Last updated: November 9, 2026
By Tom Kenaley, President and Senior Partner, KORE1
A BI analyst job description should name the recurring reports the hire will own, explain how ad hoc requests reach them, say where their access to the data stops, and print a pay range. Most postings list Power BI, SQL, and “strong storytelling skills” instead. That reads exactly like a data analyst ad, and it pulls the same applicants.
One hundred and twelve requests in four weeks. That was the number.
The story below is two searches from this year folded into one, with the details changed. A specialty insurance carrier with about 600 people in West Des Moines posted a “Business Intelligence Analyst” opening in the spring. Power BI required, Tableau a plus, SQL, some Python, “ability to tell a story with data.” No range. It drew about 180 applicants in a month, and the finance director who owned the seat told our recruiter the shortlist was full of market researchers and junior data scientists. Smart people. Wrong job. Nobody’s fault, exactly.
Her predecessor in the seat had quit in February. In the exit interview he’d said one thing about the work, which was that he never knew what he was supposed to do first. So before touching the posting we asked her to export everything the BI inbox, the Teams channel, and the Jira board had received over the previous four weeks. Took her an afternoon. The pile came to 112 requests, and fewer than a quarter of them were what anybody would call analysis.
Nothing in the posting mentioned the queue. Or the fourteen standing reports, one of which was the monthly loss-ratio pack that went to the reinsurance broker on the sixth business day. Or the fact that the warehouse belonged to a data engineering team in Omaha, and the analyst could look at it but couldn’t change a thing. All of that was the job. The posting described a person with a tool.
I’ve been placing data and reporting people at KORE1 since 2005, and our BI analyst staffing desk only gets paid when a client hires someone we introduced. A posting that fills itself is a search we don’t get. That’s fine. Most of what follows costs nothing but an afternoon. If you’re still deciding whether to hire at all, start with our guide on how to hire a BI analyst, and pay by level and metro lives in the BI analyst salary guide. This page is just the posting.
What a BI Analyst Does, in Posting Terms
A BI analyst owns a company’s recurring reports and dashboards, answers the ad hoc questions those reports raise, and keeps the numbers in them consistent as the data underneath changes. They query a warehouse someone else usually builds, and they spend much of the week with the people who read their work.
That’s the clean version. The title itself is a mess, and you don’t have to take my word for it. O*NET, the Labor Department’s job database, files the role under 15-2051.01, and the titles people reported for it include competitive intelligence analyst and market intelligence analyst. Plain business analyst too. Post the bare title and all of them are fair applicants. They’ll apply. Ask the finance director in West Des Moines.
Two neighbors have their own templates. If the seat builds the semantic model and the pipelines under it, use the BI developer job description template. If the work is mostly one-off investigation and statistics, the data analyst job description template fits better, and our BI analyst vs data analyst breakdown covers where the line actually falls on pay.
Pull Four Weeks of Requests Before You Write Anything
I’ll admit the method is not clever. Export every request the reporting people got over the last four weeks, from wherever they showed up. The shared inbox. Jira or ServiceNow. The Teams channel nobody muted. Sticky notes, honestly, if that’s how your controller works. Then sort the pile by what was being asked for.
The carrier’s 112 went four ways.
| Kind of request | Count (share) | What it put in the posting |
|---|---|---|
| Rerun an existing report with a different filter, date, or region | 44 (39%) | A first-year goal: build self-serve filters so these stop arriving |
| “Why doesn’t this match the other number?” | 27 (24%) | A line saying the analyst owns the answer, with finance, when two reports disagree |
| A genuinely new question | 23 (21%) | The part candidates want. It went in the first paragraph |
| A data fix only the warehouse team could make | 18 (16%) | An honest boundary: “You’ll find these and file them. Omaha fixes them.” |
Why four weeks? Two weeks can land on a quiet stretch and lie to you. Month-end has to be in there, because that’s when the “doesn’t match” pile triples. And if one person sent a third of everything, write their title down. The candidate is going to meet them in round two anyway. Better they hear it from the posting.
The interview side of that second pile has its own page. Our BI analyst interview questions are built around two reports that disagree, and they work better once the posting has already admitted that’s part of the job.
Name the Reports and Who Reads Them
Everyone lists Power BI. Fine. It tells a candidate almost nothing.
What they can’t guess is your calendar. The carrier had fourteen standing reports, and we put three in the posting. The other eleven were weekly operational views, maybe twenty minutes apiece once automated, and nobody takes a job over those. These three made the cut:
- The monthly loss-ratio pack, due to the CFO and the reinsurance broker on business day six.
- A weekly claims-aging view the VP of claims opened every Monday at 8 a.m., and called about by 8:15 if it was late.
- Agency production. Two hundred independent agents across Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, ranked monthly, with the sales team’s bonuses riding on it.
