This is a guest article from Pradeep Soundararajan. He is a Consulting Tester, Satisfice Inc & Software Testing Magician. Reach him at his blog Tester tested
These days a lot of people who pass out of engineering and science colleges are interested about software testing as a career. When I passed out at a time when the IT had started to boom back in India, most of the fresh graduates with whom I interacted didn’t even know there existed jobs or careers like software testing.
I was offered a job as a tester in a start up for 7440 rupees a month compared to fresh developers (who were picked from better institutes from where I graduated) being paid 34,500 rupees a month.
Do companies really judge candidate’s testing ability in interviews? Do they ask the questions that really judge the candidate’s skill? What questions should be asked to judge the candidate for software testing field? What is the key process to hire good candidates for software testing positions?
Ok, I am asking to many questions without giving answer to any of it. Well, each question mentioned above will require a separate post to address the problem fairly. Here we will address in short about – How to hire the right candidates for software testing positions?
Companies or interviewers, who are not serious about hiring right candidates, often end with hiring poor performers.
What I mean by “Not serious” here?
- They don’t know why and for what post they are hiring a candidate.
- They either fake or fail to post the exact job opening details.
- Or they don’t want to hire skilled performers at all. Hmm, jealousy might be the key here!
Whichever is the reason, there is definitely loss of organization. Loss in terms of both revenue and growth.
If you need answer to these questions, here is an informative video from Pradeep Soundararajan – Consulting tester of Satisfice Inc in India. He explained what is the current situation of software testing interview process in India and how interviewers are wrong in selecting questions to be asked to candidates. A nice start to spread the awareness and importance of software testing interviews.
Current Software Testing Interview situation:
Click on the bottom right button to see the video in full screen.
You can watch his more video’s on software testing here.
Do not forget to comment your experience on software testing interviews, either as an interviewer or as a candidate.
“Reward testers for finding good quality bugs. Keep some weekly or monthly competitions such as ‘Bug of the week’ to reward them. This will help to build a successful QA team”.
The same concept is used by Eric Jacobson – a software tester, to keep motivation alive in his testing team. Eric found interesting idea to reward good testers. The idea of holding a bug contest. And decided to award the ‘Mercury’ cap to the tester who could log the most bugs in a given week. See the winner of his contest.
A small tweak I would rather suggest to make this technique more effective is to award the testers who will find the quality bug, may be called as “Bug of the week”. This way quality bugs will be the main focus of software testers rather than running behind the quantity. Obviously you should not ignore those small UI bugs also
I am really fan of awarding testers for their good work. It may be any kind of appreciation. May be a small gift or just few kind words of appreciation from the lead or manager. This will keep the spirit alive in testers to find new and quality bugs.
If you are a team leader, manager or even a team member, what do you think is the best way to keep motivation alive in software testers?
This is a guest post from author Gunasekaran Veerapillai, Bangalore
Over the last one decade the profile of software tester has undergone tremendous changes. Testing has become show-stopper for several application/product implementations and business has realized the importance of structured testing of applications before release. Testing has created several levels and types and specialization in these various types of testing has increased the intrinsic value of a software tester. From being a monotonous test case executor, several career options have evolved in front of the testing community. The following diagram depicts the various options available to a software tester.
Career options for software test professionals:
Of late, testing is looked after as a good professional career for many of the aspiring youths. As mentioned above, from being test engineer one can move to senior test engineer, test lead to test manager; else can become QA lead, QA Manager. The options available in the testing tools side are enormous. There are numbers of functional, performance, security testing tools besides test management tools like Quality Center from HP, CQTM from IBM etc.,
The demand for niche skills like SOA testers, Security testers are on the increase. There is dearth of skills in test automation areas – scripting skills in the tools languages like VB, Java and other scripting languages like Perl, Shell, Python etc., Technical resources with capabilities to evaluate automation tools, create automation framework and reusable components are on demand. Always there is demand for good performance testers who can analyze the performance test results, identify the bottlenecks and suggest tuning techniques.
