Hi I have been using this site to get familiar with QA testing but know that I eventually needa a certification, what companies do yall prefer and a disclaimer Iām american if that makes a difference.
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Hey @candace_l is a certification something that youāre seeing companies in your area requiring?
I ask based on an older post on this forum Are software Testing Certifications worth it?
Based on my own experiences, Iād suggest exploring:
- Software Testing Essentials which has a free online course that you can take in your own time or a 3 day paid for online version. You can get a certificate of completion at the end if needed for an employer. I took this as training at a conference in its previous form.
- BBST Foundations whose content you can access freely under the creative commons licence but to get a certificate of completion, you will need to pay and participate in online training. I took this training around a full time job, it was intense but worth it to me in the end.
- Rapid Software Testing I took this training in person so Iām not sure what online versions are currently available. Again, you get a certificate of completion at the end not one of pass or failure.
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Hello @candace_l welcome to the community. I wrote this article for MoT last year of my experiences on the Certified Agile Tester Course. Hopefully, you will find it useful as it has recommendations of whom I think it might be suitable for but any questions please feel free to ask.
As Heather said, Are software testing certifications worth it?
I believe notā¦ but that doesnāt make it easier for you in the world of IT.
I live in Belgium and work as a consultant and loads of our clients ask for a ā ISTQB foundationā certificate. Itās basically a requirement to even be allowed to get into an interviewā¦ Perhaps the question is not āLooking for a course to get certified, which one?ā But what do companies around you require you to have?
Kind regards
Kristof
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Thanks for the reply heather,
Most companies are requiring bachelorās which is odd so i was thinking a certification would suffice, I just really wanted to know besides learning on here and other places what else helps land a QA job, i know coding can be self taught and you have a portfolio to show but it seems different with QA, any help is appreciated this is all new to me.
Thanks that is a great question to ask
Companies donāt require certifications, they require skills.
If you can demonstrate you have skills to get things done, they will hire you*.
If you have publicly available evidence of your skills, such as collaboration to free software, tutorials, high-level discussions in message boards such as MoT and QA Stack Exchange, a track record of freelance work, a blog with valuable content, you will be already ahead of many people with college degrees and a couple of years of a corporate job and people will see you as a potentially good hire.
Additionally, when times pass, most certifications become irrelevant in relation to your experience. Unless you are talking about something extremely specific or a Havard degree, people will talk about your skills and experience rather than your certifications.
Considering the above, this all raises the question: If certifications are less valuable the skills, what alternative ways can I skill-up besides going through certifications, particularly in a faster and cheaper way that fits my learning personality? Certifications are roads - pathways created by someone else; learning in a walk in the forest - the possibility of discovering pathways people havenāt realized. Advantages and disadvantagesā¦
I would recommend James Bachās Secrets of a Scholar Buccaneer and Robert Greeneās Mastery books on the topic.
* Some wonāt because the engineers and HR people may envy your ability to skill-up following a more or less standard learning path, which many people regret having taking. But thatās life, not much to do hereā¦
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here are some courses to get certified i hope that is help for you
Something useful to differentiate QA and testing:
QA > the person does hands on work to optimize product code, infrastructure, processes, services communication, data handling/display, application speed/responsiveness, etc.;
Testing > the person learns about the product through questions, observations, modeling, inferences - in order to find threats to the quality of the product;
For QA Iād recommend programming & development knowledge plus some general computer science things. Then specialize based on your preference or target company or environment. You generally would have to aim to be at least as good as the person/s whoās work you need to optimize.
For Testing, it can be complicated, based on the environment.
If you prefer to have a long term career and be good at this and be respected for your skills:
- get reading the dozens of books about testing and testing related that are available;
- check some good resources/blogs. E.g.: https://www.huibschoots.nl/wordpress/?page_id=441
- practice and get feedback from very good testers.
- Take some BBST courses.
- Do some coding training and start writing some scripts, small tools/programs and automated checkers;
- Consider also RST.
- Learn about the domain for the product available at the company you want to work for;
- Specialize or generalize your skills;
Good shout @heather_reid
How or where do you get access to the BBST content? Weāve a new starter and Iād like to gather as much info as I can for them.
Of course, MoT was the first call!
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@mike_123 Iāve used Cem Kaners page here to access them in the past http://kaner.com/?p=478 The advantage of taking the paid for course is that you are paired with others and have a mentor (very much like in Software Testing Essentials) and so have structured projects to complete and share your findings on.
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Pick something on udemy, they are good, short and cheap. Just search for manual testing and do a sorting by newest and look for something 4+.
Once you are good with basic concepts you can diversify to functional automation, nonfunctional or even RPA.
Good luck
I have taken this course and would recommend Rex Black and his courses
https://rbcs-us.com/training/courses/istqb-foundation-level-training/
After taking this I look at resumes with this certifications and Know the level of testing the applicant is working
I was doing testing before the ISTQB was invented.
So:
- Would my CV never have made it past the gatekeepers of HR?
- Would you reject my CV because you donāt know - or canāt sufficiently judge by comparison - the level of testing I was working to?; or
- Would you be sufficiently interested to want to find out how Iād done all these years in testing without an ISTQB?
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I am confident that your work history and prior experiences and education levels would more than meet the ISTQB certifications and would be clearly highlighted in a Resume.
Yes I do know what is involved in the ISTBQ certs as I have personally taken them. Certifications and College degrees are just levels of training. And as a new tester (OP) starting out, do tend to open doors when history and experience is no available yet. Perhaps I may be taking your comments out of context?
As you are not new to testing /QA Certifications my not be for you.
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As a tester in the US who has done quite a bit of recruiting and interviewing, Iāll say that I donāt put any weight on certifications, at least on the ISTQB. Iāll ask questions that see if you actually understand testing and how to think critically about problems, not questions you could answer by parroting what some certification made up for definitions of terms that may or may not reflect the real world, or the context required for understanding actual testing in a diverse world of different companies and cultures and products and teams all with different problems, risks, priorities, and needs. In fact, if I ask a nuanced question intended to inspire careful thought and I get a shallow ātextbookā answer, that candidate wonāt get far with me. Unfortunately, many candidates who waved around an ISTQB certification have fallen into that category, in my experience. Youāre better off learning the thinking skills that others have discussedāthatās not something the ISTQB will teach you.