Look at that third one again. When somebody’s bonus rides on a dashboard, somebody argues with it. Every month. Some analysts love that fight and some would rather be left alone with a query, and you want to know which one you’re getting before the offer, not after.
So, report, reader, deadline. Leave out the one you’re embarrassed by. They’ll find it in week two.
Say Where the Analyst’s Reach Stops
Most BI analysts don’t own the warehouse. Most postings don’t say so.
Picture a candidate who spent five years writing dbt models. She reads “own our reporting,” assumes write access, accepts, and then can’t add a column without a ticket. I’ve watched that one end at month four. Twice, actually, and the second time the client had been warned.
Ask your data engineering lead three things. It’s a ten-minute call. Can the analyst change the semantic model or only build on it? Can they write anywhere in the warehouse, even a sandbox schema? When a source feed breaks, who fixes it, and how fast?
Then write the answers down. One plain sentence. “You’ll build in Power BI on a shared semantic model the data engineering team maintains, with your own sandbox schema in Snowflake for prototypes.” That line cost the carrier nothing to write. It also cut the dbt engineers from the pile, which was the point, because those candidates are a better fit for a developer seat and get bored in this one within a quarter.
Certifications Worth a Line
One, really. PL-300.
That’s Microsoft’s Power BI Data Analyst exam, and it’s still current. Per the PL-300 study guide, it weights preparing, modeling, and visualizing data at 25 to 30 percent each, with managing and securing Power BI at 15 to 20, and it renews through a free online assessment. Put it under preferred. A current one means somebody studied lately. A lapsed one usually means quarter-end ate their spring.
Tableau credentials? Only if you run Tableau. Asking for both tells candidates you haven’t picked a tool, and the deep ones notice.
The BI Analyst Job Description Template
Replace every bracket. Text in parentheses is a note to you, so delete it before posting. If a bracket stumps you, the request log usually has the answer.
Job Title
[Business Intelligence Analyst / Senior BI Analyst / BI Analyst, Finance Reporting / BI Analyst, Claims and Operations] (Add the business area. It filters out the market intelligence applicants on its own.)
About the Role
[Company] [does what] for [customers]. You’ll own [the reporting that (department) runs on / our monthly (name) pack and the questions it raises], working with [N] analysts and reporting to [role]. The job is [on-site in (city) / hybrid, (N) days a week in (city) / remote within (states)].
Reports You’ll Own From Day One
- [Report name], read by [audience], due [cadence and deadline]
- [Report name], read by [audience], due [cadence and deadline]
- [Report name], read by [audience], due [cadence and deadline] (Three is plenty. Pick the ones with a deadline or a bonus attached.)
How Requests Reach You
About [N] requests a week arrive through [Jira / ServiceNow / a shared inbox / a Teams channel], and [role] sets priorities [every Monday / as they come in / nobody does yet, and you’ll help fix that]. Roughly [percentage] are reruns of existing reports, which we want to turn into self-serve.
What You’ll Do
- Build and maintain dashboards in [Power BI / Tableau / Looker] on top of [a shared semantic model / curated tables in (Snowflake / Azure SQL / BigQuery / Redshift)]
- Write SQL against [warehouse] to answer new questions from [departments]
- Work out why two reports disagree, and agree the fix with [finance / operations]
- Find data problems and file them with [team], with enough detail that they can fix them the first time
- Turn the most common reruns into filters and drill-throughs people can use without asking
- [Present the (report) in the (meeting) each (cadence)] (Keep only if they’ll actually be in the room.)
What We’re Looking For
- [2+ / 4+ / 6+] years building reports that a business area used to make decisions, not only practice projects
- SQL you can write without a search tab open, including joins, CTEs, and window functions
- Production experience in [Power BI with DAX / Tableau with calculated fields / Looker with LookML]
- You’ve explained a number you didn’t like to a [manager / director / executive] and kept their trust
- [Familiarity with (insurance / healthcare / manufacturing / retail) data, such as (loss ratios / claims / bills of materials / SKUs)] (Delete if domain doesn’t matter.)
Nice to Have
- Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate (PL-300), current
- [Python or R for the occasional analysis SQL can’t do comfortably]
- [Experience moving reports off (Crystal Reports / SSRS / Excel) into (tool)]
Access and Tools
You’ll [build on a shared semantic model / have Build permission on (models)] and [have / not have] write access to [a sandbox schema / no warehouse schemas]. Source data problems go to [team]. [A Power BI Pro license / Tableau Creator seat] comes with the role.
Pay and Benefits
The base salary range for this role is $[low] to $[high], [plus (bonus target)]. Where an offer lands in the range depends on [experience and location]. Benefits include [medical, dental, and vision / 401(k) with (match) / (N) days of paid time off / a training and certification budget]. (Hawaii requires the range from employers with 50 or more employees, and so does a growing list of other states and cities. Print it everywhere.)
How to Apply
[Apply link or contact]. [Company] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable accommodations to qualified applicants. To ask for one, contact [name or address].