Specialization has come to stay in testing career – following are some of the key areas where one need to specialize to move ahead in career path in testing apart from good knowledge in software lifecycle testing process.
1) Domain Knowledge – Good knowledge in domain area of the application adds value to the testing professionals. There are ever living domains like BFSI, Telecom, Health care, manufacturing, embedded etc. Numbers of certifications are available for each of these areas where the tester can get them certified.
2) Automation Testing Tools Knowledge – There is great demand for automation and performance testers. A good skill on scripting languages of these tools is basic necessity for succeeding in test automation. Knowledge on creation, validation and enhancement of test automation framework is very much required.
3) Certifications – QAI, ASQ, ISQTB and several other institutes are offering testing specific certifications. These certifications improve the confidence of the clients on the testing professionals. CQTM, PMP are some managerial certifications, which help the testers to scale up in the professional ladder. Certifications on the testing tools offered by vendors like HP increases the technical competency of the individual.
4) Niche areas in Testing – Experts predict that the niche areas like SOA testing, Security testing are gaining momentum in the testing space. Many tools are emerging in these areas. As testing professionals we should be aware of where the industry is heading and update our knowledge in those areas.
Knowledge updation is a continuous process. Several website like stickyminds, QAForums offer excellent insight into various facets of the testing arena. I always request my team members to spend at least two hours in a week in these selected websites to update themselves to the current happenings and events.
As the saying goes “you need to run continuously to keep yourself in the same place”, as testing professionals we should always work towards sharpening our testing skills to succeed in this competitive environment.
Few days back ‘Teresa’ asked me an interesting question.
“I was intrigued by your website because it seems you are truly passionate and interested in testing. In my organization, we’ve found that it’s really hard to keep the GOOD testers in testing. Many of the really skilled testers are always looking for change and want to get out of testing for some reason. I would love to hear if you have any ideas on how to keep the good testers in testing?”
Teresa, first I will address this high attrition rate problem for all employees and then I will come back to addressing “How to keep good testers in testing positions?”
0% employee turnover is just a imagination and unrealistic in current competitive world. Employee turnover to certain extent is ok. However increased turnover in any company indicates some serious problems.
Though I am not a HR expert to reduce the attrition rate, I will suggest some common measures from employee perspective, which can minimize this turnover to certain extent. These measures will be applicable for every company and employee. Also we are in context of software testing so I will concentrate more on how to retain good testers in their positions.
I will address each and every solution we can try to keep low attrition rate. So sit back, get relaxed as this is going to be a long article.
Who will get help from this article?
This article will helpful to Company management, Managers, Team leads in development and testing and of course to the emerging testers who are tomorrow’s leads.
What are the effects of high attrition rate on company?
May lose projects in hand – as clients are not happy with high attrition rate
Financial burden on company
Cost to recruit new employees
Cost of new employee training
Time for ramp-up in new projects
Workload on existing employees
Low employee productivity due to unstable work and overtime
These are few important drawbacks of high attrition rate.
How to reduce attrition rate?
First let’s go to root cause of “why employee leave the company?”
The main reason is “lack of appreciation for their hard work”. I mean if company is not caring about employees then why would they stay in such company?
Keep in mind ‘more money’ is not always the solution! Nowadays employees are more concerned about quality of life and their family needs.
Here are some solutions on high attrition rate:
Hire the right people in right positions
Understand the employee needs and provide it to them
Respect them
Always appreciate good work
Regularly ask for employee input and take appropriate action
Offer training opportunities to gain advanced knowledge
Better to become employee oriented
Pleasant working atmosphere
Career growth opportunities
Value employee creativity
Job security
Last one is very important. Your employees should feel secure about their jobs. If you can’t provide job security or at least feeling of job security in employees mind then your company deserve for high attrition rate.
These are some one liner solution. Let’s take some practical solutions.
Motivation:
Any software team should consist of highly motivated and skilled people. Good motivation comes from good leadership. Good leadership provided by team leaders and managers can bring down the attrition rate. In my career I observe employees leave the company just because of their boss. Some unrealistic demands or lack of motivation and leadership can make employees think over their position and career.
