How to Get a Job in Software Testing as a Fresher?

Have you just pass out your graduation and are you looking for a right right employment opportunity in software testing? Are you a fresher and finding difficulty in getting the right job in software testing? I have answers of all your questions! Whether you want to change your career & come into software development field or continue to become a rock-start software tester, it is better to take admission in a reliable institute like QACampus and pursue a career as a software tester as your first job. Once you are familiar with all the testing concepts and technologies, you will be in a mode to refine your skills by practicing testing on the latest tools and gaining much-needed experience. Through this post, I will put some important points in front of you that will help you in getting the right job in testing as a fresher.

Let's now discuss some key points that can help you in getting the job in software testing when you have no experience... 5 things that you need to know for this...

You Have to Be Passionate About Software Testing

This is the most common thing that many a times you probably will be asked during job interview. You should have a clear answer as to why you plan to go with the testing career. And of course you must also have the answers of – if you are from computer science field, why did you not go for software development field? Or if you are from some other field, why not look for a job in your respective area or study?

The matter of the fact is that people who are passionate about doing something, the success lies on their feet. As anyone can be trained, but only those individuals who have real interest in a particular field can make a name themselves. So, follow this, create passion in yourself about becoming a perfect tester!

Get the Right Skills Required for the Job

As a software tester, apart from refining your skills, you must also have excellent aptitude skills coupled with knowledge of testing and tools in order to get the right job. Being a fresher, you would not have exposure to any test cases most of the times but for this, you should join the best institute and take admission in particular testing training program such as software testing certification course to learn every concept of testing and getting proper guidance to develop your career as well. A fact is nowadays, almost every company requires those candidates who have some certifications of testing.

Select Your Niche

As the profession of software testing is packed with many testing types, tools and technologies, so you need to specialize in any particular field of testing. Most companies give more preference to specialist than generalist. Hence, you should choose a specialize testing niches from manual testing, security testing, automation testing, performance testing, mobile app testing and so on. But even if you are specialized in a particular area you should also have the knowledge of other testing types as well. Like software development, software testing is also a comprehensive and vast field. Hence, you should focus on your area as this will make you a hot property in the job market.

Clear-out Your All Misconceptions

This quite true but sad that students tend to develop a lost of misconceptions about the software testing jobs. These are:

• The job is software testing is simple, so anyone can do it: As every profession needs good knowledge, so testing also requires proper education. Remember that it is not a rocket science. You need to work hard and practice testing on the latest technologies.
• Testers get less preference than developers:  Many of us have this attitude that software developers get more privileges in the form of good salary and other benefits than software testers. But this is now past as due to the growth in the software testing industry, testers also get full advantages like developers have. So, just see the right direction in becoming a good tester as there is tremendous growth in this field when companies are hiring more and more qualified testers.

Make a Perfect Cover Letter & Resume and Gain Attention

How your resume and cover letter look like matters a lot while going for a job interview as a fresher. Companies get thousands of resumes so it is not possible for them to shortlist many due to limited vacancies. So, your resume and cover letter should be well-written and attractive so that it can be shortlisted immediately. Always customize your resume and make sure that you include a custom cover letter with each application.

I hope that now you got what I am saying! Refine your skills in software testing and being a fresher, find the right job! Take it as a challenge, you will get success! All the best for your job interview!

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How does Test Manager Plays a Role in an Agile Organization?

If you are a test manager or work as a mnager for different purpose in order to boost an organization's performance that transitioning to agile, then you might be curious about where to stand in the new working environment. Many of the traditional management lead roles might have gone but managers still have their place as they perform their duties so that they can be able to create a bridge between lower, middle or top level for enhancing the coordination level. As far as test manager alone is concerned, it brings all testers in various testing departments at one platform for running software-based systems smoothly and efficiently as well. 

The demand of test manager profession is now increasing as the need of a test manager has become important by the leading corporates. This is the reason that why individuals are going for it as a career choice. So, they are looking for someone to provide the best TFS Test Manager training. And QACampus is created for this, as they offer various testing training programs that are beneficial to candidates who want to build their career in the testing field.

What basically test managers do? In traditional companies, the role of test managers begin with assigning people to projects, providing feedback, overseeing the tester's progress and may be offering some coaching to individuals who desire to have it. They build the trsutworthy relationships withing their staff members. Also, they try to create the capacity of the testing group as well. In the testing organization, there two components of building capacity namely; hiring more people as per the suitability and providing a platform for education & training as well. Sometimes the training is expert-led and sometimes is cross-training.

