How can manual testers thrive in a rapidly evolving world?

In many job interviews ask whether you have experience in test automation, if you say yes. Then they ask the tools. Then again they ask the tool that is using inside the company and if we are not quite familiar, then the whole effort that we have put to the interview is useless. Also the knowledge of manual and other tools are not going to talk for us. So what do you think?

Do manual testers does not needed anymore?
Automation testers will handle them all?
Are there companies who would embrace their hands for experience manual testers?

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At the place where I work there are teams with only manual testers, only automation testers and teams with a mix of both. In my team the testers are currently only doing manual testing and the devs are handling unit tests and code coverage. When I started the process of getting everything ready for the testers to start front-end automation, some team members were actually against us doing automation.

Teams that only do automated tests are missing out on quite a few very important parts of the application to test. There is off course the very obvious user experience and accessibility testing. But often when testing something manually you notice minute details or big oversights or bugs that fall in between tickets and tests. Exploratory testing which uncovers the most random and sometimes big faults can’t really be done automatically, now can it?

People like the sound of automation testing, but don’t realize what they miss without old fashioned pressing buttons yourself. And most likely they don’t really know what they gain from it either.

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I learnt a while ago to redefine these roles. We shouldn’t define any role by the “toys they play with”. We should define the roles for their purpose. So I redefined them. Anyway, I’ll answer your question using your terms.

So we have an even split of “Manual Testers” and “Automation Testers”.

What I found working with Manual testers, they were experts at finding out “WHAT” needs testing. They could analyse stories better, they could think critically about the impact to the users etc.
For Automated Testers, I found working with them, they were experts at finding out “HOW” to test features. They love the work that manual testers do and take what they’ve done and see if there’s better way to test it.

From my experience, finding an automated tester that is an expert at both “WHAT” and “HOW” is rare. I can think of 1 I’ve worked with. The vast majority just wanted to code solutions to executing the manual tests more efficiently. The manual testers will review them to make sure the test still achieves its objective.

So for me, in my organisation, for the products we have to test, manual testers play a pivotal role in test automation that the automation testers couldn’t do as well on their own. Having said that, we have products such as a Data Warehouse that is tested by automated testers only…and yes they find the “WHAT” to test a problem.

Too many trying to compete for too few positions so there’s a few advantages that some get: networking, be quick to apply, be specialized on what they request, not require a visa, know the local languages, have business domain experience, or product types, have experience with a specific tool/programming language, be cheaper than the others, be available immediately for work, have a specifically high level of qualifications or certifications,…the criteria can be so many and seem so random.
Testing skill rarely has anything to do with being hired as a tester. If one memorizes some basic common nonsense sentences it would be enough for most places.