Skills set needed for your MS BI Interview Questions

I myself have gone through some of the best technology giants of India and other MNCs and at the same time I have also been on the technical interview panel for junior and senior level candidates with my employers for MS BI Recruitment. Let me share what is generally expected from a MS BI Tech Lead in this competitive industry.

Experience: Generally for a lead kind of role the candidate is expected to have accomplished on an average 3 full life-cycle of MS BI implementation incorporating all the 3 technologies (namely SSIS, SSAS, SSRS) and other technologies revolving it. Other supporting technology experience is considered an added advantage. Also on an average 6+ years of working experience with 2-3 years relevant is seen as a minimum qualification. Candidate should also be able to lead a team of 10+, and should have lead teams of same capacity in his/her career history.

Skills:

1. SSIS - Implemented in any Data warehousing projects (at least 1), Data Migration projects or Data Cleansing exercise
2. SSAS - Implemented in any Data warehousing projects (at least 1 or should have a good working knowledge from an implementation point of view)
3. SSRS - Implemented in any Operational or Analytical Reporting in Native and/or Sharepoint Integrated mode
4. T-SQL - Should have worked at least 2 years on databases and should have very good T-SQL, querying and stored proc writing skills
5. MDX - Must have knowhow of basic level of MDX to the extent that one can create basic queries, calculated measures, named sets, and year-on-year comparison queries/expressions etc.
6. Theory - Data Warehousing, Cube and Analysis, Set theory, Basic Database Administration, Basic to Moderate Dimensional and Database Modeling, Performance Tuning and Optimization. Knowhow of Estimation and creating WBS kind of stuff would be an added advantage.
7. Architecture / Solution design - Solution driven approach to any real-life project issues and understanding of what technology components to choose to devising an end-to-end solution and also any tools knowhow to design the same like a little bit of Visio for example.
8. Sharepoint - It might come as a shock, but yes it's a fact. Not sharepoint development, but knowhow of sharepoint to the extent that the candidate should know how to integrate MS BI Tech components with Sharepoint webparts
9. Performancepoint - This is an added advantage technology expectation. It's not a must in general, but carries a huge advantage
10. Excel Services - This is again an added advantage technology expectation.
11. .NET programming - Again this would come as a shock, but some basic level of at least one .NET programming language know-how is expected as scripting has become a part of many MS BI Technologies we use. For ex. if you are not aware of scripting using C# / VB.NET how would you create custom components in SSIS ?
12. Biztalk - You must be saying this time that cmon !! This guy must be kidding !! And fortunately the answer for Biztalk is yes. Thou humorous enough, I was asked in an interview with a company that I should also be having a bit of biztalk knowledge as biztalk also can be used for crafting business workflows. But I am not of the opinion that a single brain can accomodate Biztalk after the above 11 skills, else you would be some real Microsoft genius.

Jokes apart, the above 11 skills are sought after in any technical interviews with any reputed IT giants and to be honest I have also grilled candidates in interviews of multiple rounds for some of these skills. I thought that I would share this information to help people know about what skills are expected at least in India with any IT giant if you aspire to be a MS BI Tech Lead. I am also just another knowledge worker like you and I thought this information would be helpful as when I was searching for this kind of info, it never existed for me.

Note: This post has been republished as I have been receving frequent queries from my blog readers about career guidance.