JOB SEARCH SKILLS

1
JOB SEARCH SKILLS

• WELCOME

2
JOB SEARCH SKILLS

• Getting a job selling your skills
• What is the value offered?
• Short-term polishing (SQA Training, Test
  Automation)
• Long-term foundation (maturity, documentation,
  quality)
• 17 seconds rule
• What is our target market?
• Who is your competition?
• 3-6 month contracts simply the best to start
  with
• Not the entry level niche we apply for 2 year
  posts

3
WE WILL LEARN

• Dynamic of sales
• Ratios to watch
• Troubleshooting
• How to find open positions
• Talking to recruiters
• Answering interview questions
• Asking interview questions

4
Numbers and ratios

• 1000 Resumes send ?
• 400 Contacts (calls/mails) ?
• 40 Resumes sent by recruiters to hiring
  managers ?
• 10 Face to face interviews ?
• 3 Job offers
• 1000 ? 400 ? 40 ? 10 ? 3
• RATIOS IMPROVE OVER TIME

5
Job seekers complain

• Nobody calls me
• I have no interviews
• I have no job offers
• WHAT IS THE REASON?
• CAN WE FIX THAT?
• HOW?

6
We find jobs using

• Internet (where?)
• Networking (be careful)
• Job/Career Fair
• Practice in telling your story (presentation)
• NOT scattering out your resumes
• NOT collecting souvenirs
• NOT getting the actual job (might happen though)

7
LinkedIn.com

• - 70 of open positions not advertised
• - Networking is how we want to find future jobs
• - LinkedIn tool for maintaining contacts
• Open an account
• Create detailed profile
• Apply for Portnov group membership
• Invite classmates to join your network
• Invite your friends, college mates
• Join QA-related groups
• Read LinkedIn help on how to use the service

8
RESUME SENDING RULES

• Use Craigslist, Dice, Monster, Hotjobs
• Keywords QA, Test, QTP, QuickTest
• Post resume on job search engines
• Update posted resumes every day
• Keyword code when post resumes
• Up to 50 resumes sent every day
• 50 match good enough to apply

9
COMPONENTS OF SUCCESS

• Motivation
• Focus
• Environment
• Schedule

10
RULES OF SALE

• People buy to improve their situation
• People buy emotionally and later justify the
  purchase intellectually
• Sell from the position of strength
• Find the pain in the past or the future

11
LIFE PATH CONCEPT

• How do you see yourself in 1-3-5 years from now?
• Tell me about yourself
• Why should we hire you?
• 2 stories to have ready
• Life Path
• Working for the companies

12
WHY ASK QUESTIONS?

• Talk from the position of strength
• Demonstrate your qualifications
• Eliminate their unwanted questions
• Learn the buyer - identify the pain
• Having Big Picture conversation rather then
  talking about small detail

13
QUESTIONS - COMPANY

• How old is your company?
• How big is your company?
• How many products do you have on the market?
• What is your competition?

14
QUESTIONS - PRODUCT

• Would you please tell me more about the product
• What is the current version of the product to be
  tested?
• What are the competing products?
• What makes your product competitive?
• What are major functional areas?
• When are you planning the next release

15
QUESTIONS - TEAM

• How big your QA Team?
• Do you have further hiring plans?
• What are the responsibilities/areas of expertise
  of other team members?

16
QUESTIONS - POSITION

• What are the responsibilities of the person you
  are about to hire?
• What is your definition of an ideal candidate for
  the position?
• What do you expect from the new hire after 2
  weeks (3 month) of employment?

17
QUESTIONS - SQA

• Learning the product
• Test documentation/planning
• Test automation
• Relations with development
• Typical problems they are facing

18
QA INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

• How do you know if the bug found is hardware or
  software bug?
• Give me an example of a problem you found in your
  last test assignment and how you identified if it
  was a software or hardware bug?
• How much PC hardware and system configuration
  have you done? Do you like it?

19
QA INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

• Which do you like better, coding or testing? Why?
• Do you prefer white box or black box testing?

20
QA INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

• Do you think it is possible to get all the bugs
  out of application before shipping it?
• What do you think the objectives of Software QA
  Department of a software company are?

21
QA INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

• Write a sample bug report in such a way that the
  developer would both understand it fully and be
  able to reproduce it easily
• Regression testing what would you do to make
  sure
• The bug was fixed?
• Nothing else in the same area was broken

22
QA INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

• Provide sample list of criteria for QA to certify
  software product
• Why are test cases important for QA to maintain?
• You have reported a problem to development and
  they say it is not reproducible and request to
  close it. What is the right thing to do?

23
Tell me about the company X

• How old
• how many people work there
• product line
• who it competes against
• is it public or privately owned
• is it profitable or not yet, startup
• story attached if any
• Plans original and how they changed
• building
• benefits
• work environment, culture

24
Tell me about the application

• Created for what kind of users and needs
• Major features and functional areas (shopping
  cart, catalog, search, registration, etc.)
• Competing products and what makes our product
  different
• Customer base
• Market share
• Dynamics of growth (sales, customer base,
  releases, features, hiring)

25
What was your role?

• As the only tester on that project I was
  responsible for the entire scope of SQA
  activities
• As a member of 5 people QA team I was primarily
  focusing on ... (regression testing, test
  automation, testing the database)

26
How did you do regression

• I had (developed) requirements in a form of
  spreadsheet
• To do that I used many documents available
  including Functional specification,
• It was approved by the manager
• 2 other QA team members looked through and gave
  some suggestions on how to improve it.
• What were the challenges and problems - give
  examples

27
Describe Software Development Life Cycle?

• It has several stages and at each stage testers
  have different focus
• At earlier stages we have to focus more on
  planning and analysis, not bug reporting
• At requirements stage we focus on identifying
  contradictory, ambiguous, and/or contradictory
  requirements
• Maintenance - regression, automation, planning
  for future changes

28
What do you like about QA?

• I like to see how the application changes as a
  result of bug I reported. It gives me a very good
  feeling of being a real contributor.
• I really enjoy the level of appreciation I have
  from developers and other QA team members.
• I think I can realize myself professionally in
  that area.
• My previous background makes a good combination
  with my QA skills.
• I really have passion for quality since I
  remember myself.

29
How do you see yourself in 5 years?

• Making difference in Software Testing
• To get there I need to work on good projects,
  next to good professionals
• Besides that I want to specialize (chose the
  niche) in whatever they are (give reasons)

30
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

• We have 3 levels of preparation
• Testing Computer Software book with about 200
  questions
• Prakash Nepal 100 SQA interview questions and
  answers
• Portnov School 50 questions