The need of test managers is absolutely desirable in an agile organization. The project team members basically learn from each other as well as take a more generalist approach to the product development. The software developers learn various testing approaches and tricks so that they can be able to analyise the business activities. In such a situation, a test manager does not shuffle people among projects as they assign them to a team for a long period. He or she don't check in on a given person's progress as the team is committed to each other & track the progress themselves. 

This is now quite true that the team members engaged in any testing project need a manager with whom they can be able to create a strong and honest relationship. And this affair is a key to retain people. In addition to this, managers are require to be on the lookout for developing capacity in an organization.

So, what we learn from this post? Let's sum-up in our conclusion section! Test managers play an important role in defining and managing the testing process between a group of testers. They have various crucial responsibilities such as helping an organization to build capacity, performing career development, providing coaching, removing functional obstacles, building a trustworthy relationship with everyone in the group and so on.

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10 Significant Points for Effective Quality Assurance and Testing

This blog is written with an objective to make test aspirants, professionals, and other keen students,  aware about the practices which are essential for implementing effective testing and quality assurance. The points which we are going to discuss here, gathered through the real experience of software testing and QA efforts. These points will surely help young test engineers to refine their knowledge about test implementation and QA practices.

1. Process :

It is essential for an organization to prepare and defines a strong process that is certified by software industry experts in order to start software quality assurance. The process can be treated as guidelines which needs to be developed over time. It can be used as official standards and should be followed throughout the SDLC and STLC process until the establishment of complete process.

2. Managerial Commitment :

Managerial commitment is necessary behind the success of test and quality of project. For this, it is required to align all the development managers and test managers engaged in a project. Here, every one must have knowledge about the necessity of testing and QA activities for business.  

3. Personal Experience :

A good practical experience is beneficial for a project to eliminate the probability of error occurence in a project. Therefore, it will be a best practice to hire a resource that have good understanding and experience of handling issues efficiently.

4. Deliverables :

In software development and software testing process, all the deliverables, like requirements, test cases, test design, test plan needs to be defined properly. This will assure that test professionals can effectively understand the project and implement best techniques for ensuring quality of software.

5. Tool Usage :

To increase the efficiency and effectiveness of implemented test, software tools needs to be employed. The tools save testing time and cost for identifying testing defects, designing and creating test cases, and test cases execution. The test team should be aware of using automation tools for testing an application with great outputs.

6. Metrics : 

It is a good practice to develop and create test metrics for measuring the quality attributes in application. With the help of metrics the current version of software project is compared with previous version of software for its quality and performance. This will help testers and developers to identify the issues or errors and make changes in software accordingly.

7. Testing Environment :

It is necessary to implement an appropriate testing environment so that actual defects of application can be identified. Test environment that will efficiently supports the software needs to be developed by the developer's team and the designed tests should be executed to identify the defects and actual behaviour of application.

8. Test Data :

After developing a test environment, there will be a requirement of test data to execute day-to-day operations. This will help testers to identify the performance and other issues associated with application. So, here it means that not only the test environment is necessary but also test data is also essential for execution of test cases.

9. Change Management :

Just like the real production environment, testing environment needs to be traced for changing configurations. It will help in ensuring controlled results and take appropriate actions according to the changing requirement configurations.

10. Developer Awareness :

It will be a helpful practice for developers to have awareness about all the business goals, processes, and change management. This practice will be beneficial for implementing an effective techniques for testing and quality assurance on software project.

The above mentioned are some of the important practices which according to testing experts needs to be considered while going to perform testing or quality assurance for a software project. These practices will increase efficiency and productivity of a successful test.

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Test Automation : How testing tool selection can help improve testing efficiency

This blog is written on software test automation with an objective to make readers understand about automation testing. Through this, one can also get knowledge on how the selection of tools is important for improving efficiency of testing process.

Importance of selecting the right testing tool :

For any software test automation process, the success depends on identifying and selecting the right and best suited automation tool. The best method to achieve the expected target in software testing is to make correct selection of automation testing tool. This will improve the testing productivity and reducing the  project cost of a test project.

Type of test automation tools :

There are many automation tools available for testing software. These tools are categorized into three different categories. of automation tools. Test manager can make use of these tools for testing application according to the requirement and testing scenarios. The three categories are :

1. Open Source Tools
2. Commercial Tools
3. Custom Tools

1. Open Source Tools :

As name defines 'Open Source Tools' are the freely available software program for application testing. Herein the source code is freely available for use that can easily be modified as per requirements. These tools are available for performing all type of testing activities, from test cases management to application defect tracking. Open source tools constitutes less features as compared with commercial tools.

