Here’s our latest insightful article, " Beating The Odds In A Competitive Job Market" from @mirza. This helpful guide is focused on helping those new to software testing land that elusive first software testing role.
What You’ll Discover:
Crafting a Winning CV: Learn how to make your resume stand out with tips on highlighting transferable skills.
Building Your Network: Understand the importance of joining local software testing communities and how these connections can lead to job recommendations.
Leveraging Social Media: Get strategies for using platforms like LinkedIn to enhance your professional profile.
Engaging in Community and Projects: Find out how hackathons and open source contributions can showcase your dedication and skills to potential employers.
Documenting Your Learning Journey: Consider starting a blog to share your experiences and learnings, which can serve as a powerful tool for gaining visibility in the industry.
and much more!
After reading the articles, share your perspectives and experiences with us:
For those new to software testing: How do you plan to implement these strategies to enhance your job search?
For those who have successfully navigated the job market: What additional advice would you offer to new testers based on your experiences?
Your insights and questions are valuable and may help someone land their first-ever software testing role!
For me, and I know people might hate this. But I’m a consultant and I do a lot of projects. So my Resume contains all of those projects, even if they take only a month. So my resume is like 20 pages.
But I also make it very detailed, a little about the project, tools/skills used. Job description, realization and challenges for each project (if I can).
I often get feedback about it, and only positive feedback “your resume is stunning” and I do NOT lie about anything on my resume, if it’s on there I can do it and explain it perfectly.
I know people are not a fan of a resume with more then 2 pages but for me it’s been a great win, I wouldn’t want it any different. I often don’t even need an interview and people just say “he can come” but then I request the interview since I still want to know some details beforehand to see if I take the job or not
So maybe try it
Disclaimer: No success guaranteed! XD I suppose this would only work for consultants?
just my 2cents ^^
I totally agree on building relationships, expanding the network etc.
Join meetups, get your name out there, try social media or a blog site (I fail at the so much I know it’s hard XD) but I would still advise it!
EDIT: after submitting this… I only just saw the “junior” part >.<
I think that it is a good tip for consultants since it does differ from regular jobs somewhat. I’ll have to give it a try and make a detailed CV as well to see the reactions, right now I have a laconic one-page CV.
I got a job that was opened for a Senior for my first job as a tester(after having over 80 other applications and 20 interviews). This was about 13 years ago.
My advantages:
I did great at the internal testing exercise they gave me(come into their office, put me in front of a PC, in an open space with 20+ other people around, gave me the task to find as many bugs as I can in a given piece of software in 2 hours);
A master’s degree in Software Engineering;
I won 3 Beta testing contests they had run yearly in the past 3 years(most bugs found and best bug).
My disadvantages:
0 professional experience
on the spectrum
I was going through a post I’ve mentioned some recommendations recently:
A few of those could be used to enhance the article.
I would say your personal network is the biggest help here.
Aside from that, showing that you are interested in learning by taking courses, asking good questions in the interview, blogging etc.
While I think there is value in experience, there is also value in having someone who is like a blank slate and you don’t need to have them unlearn bad habits.
