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Data / Business Analyst interview questions

Analyst interviews check whether you can turn messy data into a clear answer for the business. Expect SQL on the spot, Excel or a BI tool, basic statistics and a case question where you explain how you would measure something.

11 questions with answer notes · 4 rounds · By the JOBSPOT 360 team

How the selection process usually works

  1. 1

    Online assessment

    SQL queries, Excel formulas, aptitude and basic statistics.

  2. 2

    Technical round

    Live SQL, Excel or Python (pandas), and dashboard questions in Power BI or Tableau.

  3. 3

    Case study

    A business problem such as "sales dropped 10% last month, why?". Sometimes a take-home assignment.

  4. 4

    Managerial / HR

    Stakeholder communication, past projects, then HR.

Rounds vary between companies. Smaller teams often merge the technical and managerial rounds, while larger companies may add an extra technical round.

Skills to brush up on

  • SQL (joins, GROUP BY, window functions)
  • Advanced Excel (pivot tables, XLOOKUP, charts)
  • Power BI or Tableau
  • Python with pandas
  • Descriptive statistics
  • Data cleaning
  • Business communication and storytelling

Technical questions

  1. 01 Explain the different SQL joins with an example.

    How to answer: INNER returns only matches, LEFT keeps every row from the left table, FULL keeps both sides. Know when LEFT JOIN with WHERE IS NULL finds missing records.

  2. 02 What is the difference between WHERE and HAVING?

    How to answer: WHERE filters rows before grouping; HAVING filters groups after aggregation.

  3. 03 Write a query for the top three customers by revenue in each city.

    How to answer: Aggregate revenue per customer, then use ROW_NUMBER() or DENSE_RANK() partitioned by city and filter to rank 3 or lower.

  4. 04 VLOOKUP versus XLOOKUP or INDEX-MATCH: which do you use?

    How to answer: VLOOKUP only looks to the right and breaks when columns move. XLOOKUP or INDEX-MATCH are more flexible and robust.

  5. 05 Mean, median or mode: when is the mean misleading?

    How to answer: With skewed data or outliers, such as salaries, the median represents the typical value better.

  6. 06 How do you handle missing values and duplicates?

    How to answer: First find out why they are missing. Then drop, fill (mean, median, forward fill) or flag them depending on the impact. Deduplicate on a business key.

  7. 07 What makes a good dashboard?

    How to answer: It answers specific questions for a specific audience, puts the key metrics on top, uses the right chart for each comparison and avoids clutter.

  8. 08 What is the difference between correlation and causation?

    How to answer: Two metrics moving together does not mean one causes the other. Give an example and mention A/B tests as a way to establish causation.

Scenario questions

  1. 01 Sales dropped 15% last month. How would you investigate?

    How to answer: First check that the data is correct, then break it down by region, product, channel and customer segment, compare with seasonality, and check for external events.

  2. 02 A manager wants a daily report that currently takes two hours to build by hand. What do you do?

    How to answer: Automate it with SQL, Power Query or Python, publish it to a scheduled dashboard and validate it against the manual version for a few days.

  3. 03 How would you explain a finding to a non-technical stakeholder?

    How to answer: Lead with the answer and its business impact, support it with one clear chart, and keep the methodology for follow-up questions.
Then comes the HR round Almost every interview ends with HR questions about you, your plans and your salary expectations. See the common ones and how to answer them.

Resume tips for this role

  • Show business impact: "identified a ₹12L revenue leak" or "cut reporting time by 80%".
  • Link a portfolio of dashboards (Tableau Public, Power BI) or Kaggle notebooks.
  • List your SQL dialect and BI tools explicitly. Recruiters filter on them.
  • Mention the domains you understand, such as retail, finance or healthcare.

This guide is written by the JOBSPOT 360 team from common interview patterns for this kind of role. It is not provided by any employer, and real interviews will differ. Read our editorial policy.