Does anyone do any practical interview tests?

Hi all,

As a former recruiter and someone who has recently been through a number of interviews, I have some opinions about thisā€¦

  1. The role / seniority of the person youā€™re looking to hire should definitely be a factor in the kind of interview you conduct - generally, we expect senior colleagues to have more experience and solid knowledge than junior ones
  2. Understanding how the person thinks and approaches testing is more important than the ā€œresultsā€ of the task, or if they can put a name to the techniques they use, in my opinion

Having said that, I also think itā€™s important to ensure that candidates in senior roles have a good foundation of knowledge and understanding to be able to guide and lead junior colleagues, even if you decide that the senior person doesnā€™t need to be a hard-core tester (perhaps in more of a management or consulting role).

In a recent interview I attended, they didnā€™t ask me to complete any tasks at all, but Iā€™d viewed their site and tested the service beforehand and found several bugs / issues that I discussed with them in the interview. I also downloaded the app on mobile and read many reviews on the Play Store. They shared that they were unaware of at least two of the bugs I raised, which I hoped would show them what I would add to the team in a practical situation; what risks I might uncover that others hadnā€™t. An advantage of not asking me to complete any tasks is that I could show them how I took the initiative and what steps I took during my own, self-created, task.

Another interview I attended covered a lot more. They asked me to test their application on site (it involved exchanging money, so I didnā€™t look at it beforehand) and I made sure to ā€œthink out loudā€ throughout - something Iā€™m really big on when it comes to understanding how someone tests. Again, I identified a number of issues they had not (including a potential security issue) and they also got to see me work out what different things were on the actual system Iā€™d be testing, as opposed to something made up and potentially less relevant. They also asked me to name a few testers I admire, which I really liked. This lets you know if a candidate is interested in testing outside of their immediate working environment, in my opinion, and potentially some of the ideas they subscribe to.

To try and answer your questions, Steve, I would suggest that you still have testers test a user story (maybe do this as a three amigos exercise, which I did at another interview (I get around :P)) as well as actual software, as these are different skills and some testers donā€™t even think of testing beyond the SUT (shift left is still unheard of to some people). I would always recommend the ā€œthink out loudā€ technique, and so would discourage tasks that candidates complete at home or by themselves / in silence.

In the user story test, it sounds like youā€™re doing the right thing in terms of amount of information and ā€œholesā€. In the software test, I would give them as little information as possible; probably just the context of the page theyā€™re on / part of the workflow theyā€™re starting in, or to let them know not to click a particular button that goes to the next stage so as to keep it to a specific page / area / feature. For me, personally, Iā€™d look for someone who doesnā€™t need requirements to start testing, which is why Iā€™d keep information to minimum. Of course, they can still ask questions, but they might not realise that, so Iā€™d look out for how they react when they donā€™t know about something. Chris has mentioned some great questions he asks during this kind of task.

As to how long they get, I wouldnā€™t leave them in a room alone to ā€œcompleteā€ the task. For me, itā€™s not about ā€œfinishingā€ it (when is testing ever finished?), so Iā€™d just block out time in the interview for the exercise and get a feeling of when I have enough information to move on to something else.

This response is longer than I intendedā€¦ I think youā€™ve inspired me to write a blog about various testing interview techniques :slight_smile: I hope this was useful to you in some way. Feel free to follow up with questions.

Cassandra

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