off and they take it in stride and with unflagging enthusiasm for the opportunity, there is a good chance you’ve found a winner.

Answer this one head on. The hiring manager is trying to assess your soft skills, particularly your communication and collaboration abilities. Working with people from different areas of the company and perspectives is an area where nontechnical skills are key.

The golden rule to measure the quality of a good requirement is the ‘SMART’ rule. According to this rule a requirement should be:

Specific: The requirement should be specific so that it could be properly documented

Measurable: We should be able to measure the success criteria of the requirement by different parameters

Attainable: The requirement should be possible to attain with the given resources

Relevant: The requirement should be in line with the project’s business case

Timely: The requirement should be posed in time i.e. early in the project life cycle.

You can expand on this further by asking about a disagreement with a superior and/or a colleague.

I like this question because it gives hiring managers insight into how candidates handle conflict at work. Are they naturally confrontational, quiet and secretly stewing or balanced when it comes to conflict? If they cannot give you an example, they may be hiding something.

Not always, but oftentimes, if a candidate is interviewing with your company, he or she is also interviewing elsewhere. Finding out what other positions candidates are interviewing for provides you some additional insight. Are the roles they’re applying for similar to yours or completely different?

A follow-up question asking what the candidate likes about the other positions he or she is interviewing for can be revealing as well. Candidates’ responses can help you understand more about what they’re truly looking for in a new position and may help you determine if the position you’re hiring for matches their career goals.

This is a round of finding out their strengths and weaknesses.

Sure, you can ask them that directly, but do you think any candidate will actually tell you they are horrible at reports or have never run a campaign for a client? Entry level candidates will probably have a lot they want to learn, so pay close attention to what they say as compared to their resume or previous experiences and why. Couple this with how much training you can provide for the role and you’ll be able to tell how well the prospect matches up. If they are looking to learn an entirely new skill set and you don’t have the time train, the position may not be the best fit and you’d want to look for someone looking to grow their current skillset more fully through daily application. Conversely, if you have a strong training program and the person is extra motivated to start on something new and could make a big impact, it only makes sense that you hire and train them, not give the position to someone that would be uninterested in receiving training for new skills.

This can seem like a trick question, especially if the candidate doesn’t have much traditional work experience. What you’re really looking to find out is how quickly a candidate can come up with a cohesive, impactful response. Many entry level candidates will have little to no experience to call on, so this gives you a peek into how quickly they can solve a problem when there is an obvious barrier in their way.

Answers to these questions are very telling about candidates’ motivation, personality and potential cultural fit. If the job they least liked has similar qualities as the job they’re being interviewed for, then they’re probably not going to be a good fit and likely won’t stick around for long.

Alternate flow are the alternative actions that can be performed apart for the basic flow and might be considered as an optional flow whereas Exception flow is the path traversed in case of the error or an exception being thrown. For e.g. on a logic page the ‘Forgot password’ is the alternate flow and system showing ‘404 error’ when correct username and password are entered is exception flow.

Through the course of a project, a BA is constantly striving to help technology achieve the business requirements and in this pursuit he prepares a number of documents. They are :

☛ Project vision document
☛ Requirement Management Plan
☛ Use cases
☛ User stories
☛ Business Requirement Document
☛ Requirement traceability matrix (RTM)
☛ Functional requirement specification (FRS)/ Functional Specification Document (FSD)
☛ System requirement specification (SRS)/ System Requirement Document (SRD)
☛ Test case

☛ Describe a decision you made that was unpopular and how you handled implementing it.
☛ What is the highest-level job one can hold in this career?
☛ Do you have the qualities and skills necessary to succeed in your Senior Benefits Analyst career?
☛ How do you think I rate as an interviewer?
☛ Tell about a time that you had to adapt to a difficult situation.
☛ What parts of your education do you see as relevant to this Senior Benefits Analyst position?
☛ Have you had to convince a team to work on a project they weren't thrilled about?

Tell them about the training you received or the work related experience you gained. The vast majority of companies value a collaborative work style. Your answers to these Senior Benefits Analyst interview questionsshould be a quick rundown of your qualifications and experience.

☛ Are you willing to take calculated risks when necessary?
☛ How have you improved yourself recently?
☛ Would you work holidays/weekends?
☛ Do you feel your GPA reflects your academic ability?
☛ Do you prefer working with others or alone?
☛ Do you consider yourself a leader? What qualities make a good leader?
☛ Why aren't you earning more money at this stage of your career?

☛ Tell me about the most effective presentation you have made.
☛ What are your long-term goals or Health and Benefits Analyst career plans?
☛ What is a typical career path in this job function?
☛ What do you consider your strengths and weaknesses as Health and Benefits Analyst?
☛ What was the most important task you ever had?
☛ When you achieved a great deal in a short amount of time.
☛ A team experience you found disappointing.

☛ What have you learned from your past jobs that related to Senior Benefits Analyst?
☛ Give some instances in which you anticipated problems.
☛ Give me examples of projects tasks you started on your own.
☛ How do you make your decisions in general?
☛ How long will it take for you to make a significant contribution?
☛ Did you ever not meet your goals? Why?
☛ What is the difference between a good position and an excellent one?