Are testers still being hired on their testing ability?

Are testers still being hired on their testing ability?

I'm looking for work, I'm a tester. I've noticed, in the UK at least, that the majority of roles are:
a. Extremely specific - To the point that people are either lying to get hired and/or just don't exist and so are lying to get hired or nobody is getting hired.
b. A lot of job descriptions mention Agile and are only looking for people with Agile experience, but there are a lot of organisations who admit they aren't doing Agile properly or are looking for help doing Agile so again people are lying to get hired or nobody is getting hired. Or the organisation (judging from the job description) have no idea what they are doing and have just decided they are agile. If you have been working some where in a collaborative team, working to tight schedules, getting the job done, you won't get a look in because the organisations hasn't adopted the Agile 'badge'.
c. Agile is about the people, the right people, using the right tools, which ever tools they maybe, working together, using process which help instead of hinder to get the job done. So then looking for people with experience with a specific tool rather then the capabilities of working with any tool is against the Agile 'spirit' is it not? Looking for people who have had experience in a certain industry rather then the right capabilities and drive is against the Agile 'spirit' is it not? Am I missing something?
d. Organisations are in such a rush that testing is actually third or forth on the list of requirements when they are looking for a tester. IE security clearance, experience in an industry like insurance, finance, etc come first. Candidates aren't actually being vetted just checklists ticked off..
e. Because organisations are so specific(ally wrong) that they maybe missing out on the right people for the job.

I can understand looking for someone with experience with the tools you use and experience in the industry but it seems like it's got to such a point that these are the first choice rather then a good candidate with the ability to use the tools you have and learn the industry, experience is what you do with it, are you sure you have the right candidate?

Or maybe it's just me?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by phil kirkham on September 16, 2009 at 7:35pm: I'm wondering on the 'still' part of your question - was there A Golden Age when testers were hired because they were good testers ?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Iain McCowatt on September 17, 2009 at 12:02am: I'd agree with Phil.

In my own (limited) experience of the process, many recruiting managers, and many testers, don't know what constitutes a good tester. I'm not entirely convinced that I do yet, though I'm forming some opinions.

Personally, I got my start in testing for one reason - I was available. I see a lot of that going on now.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Peter Nairn on September 18, 2009 at 8:35am: I understand the cynicism, Phil, but I, and I am sure I am not the only one out there, only hire people who are good testers. Or, at least, I try to - sometimes I get it wrong.

It is very difficult for the hiring manager to determine on a CV or in an interview whether someone is a good tester or not and that, I suspect, is why some managers fall back on the "what tools/methodologies/technology do you know?" questions rather than the "what can you do?" questions. It is equally difficult for the candidate to put across on their CV or in an interview that they are a good tester and I see some really bad CVs where testing is hardly mentioned at all.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by phil kirkham on September 18, 2009 at 11:05am: I do have to admit that looking back my CV probably didn't scream out GREAT TESTER but I thought I had enough to at least get a phone call or two...

as for finding out if someone is a great tester in an interview, does that mean it's time to resurrect the "Do you ask candidates how they would test a pencil/coffee machine" discussion ?

:); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Andy Smith on September 18, 2009 at 11:29am: Well, I've recently re-visited my own CV after many years and frankly its a bit rubbish! I know what I can do and I'll be happy to show it, but even with all my years of advising applicants and reading/appraising/binning CVs and such like, I still don't think that it sells me particularly well on paper.
So I've taken a two-sided approach: a very simple buzzword CV that makes few exceptional claims but will work well in an agent's keyword-mincer, and a separate business-focussed CV that demonstrates my wider experience but puts it into a testing context.
More than likely neither will ever make a blind bit of difference to my career! We'll see...

Phil, I know it was in jest but you're right about the 'quirky interview question' approach. The thought process of a tester is unique, and taking unconventional scenarios and converting them into a test can work. I've done it in interview-technique workshops but never yet in an interview.
If, without any time to prepare, you can intuitively consider stuff like breaking a requirement into actionable steps, expected results and how to collect & report them, suggested datasets and boundaries etc etc, then it maybe shows a natural 'agility' of mind. (No pun intended).; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Tony Bruce on September 18, 2009 at 12:38pm: Andy, I'd like to check out your CV, and I'm willing to share mine if your anybody else wants a look.