Setting the Range, and Hawaii’s Rule
Our BI cluster already publishes the numbers, so these line up with the hire guide and the salary guide rather than inventing new ones. Most BI analyst hires land between $90,000 and $150,000 in base pay.
| Seat | Base range to post | What the request log usually shows |
|---|---|---|
| Entry (0 to 2 years) | $75,000 to $95,000 | Mostly reruns and weekly views, with someone senior reviewing |
| Mid-level (2 to 5 years) | $95,000 to $125,000 | Owns one department’s reports and its “doesn’t match” pile |
| Senior (5+ years) | $125,000 to $160,000 | Executive reporting, cross-department definitions, the board pack |
| Lead or principal | $150,000 to $180,000 | Sets priorities for the queue and manages other analysts |
Geography still moves it. Expect the Bay Area or New York to run 15 to 25 percent over Des Moines or Charlotte for the same work, and for one specific city our salary benchmark assistant is quicker than any table. What I see most? A posting that describes row three and pays row one.
Hawaii next. It doesn’t come up on our intake calls much, which is exactly why I’d read it. Act 203, in effect since January 1, 2024, makes employers with 50 or more employees list a pay range that reasonably reflects what they expect to pay.
So picture a 300-person distributor in Phoenix hiring one remote BI analyst who happens to live in Kailua. Read the state civil rights commission’s FAQ literally and that company may well be covered, with nobody else on the islands. Ask counsel, but I’d print the range. Its Monday report is due at 8 a.m. Eastern, too, which in November is 3 a.m. in Honolulu. Put that in the posting. Some people like starting early. Most don’t.
Two carve-outs. Internal transfers and promotions are exempt, which is the opposite of how several other states handle it, so a company that posts in more than one state should just print the range everywhere. Public jobs whose pay is set through collective bargaining are exempt too. And since 2019, under HRS § 378-2.4, you can’t ask a Hawaii applicant what they earn now. The Hawaii Civil Rights Commission’s FAQ on Act 203 notes the 50 don’t have to be in Hawaii or full-time. Write the number.
What Finance and Ops Leaders Ask Before They Post
“Business intelligence analyst” or “BI analyst” in the title?
Use the full phrase once and add the business area, such as “Business Intelligence Analyst, Finance Reporting.” The area does more filtering than the abbreviation ever will.
Job boards match on both, so the choice is mostly cosmetic. The area isn’t.
Can the posting ask for Power BI and Tableau both?
Only when both are live and this hire works in both. If you run one, name that one, and a good candidate will mention the other on the phone screen.
Moving between the two takes a good analyst a few weeks. Learning your loss-ratio logic, or whatever your equivalent is, takes a few months, and that’s the part worth asking about.
How many standing reports can one analyst realistically carry?
Somewhere around fifteen to twenty-five, if they’re automated and the queue is steady. Past thirty, from what our recruiters hear in exit conversations, new analysis quietly stops.
The count matters less than the deadlines. Six reports due in the week of month-end close make a harder month than twenty spread out evenly, and the posting should say which kind of month this is. One more thing. If the seat inherits a backlog, a contract analyst for a quarter often clears it faster and cheaper than loading it onto a new permanent hire, and our contract staffing team does a lot of exactly that.
Is Python a requirement for a BI analyst now?
Rarely. SQL and one BI tool cover most seats, and Python belongs under nice to have unless the request log shows real forecasting or statistical work.
When it is in the log, say what it’s for. Be specific. “Python for the quarterly reserve trend analysis” pulls a different person than “Python preferred.”
Does Hawaii’s pay rule cover an internal promotion posting?
Internal transfers and promotions are exempt, according to the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission. Other states, Vermont and Connecticut among them, do cover internal postings.
Contract or direct hire for a BI analyst?
$95 an hour, roughly, for a mid-level BI analyst on contract, using the national median from our Contract Rate Index. Contract fits work that ends, like a migration or a backlog.
The analyst who’ll own the reports for years and learn the business is a direct hire. Put both jobs in one posting and you tend to land a migration hand who leaves when it ends, or a long-term owner who has never run one. Junior runs about $67 and senior about $122. Bill rates by level and city are in our data analyst and BI developer contract rate guide.
Send the Log With the Posting
The carrier reposted with the three reports, the queue, the Omaha boundary, and a range of $98,000 to $122,000. About sixty people applied. Sixty, down from 180. The analyst they hired had spent four years at a regional bank in Sioux Falls running exactly that kind of queue, and in her first email she asked whether the agency production report was the one with the bonuses on it. It was.
If you want another read on your draft, send it to our recruiters along with a few weeks of requests, and we’ll tell you which kind of BI seat it describes. Our IT and data searches average a 17-day time-to-hire, and 92 percent of the people we place are still in the job a year later. A posting that describes the real queue helps both numbers more than anything we do on our end.
