Sorry, yes I see your irony, very much so . Sometimes the irony does not seem to cross borders as we have seen in recent months . And I am too scared to offend as I am believe I am still relatively new at this. So you know how it goes, safe than sorry…

I’m a brilliant person . Just can’t work out the “falling upwards” phenomenon, have to learn how to sell myself better, wouldn’t be out of work otherwise

The thing is, there’s a real problem for companies. There are excellent leaders out there, not just fakers, whom many companies want to hire. (I think the “genius leader” can be a bit of a cult, and companies would do better to try to improve their whole organizations, but that’s another discussion. Obviously, superb candidates exist.) Those people can write their own tickets. If companies A, B, and C say, “Sorry, given past abuses, we pay out bonuses on a rolling five-year basis,” and company D sticks with pre-recession, hand-in-the-cookie-jar standards, who can blame the candidate for choosing company D?

Hmmm… Not sure whether you questions are rhetorical or not but… what about when their value never arrives and then they disappear with all the investors’ money? Some of these high-flyers are all talk and no action, they leave with no value added to the organisation and then still receive golden handshakes as stipulated in the original contract. Is the risk worth it is some of these cases? I suppose big business believes it is. My rant above is a rant as I cannot see it changing in the near future .

BTW, I think the reason some CxOs get excessive, premature rewards is that they negotiate their compensation up front, based on the expectations they’ve managed to raise when they’re hired, though the actual value they add accrues years later. A company doesn’t want to lose a high-flier over some detail of compensation, do they? After all, the value will come, won’t it?

Thank you for your comment, I am glad I can inspire you to think positively about the difficult situation we are currently in. It makes me feel positive that my story can encourage others to think differently rather than just a story being told.

And good luck to you on your job hunt.

Cheers,

You are so young and have so many years ahead of you to experience many different journeys along life’s paths. This long difficult and suffering journey I have been on is being experienced not by me but by many people around the world. Not only BA’s have been suffering but those in other industries and other backgrounds. And really isn’t that long compared to others.

I have chosen to document my experiences for all to see that they are not the only one’s out there on this difficult journey they are travelling on and that they can do something about it.

The personal branding is a must if you want to distinguish yourself from others. It has worked for me, but as I am so specialised and there are so many people on the market, hiring managers can be quite specific with their candidates. But if I did not do it I am sure many of my leads would not have occurred. It is better to have leads than no leads at all.

As in scope as a BA, then that is your choice. I love being a BA and enjoy interacting with all the different people I have met on my career path. You should not be dissuaded by reading just one person’s journey to find work during this GFC. I am sure if you decided on another career path that you may find you may be in the same situation but nobody has documented their story like I have. And remember that I am a specialist BA in data analytics and not an agile BA in the IT space.

Hope this helps,

Colleen.

I am currently doing my bachelors in IT and have chosen business analysis as my major and after reading your story looks like there is no scope in this area and should change back to something else.

What do you feel from your long difficult journey??
It is a great blog.
Best of Luck

I’m sure you would have got some ideas, Good luck with your anon blog!

Cheers,

You would think with all these good vibes everybody is sending out to me that this job will be heading my way soon

I just finished following the thread ‘The Story’, and have enjoyed it immensely. You’ve also given me some tips for my anonymous blog!

Best of luck!

Cassie

Honesty is the best policy, no good sugar coating everything. It’s just not like that…

You made me laugh.

Recently there was a posting in one of my groups. It asked the business analyst whether you believed the glass was half full or half empty. My reply, “as a statistician, I can always work the numbers to make the glass look full”.

There are always some that will always try to work the numbers so that they will suit them. Not only statisticians will do this but I believe the worst offenders are the creative accountants. Erron springs to mind.

The statement is a biased view on statistician. We do such good work for research in so many industries. There are definitely more slutty numbers’ people out there than statisticians. It is the statistician that measure and compare built on sound theory and logic.

Poor choice of words by Adam.

I have just read your blog titled “The Story Begins” it is amazing. I joined LinkedIn back in March 2009 when my role at MLC Investments Limited in North Sydney Australia was made redundant. A client of MLC’s invited me to join LinkedIn which I did. I am still trying to get my head around social networking, like you I am not a member of Facebook although I have received invites from friends etc to join it.

Your story has reinforced how social networking can help you in your job search.

Yes, data analytics can stimulate your imagination, I am one of these raw people who can look at raw data, create the visualization in 3D in my mind, and then draw my visualization on a white board what the number represent and mean to business. Wow, if the world could see what we see .

Andy

Nothing is ever easy. My external drive is full so I want to backup on the server, I have this space but am only using it for the blog. I have all these automatic tools that are suppose to do it for me but no, so I have this continually urgent error message on the computer. Now, this so non-IT person has to figure something else out.

I am sure they make it easy for some but hard for everybody else. Put something new and groovy then take something else out that we like using.