Guess Who?

You may remember a children’s game called Guess Who? It was a simple game for two players, resembling the creation of a police photo-fit; people had characteristics, and these were used to eliminate them from the game: male or female, beard or moustache, glasses or not. You see the idea.

The winner was the first player to ask the right questions to reduce the number of “suspects” to one.

Business Intelligence recruitment is like “Guess Who?”

The client company has requirements, but they’re diverse. Does a candidate with one set of existing skills translate into the appropriate skills for the new position?

The principle of BI software is the same, but individual experience is diverse.

Is it important in today’s market that someone has SQL knowledge, can define a dimension, build a cube, or deliver a dashboard? Or should today’s BI professional be more commercially aware and understand business pressures?

A Business Intelligence professional is neither technical nor commercial. They should be both.

In January 2011, Gartner’s Magic Quadrant identified an “intensified struggle between business users’ needs… and IT’s need for standards and control”. They further stated that “data discovery alternatives to traditional BI… have become a fully fledged… market”.

In the age of Data Discovery, the ideal candidate bridges the gap between IT and the business user. BI is no longer the domain of the IT department, and neither can business users be expected to understand or manage the more technical elements of Business Intelligence.

So, give me a technically competent business analyst, and I’ll show you… can you guess who?

Allow me to introduce to you, the Data Discovery Adventurer. Not a consultant; not an analyst; not a techie. A new role for a new market: the technically competent, commercially aware, business data discovery analyst.

Business needs to be understood: Business needs Adventurers.