Software Testing Interview tips?

MrMiyagi

Hello,

I have an interview next week for a Software Testing role and I was wondering if anybody good give me some tips?

I have a lot of VB programming experience and some Java but I haven't worked in a software testing role before.

Thank you.

artful_codger

be able to explain to them why testing is important and how testing fit into the dev cycle in your last job, know the difference between test types (regression testing, destructive testing, load testing, unit testing etc), how would you check test results (diff'ing test output files etc), be aware of the names of automated testing tools out there, be at least vaguely familiar with JIRA (seems to be a standard tool in use now),
convince them that you're the type of person with an attention to detail and knows how to test software (i.e testing an input field by putting decimal numbers, leading zeros, special characters, quotes, alphanumeric characters into it).

i'm not a tester myself, so i'm sure others will have better advice.

cronos

They might ask why are you switching from a dev role to a tester role?

KarlDrake

artful_codger wrote: »

be able to explain to them why testing is important and how testing fit into the dev cycle in your last job, know the difference between test types (regression testing, destructive testing, load testing, unit testing etc), how would you check test results (diff'ing test output files etc), be aware of the names of automated testing tools out there, be at least vaguely familiar with JIRA (seems to be a standard tool in use now),
convince them that you're the type of person with an attention to detail and knows how to test software (i.e testing an input field by putting decimal numbers, leading zeros, special characters, quotes, alphanumeric characters into it).

i'm not a tester myself, so i'm sure others will have better advice.

This is an excellent post. The only thing I'd add would be to demonstrate an understanding of the business impact of good testing and bad testing, that this role is the backbone. If it's not right it can't go to market and the longer it takes to go to market the more money it costs and the longer it will be before it makes money.

jimoc

Also be able to demonstrate an inate curiousity into 'how things work' and 'what happens if I do this?'

One of the biggest complaints I have against our own testers and previous test departments I have worked with is that they simply test the very small changes that have made and never actually try and break the program by doing 'off the wall' things that a normal rational thinking person wouldn't even think about, like for example pasting a jpg into a rich text box.

These things can happen in real life (with hilarious results sometimes ) but never get tested.

So having someone going for a testing job and saying 'I like to break stuff' will definetly get them a positive vote if I was interviewing them.