So leaders should motivate and energize colleagues when they lost all hopes.
More Money:
Give them a good compensation and benefit package.
Fun at work:
As I said money is not always the solution, fun at work is also important. Only more money can’t motivate the team if you don’t have fun culture in your company. I believe in “Work hard, Play hard” culture, so plan some sporting activities, outdoor trips, different competitions between different teams etc etc… There can be so many such activities, which can act as refreshment for employees.
Help to settle employee life:
What I mean from this is to help employees providing stability in their life. I know this is not going to be a simple task but company can help employees by providing medical insurance, medical facilities to employees. Housing is the first priority of most of the employees. So help them getting good accommodation.
‘Teresa’, you asked about retaining testers in good positions. So let’s come to testers problem.
What are the common complaints from testers?
“Sometimes developers ego as they are better than testers”
“Tester is responsible for every fault”
“Schedule slips due to testers”
“Testers are not getting the respect”
“Management don’t consider them equally with developers”
These are some common complaints from testers and this makes them feel insecure in their job, affecting their daily work and may result in high attrition rate.
Management needs to address these complaints early before testers leave the company. The solution is – organize your teams effectively, improve communication between developers, testers and management. This will lead to better understanding and addressing of testers needs.
Below are the baby steps, which can retain good talented testers in their positions:
Provide them training:
Train all your testers. Provide them training for free, if not possible then with cheap cost. Make available some remote courses, seminars and books to study. Sponsor and help them to get the software testing certifications.
Appreciate the good work:
Don’t go behind the quantity of bugs. See the quality of bugs and appreciate those testers working hard to find it. Regularly comment positively on good work from the team.
Reward testers for finding good quality bugs. Keep some weekly or monthly competitions such as “Bug of the week” to reward the testers. This will help to build a successful QA team.
Set finite boundaries to everything:
Your goals should have clear boundaries and completion criteria. Setting goals, those not having end can become a boring task. Don’t let feel the team that this testing work is going forever without any insight goal.
Take every bug as a learning opportunity:
Don’t bother testers about the bugs that slip through. Make these bugs as a learning opportunity. Let them know why they overlooked that bug. This way they will learn from their mistakes and will not make the same mistake again at lest for the same bug.
Don’t make testing a repetitive task:
Some times we get bored doing same thing again and again. Testers job involve with repetitive task. So take care to distribute your work so that no tester will execute same test case repetitively on any project. Randomize the testing work in team, this way team will get knowledge of whole product, helping to find more bugs.
Good solution to avoid repetitive work is to rotate the experienced employees internally in different projects.
Create good relation between testers and developers:
Testers need encouragement and support to find more and more bugs so that the final release is bug free. Build a good team of testers and developers. Treat everyone similarly.
Don’t forget to celebrate:
Celebrate each and every success moment. This will help to build good team spirit. Host product release parties to recognize accomplishment.
Conclusion:
Show your appreciation to those employees who work hard. This is a key to successful business. Show your employees that you are committed to fulfill their needs.
Over to you:
These are my personal thoughts to keep good employees (testers) in their positions. I am not a HR expert but I have mentioned here everything what I feels from employee perspective to stay on the job.
I want your views “What keeps you on the job?” You can share your personal thoughts, your expectations from employers or any personal experience in this matter.
If you are not yet the regular reader of this site, I recommend you to subscribe with us so that you won’t miss any single article on software testing. Click here to get new articles in your inbox!
It’s appraisal time! Many companies conduct periodic reviews to give feedback on performance to their employees and to assist employees in developing their career. This appraisal period may be of six months or one year depending on company policies. Performance appraisal is the right time to ask for your promotion as well as salary raise.
Why performance appraisal?
To reward employees for their good work. Appraisal will assist employees to develop in their career and enable them to reach their full potential. Performance appraisal process involves discussion on the previous year employee achievements and identifying area for improvement. This will help employees to develop clear performance objectives for the next review period.
In this article I will concentrate more on “QA performance appraisal”. What are skills and parameters used to judge and rate the QA performance?
