Gagan Talwar

So we are finally hiring, are we? Really? We get many emails every day that we have open positions and then we have a profile which is required. Many of us do believe that this profile meets our experience and then we jump into the process of sending out our resumes to the Consultants / HR etc. Few lucky ones get a call for further evaluation and many don’t.

The profile shortlisting of the candidates plays an important role. I have seen instances where the guy shortlisting the candidates look into certain things such as Job Profile, How frequent the companies are switched, Whether the person is doing fulltime job or a simple freelancer, does anyone have gaps in job etc.

Many of the right candidates are filtered out during this process. So the whole process becomes dependent on the person who is filtering the resumes. If you are lucky and survive the above then you will get a call for interview.
Every organization have their own hiring process and the questions being asked will depend on the person taking the interview. But we will have few questions that every interviewer will ask you. So let’s have look on those questions:-

1. Tell me something about yourself
2. Tell me something about your current project
3. V-Model
4. Methodologies
5. Are you ISTQB certified
6. When did you complete ISTQB
7. What is retesting and regression testing and why we need it
8. Types of testing
9. Some queries around you Database
10. Bug Life Cycle
11. Severity / Priority
12. What is your Expected salary
13. Why we should hire you
14. (The Mega Question)  Do you know Automation? (We don’t miss this question even though they are looking for manual testers and the one who is being hired will never work on any automation project.)

So we have some question that are being asked frequently by most of the interviewers, Even a one year experienced guy will be able to answer above questions. But does anyone ask practical things? Like how we can improve Bug Life cycle? How we can know how many types bugs are re-opened or fixed. No one bothers to ask such questions. What everyone will be bothered to find out is if you have answered the questions that matches with ISTQB glossary.

So cramming and answering such definitions make you perfect? Yes, as per the most of the interviewers. If you don’t answer these definitions then it means you know nothing. Another assumption that every interviewer have in his/her mind is “Freelancers are not good testers “.I have been interviewed by many companies during my tenure but each interviewer has their own mindset while taking an Interview, but they have one thing in common i.e. they want to listen bookish definitions as specified in ISTQB Syllabus or any book. They don’t want real life time examples. Cramming bookish definitions doesn’t mean that I am perfect in testing. Being an interviewer they will says yes you can give real times examples but at the end what you will get is Rejection. I interviewed a person during my tenure at an IT company. I asked those guys I don’t want any bookish terms. I will give you terms but you give me examples and what I get to know they were speechless in case of examples but were perfect with definition. That’s what many companies look for i.e. ISTQB, ISTQB definitions etc.

So do we need to change the hiring process for testers? I believe, yes. We should give real application to such candidates and see how the bug reports are written, their findings will help the recruiter to understand the thought process of the candidate and will benefit the organization to deliver much better quality products.

How would you improve hiring process for testers? Your opinion please.