2. Commercial Tools :

Commercial tools are software automation tools which are not freely available in market. To use these tools one needs to purchase license from the producer of that tool. These tools are designed for commercial purpose only. One can get proper and reliable support for such automation testing tools from its producer as compared to open-source tools.

3. Custom Tools :

In some software testing project, there is requirement of some special features for testing process and testing environment which cannot be supported by either open source and commercial tools. Therefore, the test team have to choose building their own testing tool that can fulfil their testing requirements. These types of developed tools are known as custom tools.

To save project testing cost one should understand that not all the the application parts are featured to automation testing. Only the areas where frequent changes can be seen, and where regression tests are required will be subjected to automation.

Before test tool selection, the tester must need to analyse the test cases, which needs to be automated. This activity is known as Automation Feasibility Analysis.

Factors which needs to consider before automation testing :

• Testing feasibility
• Complexity
• Application stability
• Test data
• Application size
• Automated scripts reusability
• Execution environment

Steps followed to select right test automation tool :

• Identify the test requirement for tools :

For proper and right selection of tool one should have knowledge about the requirement for automation testing. All the identified requirements are documented and analysed by the test management team.

• Decide the tools & vendors :

After documenting the tools requirement, the project test manager needs to follow some steps :

Identify the best available open source and commercial automation tools as per the project requirement.
Create a list of tools which best meets the testing criteria.
Before short-listing the tool, the reputation of vendor, its support and reviews are checked properly.
Check the quality of the automation tool through trial license usage.

• Estimation of benefits and cost of tool :

As per the benefits of test, the test manager needs to estimate about cost and benefits of the test tool. The value and benefits must be balanced with cost of the identified tool.

• Make final decision for tool selection :

For final decision on tool selection, the project test manager should require to have good understanding of the tool including its advantages and disadvantages. Also cost and tool benefits must be balanced.

Conclusion :

The above details are enough to understand the importance of automation tools selection and the steps which test manager needs to follow for selecting an efficient tool. The selection criteria help improving the testing efficiency which in-turn save time and cost of the testing process.

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What is Functional Testing and what needs to be tested during this test ?

This blog is written with an objective to understand in detail about functional testing in software testing process, different types of functional testing and how it is different from non-functional testing.

Here we will try to gather all the important concepts of functional testing but for performing a practical test one should require a dedicated training. One such training for 'Test Automation Functional' is provided by QACampus institute in Noida. During this training the testing experts will teach you about functional testing techniques and performing an effective test on software project. Lets start with basic introduction of functional testing :

Functional testing :

This is a type of Quality Assurance process or black-box testing in which the functionality of the integrated software application components are tested by entering input and examining the output. In this, the knowledge of internal working of program code is not required. The output of the test is measured with the expected results for which the software is developed. Functional testing is always carried-out on complete integrated software system. In short we can say that functional testing ensure the working of software application as per the requirement specification.

It involves verification of User Interfaces, database, APIs, client-server applications, security and functionality of software application which is being tested. The testing can be performed either through manual process or through automation by using automation tools.

What should be tested in functional testing?

The main objective of functional test is to check the functionalities of software application. It focuses on some of the below mentioned points :

Major functions : All the essential functions of an application are tested.

Basic Usability : The basic usability like navigation through screens, of the system is tested to ensure efficient use of application without difficulty.

Accessibility : Verifying the accessibility of application system from end user perspective.

Error Conditions : Implementing testing techniques to verify the appearance of error messages according to suitable error conditions.

Process of Functional Test :

To test the functionality of an application, the below mentioned points needs to be considered :

•     Find out the requirements
•     Identify the input data for testing
•     Calculate the selected input values with the expected result
•     Execute selected test cases
•     Comparing actual output with the calculated expected result

Types of functional testing :

1.      Unit Testing
2.      Smoke Testing  
3.      Sanity Testing    
4.      Integration Testing
5.      White-box testing
6.      Black-box testing 
7.      Regression Testing
8.      User Acceptance testing
           

Different tools of functional testing :

There are many available tools which are used to perform functional test on an application. Some of these are mentioned below :

    JUnit – This tool is mainly used to perform Unit test and system test on Java based applications.

    SoapUI - This is one of the best open source tool, used to test Web service of an application. It supports different protocols such as HTTP, JDBC, SOAP, etc.

    Watir - This is also one of the useful functional testing tool used to test web applications. It use Ruby as scripting language and supports the web browser test execution.

Conclusion :
Functional testing is the quality assurance process in which the functionalities of the software system is tested and ensured that all are working properly as specified in the requirement document. The aim behind this test is to check whether the software system is working properly or not.

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