A number of people wanting to pursue a career in IT or switch their career to IT choose Software Testing as their area of choice. This is indeed a relatively easy entry into the world of IT compared to other more technical roles.
Going back 10-15 years, gaining a professional qualification in Software Testing (like ISEB or ISTQB foundation) was one of the means which proved quite successful. However, the world of IT has moved on and Software Testing has changed significantly.
In today’s world ISTQB Foundation is merely a tick in the box and on its own is not likely to give you enough traction with you job-hunt and won’t give you confidence to nail interviews.
Most organisations have moved to Agile ways of working and testing is no longer viewed as an activity which is siloed at the end of the development phase.
Employers now expect even junior testers to know a lot more than push buttons and find defects. There is a lot of emphasis on Test Automation and most Software Testing jobs are seeking these skills.
We often see a number of aspiring testers trying to learn programming languages and test automation to begin with. Whilst this may sound like a sensible thing to do, this is not the right direction for the vast majority of us with no previous professional IT exposure.
Attempting to learn Test Automation ahead of Agile basics, enterprise software architecture, Test Design/Reporting is like trying to run before one can walk!
For someone learning Test Automation, it’s important to understand the context so they can make meaningful use of the knowledge and showcase it in a way to attract the attention of potential employers. At Axone, we have seen a number of aspiring testers flounder when they attempted to learn test automation without any background in IT.
These foundation skills which are required to make meaningful sense of Test Automation are often wrongly branded as ‘Manual Testing’.
For someone trying to get their first job in IT, apart from technical skills there are a number of other process and people skills they need to gain. This can be effective Communication and Presentation, Collaboration in Agile, Teamwork and so on . .
So, the question is where does one start?
At Axone, we have created a learning path based on our years of experience training 100s of aspiring testers. Our Smart Tester 'Professional Practice' is recommended as the starting point.
This course is run as an ‘internship’ where you will be working in an Agile team, testing a real-world enterprise application. You will learn the latest tools, processes and test techniques with a foundation of effective communication, collaboration and teamwork. Details in the video below..
Once you have this context of how testing fits into the current software delivery landscape, learning test automation will help you make sense of it and utilise it to further improve your marketability.
For further information on how we can help you start your career in Software Testing, please visit our website