Phil made a good point I might try and change a few things around, highlight why I did things rather then just what I did.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Andy Smith on September 18, 2009 at 1:05pm: Tony,

Check out http://www.vandjassociates.com/cv-clinic.htm. Victoria comes highly-recommended, and there are other such sites of course. Get a professionals perspective on this; too many people scoff at such an idea but a good CV advisor really knows their stuff.

And the agents you talk to, seems like there's a fair bit of time spent sitting around at those offices just now from my conversations with them. Business is not booming, so you might find out exactly how much they care about their candidates by asking them for some tips too. (Would also help you to identify who deserves to get a cut from your next placement!); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Joel Montvelisky on September 17, 2009 at 7:50am: I will be over-simplistic and divide the world into 2 types of Organizations:
One type that of organizations that don't get it and look for the wrong people for the wrong reasons
The other type that understands that you look for the right people and their knowledge is an added value and not a most-have requirement.

I've worked in both types and believe me that you don't want to be on the first one.

Easy for me to say since I have a job, but you should keep on looking until you get to one where they see the value in people and not in the lines of their resume.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by phil kirkham on September 17, 2009 at 9:41am: If you haven't noticed it on the list of blog feeds, see Peter Nairn's recent blog post about The problem with hiring testers; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Albert Gareev on September 17, 2009 at 12:26pm: When I had openings for QA Analyst and Automation Developer in my team I used to create detailed skill matrices document, resume assessment checklist, and questionnaire - and conduct a couple of meetings with hiring manager and HR to elaborate with them the right picture of expectations/requirements.

In general, I would separate the problem.
1) It could be a hiring manager who doesn't develop the right requirements for a position
2) It could be a recruiter who misinterpret or doesn't care about requirements

For (1), "getting hired" problem is just a top of the iceberg.
For (2), there are certain techniques to overcome this phase.

Thanks.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Albert Gareev on September 17, 2009 at 1:26pm: That's what I'd like to add here from StackOverflow.

People care to find a good tester and do realize it's a special thing.

* It's been my experience in the past that the "10-1" rule for developers (good devs are 10 times more productive than mediocre devs) is even more prevalent for testers

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/61532/tips-for-hiring-good-testers

Managers and developers do value testing job.

* In the companies I have worked for, the testers are called "Sr Developers." Testers in general are a key, since testing your own code never works.

* We have 3 testers (and another new one next week) to our 11 developers. Having testers has helped out my code considerably to find little things I didn't think of, or completely iron out bugs by helping with the building a test plan into the design of whatever project I'm working on.

* Non-techies as testers are a valuable resource. You cannot imagine what these guys can find bugs.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12488/do-you-or-your-company-hir...

* ...You mention "hiring a tester is more cheaper", which an initial issue. Hiring the type of testers you want to have isn't going to cost you less than a developer. The usual opinion is caused by hiring less skilled testers, which of course will charge less

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/648387/which-one-should-i-hire-n...

* Our QA team does a bit of breaking and a lot of verification, both of which, I think, are the basic points of having QA. They're the final rigorous test point between your code and the production environment or RTM.
While they don't actively try to break the application, they're very good at doing the kind of things that users are going to try to do. This, at some point, does end up breaking the application

* ...In many instances I'd be delighted if QA did that. My experience is that if QA exists at all it often consists of poorly paid agency recruits with the barest understanding of the business. Doing QA well is hard, like programming is hard, it's rarely resourced or managed as the crucial part of the development process that it is.

* To a person, all the development managers wish we would get more QA people rather than configuration management because we have found that QA is extremely valuable to us and configuration management only causes projects to get farther behind while we wait for someone to put the new code out on the release schedule rather than when it is ready to go. Developers have blind spots in testing their own code (we know how it is supposed to wrok after all) and good QA people will always find things the developers missed.
I think the biggest problem with getting good QA people is the salaries tend to be on the lower side.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/495443/is-your-qa-team-effective; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Tony Bruce on September 18, 2009 at 11:52am: It's hard to make your CV scream out 'GREAT TESTER', although judging by the job descriptions out there it would need to scream out, '3 years in insurance', 'licence to kill level security clearance', '4 years as a Developer with NASA' and 'a cousin named Bob' first. :-)
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Heh, you gotta laugh, I just saw a job post, under Technical Skills: 'MS Office Suite'.; ▶ Reply to This