Hi all,
I have 4 years of .Net Backend experience. I have a gap 2 years in my career as unemployment (2021 and 2022) due to my personal affair. When I looked back myself, I decided to transfer to Manual Tester Position.
I have just learned the basic ISTQB by myself, but not have the certification yet. Iâve followed the article in this Ministry of testing to learn (30 Things Every New Software Tester Should Learn | Ministry of Testing).
I am confused to get an opportunity to have the interview offer for the Fresher Manual Tester Position. How can I have a chance to get job interview offer and job offer? I just know that my Resume can be easy to ignore due to I just mentioned I used to do some tasks about testing (i.e: authorisation testing), I did some regression testing but itâs not professional as a Tester role, I donât mention it in my Resume because these experience was just small tasks. I just empharise about my teamwork skill, Microsoft offices skill. I choose to start with the Fresher level and Manual Tester Position because I understand I need to learn through working about the Tester daily activities and have open mind to learn to have good Tester mindset by time (although my preparation is not careful).
Can anyone please help to give advice?
I would love to have suggesstion about good free course to learn to show my serious for my career decision.
Iâm not sure where you live but I see here in Belgium that people have the same issue. There are a lot of Junior Tester-Vacancies and a lot of testers apply for it, people with some experience. So yes, I can imagine you getting ignored.
What DOES help in those cases is âBootcamps or Traineeshipsâ - Often provided by Consultancy Companies, which hire you, get you through a bootcamp of 1-3 weeks (sometimes longer) and then âdeploy you as a serviceâ to their customers. Which is extremely fun and a huge learning opportunity.
Thank you for your advice quickly.
I am living in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. I have found the intership program, some companies might pay really low, and some companies donât pay.
I applied for the intership program at a company on the online job site, but the company didnât reply anything. I should apply more and find more opportunities.
This is of course dependant of the local job market. But from a hiring perspective, here are some questions you might need to adress in your CV.
In general being a developer is considered âbetterâ than a tester. So I would interpret this as you are not good enough as a developer, paired with the unemployment I would assume you are trying to take the easier route. So you really have to answer why I should consider you as a tester and not a âfailedâ developer. Also if you know how to develop why are you not looking for Test Automation jobs?
Secondly I would be concerned with the 4 years of experience that Iâm not sure that I can use but you might require me to pay for.
Both of these are hard to make up for in a CV. So if would really try to attach a letter of some kind, to push why you are transitioning to testing, and that you want to learn the role etc. Myself for instance was in a similar position and then I said something on the line of as a tester I can work with many different things, that plays to my strength and do what is most valuable for the company, over focusing on a small aspect of the system as a developer.
As for the CV itself, push on anything related to testing you did in your previous role, i.e. if you remove that you were a developer and look at it from a tester perspective. Maybe you help structure the work, was communication with stakeholders or different teams. Did you do unit testing, looking at the product from a quality perspective. So when I read your previous experience it does not sound like it is irrelevant for the job you are applying from. If it is not applicable, then it might be better to leave it out entirely. So you can land the interview as a junior tester, and then in the interview when they ask what you have done the last 6 years you can have a good answer there instead.
In addition, I would suggest a couple more specific things based on your original post.
ISTQB, in my opinion, encourages a lot of the bad and shallow thinking about testing that I mention in my first post by reducing testing to a bunch of dictionary definitions and contextless, multiple-choice answers. There are much better alternatives that will allow you to stand out in a crowd of candidates by improving your critical thinking, ability to spot risk, communicate issues clearly, etc.
I wouldnât sell yourself as a âmanual testerâ. Sell yourself as a tester. The âmanualâ modifier is often used on job descriptions by companies that have a shallow view of testing and donât appropriately value it. Itâs viewed as unskilled and âanyone can do itâ. While that might sound like that would make it easier to get your foot in the door, in reality youâre probably going to find the company treating testing as an afterthought, not listening to your feedback as a tester, and being treated as a perpetual âsecond-classâ citizen whoâs the first to be cut when schedule or budget gets tight and the first to be blamed when bugs escape. All testers use tools whether they write code or not, and your brain is far more important than your hands .
The above answers have a lot of information so I will try not to repeat too much of what has been said.
While I agree with c32hedgeâs evaluation of the ISTQB, it is still an industry recognised qualification and it will prove you are familiar with some of the core concepts of testing.
But be wary if in any interviews that is all they focus on as this could indicate a poor opinion of testing as per c32hedge warns.
I think in terms of further learning, look into what career paths there are and look for related courses and videos.
A few examples care Automation, performance security etc.
Gaining a little bit of knowledge in these areas would show to potential employers that you are interested in testing as itâs own career and not just as a stepping stone to a different job in the IT industry.
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