Secrets to a Successful Interview for the Position of a Junior QA

As in any other profession, the software testing field has its own job levels which are called specialists grading.

Common grading levels of the QA specialist profession is the following:

• Junior;
• Middle;
• Senior.

Further in the article, we will talk about the skills that every junior tester should have when he/she is interviewing in the software testing company for the first time.

Practical Skills

Knowing How to Communicate and Maintain a Dialogue

First of all, let’s answer a simple question: why should a junior tester communicate and write well? In the testing sphere, correct communication is everywhere: inside a QA team, tester-developer interaction, different meetings where specialists discuss new features of the developed project.

That is why it is so important to have excellent oral and written communication skills. They allow making concreate and correct questions, giving appropriate answers. If a person can clearly express his/her thoughts (both simple things and complicated phrases with technical concepts), it will be easier to give reasons for his/her opinion, clearly send a message, and quickly solve issues.

How to improve such a skill?

• Go to job interviews to see what questions are common in this sphere and how to solve issues correctly;
• Learn to answer questions (instead of telling your story that isn’t connected with a topic);
• Don’t be afraid to ask, if something is unclear for you at the first;
• Get familiar with business and communication skills just by searching this on the Internet.

If the person gets better at this field, he/she works towards 2 things.

Firstly, there’s an improvement in software testing skills. Obviously, it’s unreal to make some progress in this IT-sphere without constant communication.

Secondly, you get rid of the fear of a job interview. On the contrary, you will get a sense of confidence that will help you to present yourself well.

Knowledge of Software Testing Basics

If you want to get a job, you must learn basic concepts in order to be on the same page with your colleagues.

Before going to the interview, test your knowledge of the following things:

• Manual and automated testing;
• Exploratory and script testing (comparison and finding common features);
• Concepts of a checklist, test case; what are their common and diverse features;
• Concepts of critical bug and bug priority; is there a minor bug with high priority.

It is worth paying much attention to the specialized literature that you can easily find on the Internet.

Basic Concepts of the Necessary Skills Mentioned in the Position Summary

Obviously, a person cannot know absolutely everything. Likewise, it’s impossible to be able to test absolutely everything. But still, it is necessary to be familiar with specific data, to be able to adapt to a particular vacant position, and understand testing nuances!

That is why, before you go to the interview, you should learn all the demands by a potential employer, and be a well-prepared candidate (on the practical and theoretic side). You have to clearly understand the way how you will perform testing (mobile application or website).

Test yourself, if you can quickly and clearly answer the following questions:

1. What’s the structure of the web;
2. Concept of client-server architecture;
3. Concept of the database, peculiarities of its testing on the server-side, methods on how to get some information from it;
4. Peculiarities of mobile product testing.

Also, a junior tester should correctly describe found defects. When a developer reads the title of your bug, he/she needs to understand the nature of the problem. And when a programmer reads a description, he/she has to quickly find a code line that should be fixed.

Basic Skills of Writing Technical Documents

It is very important to know when tester should write documentation and in what format. It is a common situation that QA engineer must quickly write test cases, and then make a comprehensive report with executed tests in order to present the project to the client.

From afar, it might look as though it isn’t necessary for testers to know how to write technical documentation. But it’s not that simple.

• Technical writing skills allow a tester to plan his/her work and task completion deadline.
• QA engineers can learn to save a test run history qualitatively and correctly structured.
• Technical writing skills allow bringing new specialists up to date; moreover, they can use this documentation as a basis.
• Documentation allows remembering which tests were executed, and which ones were failed.

Continual Improvement of Relevant Experience

On the Internet, there are a lot of online platforms for improving specialized skills, and for better understanding of how and what should be tested. For example, you can go to https://www.utest.com/ or http://fixber.com/. There, a user can get practical experience in the software testing field, and improve his/her skills (for example, if the person is unemployed).

Now we can proceed with the concepts of the potential topics during the interview.

How to Act During the Interview for the Position of a Junior QA

Self-introduction

So, let’s get started. Many interviews have similar procedures. The first part is always a self-introduction when a person is asked to tell about himself/herself.

In this case, the job candidate should elaborate on his/her relevant experience, technical competence, tell about his/her view on some task solution.

Answers technical and theoretical questions

Your future employer will definitely ask you about specialized topics and issues of your knowledge in order to determine your professional competence.

In this case, it’s significantly important to know the most popular concepts and interpret some moments.

You have to think beforehand about your behavior and answers to the questions (you may try standing in front of the mirror and practicing it).

Questions from the candidate to the potential employer

With the help of such questions, you will see if you like working in the company, if you share its values, and if you are ok with a working schedule. Also, you will know how often they have office parties, what bonuses employees can have, and how often it happens.

In conclusion, we notice that during preparation for the job interview, you have to do the following:

• Examine the vacant position and working environment (for example, read the information on the official website).
• After you study all the requirements, you should review everything that can help you during the interview.
• Practice your potential self-introduction in order to convince your employer that you’re the best candidate for the position.