This article will help you in following ways:
If you are a fresher and yet not faced any appraisal, you will get exact idea of what is performance review and how to face it.
If you are an experienced quality assurance engineer then you will know “How to ask for promotion and salary hike in your performance review”.
How to effectively summaries your hard work and responsibilities into a good impression in front of management.
In companies having yearly appraisal system, performance appraisal process begins a month before end of each financial year. Performance review forms gets distributed to every eligible employee with instructions on how to fill the form and to whom you need to send these filled forms. After that face-to-face review meetings are scheduled with reviewers.
Following major activities get discussed in review meeting:
Project you did in previous year
Employees overall performance
Comments on performance ratings given by employee and reviewer
Employee feedback
Areas for improvements
Performance planning for the next year.
What are the criteria’s to rate the employee performance?
We are specifically speaking about QA performance appraisal, so here are the main parameters considered while rating software testers/QA persons.
Based on these parameters employee can give self rating from 1 to 10 for individual parameter and the overall rating as the average of all these ratings. Reviewer ratings will be there also in front of each skill and also reviewer’s final rating.
Ratings are classified like: Rating from 1-5: Poor performance 6: Need improvements 7: Meets position requirements 8-9: Exceeds position requirements 10: Exceptional! Exceed all requirements all the time.
In performance appraisal form employee needs to give feedback on his/her work till date. Also feedback on company culture, work process and management style.
Employee feedback section is the best section to ask for promotion or salary hike. Mention your overall and relevant QA experience and your ability to handle more challenging work assignments. This will create solid base for management to decide the promotion and salary raise.
Reviewer will fill the “Employee performance planning for next appraisal” section. In this section he/she will address the improvement areas like technical and non-technical skills. Or other personal improvements. Reviewer needs to mention some specific goals employee need to meet for next appraisal. This will become base objective for next appraisal period.
This is the overall appraisal process. Now key part is how and when to ask for promotion and salary raise?
Here are some key points you need to study before asking for promotion and pay rise:
1) What are your previous year’s top achievements?
You should be ready with list of key projects you did in past year. How was the overall quality of work in this period? Note down some examples, which will illustrate your contribution to company growth.
2) Positive attitude:
Management like employees with positive attitude. Management will think about your leadership qualities before promoting you.
3) Your relationship with your boss and co-workers:
This is a crucial point. Make sure you don’t have any disputes between you and your boss or co-workers. You should be a fair team player.
4) Any major work issue in previous year?
You should be aware of project issues created by you. If these issues are major then think twice before asking for promotion or pay raise. If the issues are minor and you were not directly responsible for those issues then you can have explanation of these issues, if management raised these negative points in your appraisal meeting. Make sure you don’t blame any of your co-workers for any issue.
5) Explain why you deserve promotion:
You need solid work portfolio to explain this. Put forward your contribution to company and how this helped to improve the company.
6) Are you prepared to handle challenges of senior level positions?
Senior level position means more responsibilities. You need to have both technical as well as management skills to handle such positions. Explain how you are a best fit for the new position.
7) Be prepared to present exact amount to be raised in your salary:
If management is ready to promote you then you might get this question: How much pay rise you expect? So do a little study of current market salary range for your new position. Come to some exact figures by doing analysis of your current salary, company’s previous salary hike records and your accomplishments for the appraisal period.
8 ) Know the exact time for getting pay rise:
If you got promotion in last performance appraisal then ask for promotion in current appraisal only if you did some outstanding work. If company is in some financial problems then wait till company get out of this situation. (But don’t wait too much )
Conclusion:
In short be professionals and specific. Ask for promotion and salary rise, otherwise you will get nothing. Prove your hard work and responsibilities. Be prepared for any outcome. It may be positive or negative. You should be calm in your response and don’t forget to thank your boss and handshake at the end of the appraisal meeting.
Hope this article will help you to climb your career ladder efficiently and will add some professionalism in your career.
If you have a good or bad experience in your previous appraisals then don’t forget to share your experience with our readers. Other’s can learn something from your experience. After all this site is for growing in your career by sharing each other’s thoughts!
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