ISTQB Certification - Thoughts, Experiences, Tips?

Discussions
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I’ve gotten to the point of believing that ISTQB is not just unhelpful, but actively harmful to the craft of testing.

I’m not a consultant or marketing anything. I’ve just interviewed a lot of candidates for both senior and entry-level testing roles and seen an astonishing general lack of critical thinking and creativity that I believe is in large part encouraged by this certification and the associated mindset that testing is about mindlessly churning out and executing test cases. It shouldn’t be the case that one can interview candidate after candidate claiming to have 10+ years of experience and yet their responses to very basic test design questions or hands-on testing exercises are generic, vague, shallow, and boring. It’s a disturbing trend and one that has made me generally favor hiring fresh college graduates because they are still full of creativity and curiosity, and haven’t been dumbed down by ISTQB and confirmatory mindset test practices.

Many of the arguments I hear (I’m not looking at a particular response, more of a “patterns over time” observation) in favor of people taking the exam don’t really hold water for me, so I’ll try to rebut a few of them here:

  1. “It helps new testers get a foot in the door”: I think it encourages them to enter testing through the wrong door. One that emphasizes a confirmatory mindset and distracts from the critical thinking and creativity required behind a mountain of guff about “planning, managing, estimating, monitoring, and controlling”–not that any of these are necessarily intrinsically bad, but they’re treated as ends in themselves, versus means to and end, and encouraged to be process and paperwork-heavy, which necessarily takes away from actually testing.

  2. “It’s necessary to get a foot in the door with job searches”: While it’s true that some companies likely require the certification, that’s a HUGE red flag for me that they don’t understand what good testing looks like, and I’d stay away from such companies. As for getting your resume past automated filters looking for keywords, simply putting something like “I have chosen not to pursue ISTQB certification and am happy to discuss why” on your resume would both satisfy an automated filter and demonstrate your knowledge and provide a more healthy conversation starter than a certificate.

  3. “It provides a common language by defining a bunch of terms”: Sorry, I just haven’t seen it. I can’t say I’ve actually heard pretty much anyone who both demonstrates that they know what they’re talking about and also uses terms exactly the way the ISTQB syllabus does. But the harmful part is the flip side–people who have taken the certification and walk away thinking there is one “correct” way. The type where you present a vague, ambiguous problem that should obviously require asking a lot of questions to establish context to know what or how to test it and instead you get immediate, shallow “you need to do it this way” answers.

Bottom line, there are much better sources of information on pretty much anything useful to learn about testing than the ISTQB offers, with a lot fewer downsides. Some examples:

  • BBST (Black Box Software Testing) courses
  • Lessons Learned in Software Testing book by Kaner, Bach, and Pettichord
  • Perfect Software, and Other Illusions about Testing book by Jerry Weinberg
  • The Art of Software Testing book by Glen Myers
  • Explore It! book by Elisabeth Hendrickson
  • Learn Software Testing Course by Robert Sabourin and Dr. Lee Hawkins
  • People to follow on LinkedIn and blogs (just to name a few):
    • Michael Bolton
    • Wayne Roseberry
    • Brijesh Deb
    • Richard Bradshaw
    • Alan Richardson
    • Angie Jones
    • Bas Dijkstra
    • Paul Grizzaffi
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I struggle to believe that someone entering the world of software QA lacks the imagination to grasp that testing software is not a thing that can be learned in a book with a test at the end. If people have come to that belief, then it may well be due to other forces, because testers need to only enter the industry because they care about the lived experience of other people struggling to use a tool. No amount of imagination can teach you that out of a book.
As interviewers, perhaps we lack imagination for ways to weed out, people queuing up merely for a paycheque. Woah, that makes it sound like a special kind of club where we only want people who care about the art to get in? I hope not. In my imagination, people become software testers in 2 ways.

  1. Because they have seen a job chance and to do a thing they enjoy. Many are not programmers, but want to help build great things.
  2. Many are programmers who want to build greater things. Software testing is highly demanding and can be demoralising work at times, if you don’t like dealing with late deliveries and deadlines, and then having to assess risks, then it’s not the job for you.

Anyone wanting to learn about software creation by becoming a tester first might even not have heard of ISTQB until after they start their first job. Anyone coming from the pool of programmers who become testers will know about it, and will be under no illusion that a book and a exam will make their career path change in one week. I used the ISTQB Foundation as a “in between filler” or a booster if you like, to build up my confidence in a career path change that I had already been on for well over a year. Getting your drivers license in the post when you turn 17, does not make you a “driver”, that’s perhaps where the lack of imagination starts, if it did.

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Great to see your interest in the ISTQB Foundation Level!
I went through it a while back and found it really helpful for building a structured approach to testing. It definitely adds credibility to a CV since many recruiters recognize it as a standard certification. My tip for preparation would be to focus on understanding the key concepts in the syllabus rather than memorizing every detail.
If you’re looking for study materials or practice exams, platforms like Cert Empire can be a solid resource to guide your preparation. Advancing beyond the foundation level can also open up broader opportunities in your testing career.