How To Land Your First Job As a QA Tester

How To Land Your First Job As a QA Tester

In most cases, landing a first job is hard. Fresh candidates always feel as if they are experiencing stiff competition from the experienced candidates. You find fresh candidates fearing that the employer will ask for past working experiences and advanced professional skills that they do not have at all. Some of them end up doing minor jobs that are entirely different from what they are skilled in. Others stay at home. It is true employers, especially in advanced countries such as the UK, require experienced employees specifically in QA tester positions. However, this does not mean that as a professional tester beginner, you do not have an opportunity of becoming one. There are several things you can do to find your first job as a QA tester as outlined and discussed below.

 

Have the Necessary Professional and Personal Skills

Being a professional in testing is the first step to getting a job as a QA tester. You need to have the testing skills and knowledge before you embark on sourcing for the experience. Companies working on particular verticals including mobile applications, freelance, gaming, and languages among others can equip you with skills and knowledge essential for QA testing. You can become an expert on these verticals to increase your chances of getting a job as a tester in other companies. For example, in case, you are good at hacking mobile applications, you can perfect this by becoming an expert in mobile apps. Having knowledge in more than three languages means you can be an expert in localization and translation.

Build your personal skills including critical thinking, analytical, efficiency, and cooperation skills. It is important that you participate in interesting post activities such as voluntary and socially-oriented projects. This will ensure you have achievements in your resume. At least engage in concrete things that you will point out in the interview. Those things should relate to your field. For example, you can volunteer to for an IT firm around your locality. Remember this can be both part of your experience and achievements thus is very vital.

 

Source for Experience

Before you land your first job as a QA tester, it is wise to get experience. The current advanced information age has come with numerous crowd-sourcing sites. It is very easy to get experience in testing as compared to the past decades. You not only gain experience from crowd-sourcing but you also have a chance of making money at the same time. To do this, sign up for several crowd testing companies for about three to six months. The worse mistake you can make is doing it as leisure. You may end up not gaining the necessary skills required for real testing. Take time and do it the way you will perform when you get the job. After completing a specified period, remember to include it in your resume. State the technologies, projects, work done, and overall experience gained. This will position you in a higher position during the time of recruitment. It will show that you invested your time in testing hence have experience in it. It will also show your passion for working as a QA tester.

 

 

Apply jobs in firms that require no or less experience

Smaller companies are known to take risks that come with employing less experienced employees. They are open in such a way that their demands are less compared to those of large enterprises. Some of them even hire new candidates and train them until they are conversant with the practical part of testing. They hire individuals based on their knowledge and personal attributes and not their professional experiences. This strategy is used a lot by the most of the experienced testers you see today. They will tell you that they started by working in a small or a start-up firm before advancing to work to great companies they are working for today. You are not an experienced tester to seek jobs in big business. Concentrate on small firms or coming up businesses. You will be assured of getting a job as a QA tester. The good thing with small companies is that they are growing faster. This means they require more and more testers as time goes. It is the reason they have more chances compared to large and established firms.

 

 

Use your connections to seek recommendations

Recommendations in finding a job as a QA tester. You will find employers asking their trusted colleagues who to hire in certain positions. It is evident that those members will mention names of their friends, relatives or people they know. This is the reason why you will find that not all jobs are published in newspapers for the application. Recommendations are good especially to new tester since he or she may not be interviewed. He or she may also be given less challenging but skillful sections.

Inform your family members, relatives, and friends that you are looking for a QA tester job. If possible, contact your tutors from the college you attended. You can also visit your social networks regularly for postings. LinkedIn is professional-oriented; you can consider using it on this. Also, use the internet to search for online QA tester jobs and remote QA tester jobs. You never know where your lack lies.

 

 

Be wise-Avoid Job Search Competition

You are not equal to experienced testers and therefore competing with them means losing a viable job opportunity. Go for the positions that require individuals with minimal experience in testing. Build your success in testing from bottom up not from up. You may find QA Tester jobs in the USA needing experienced testers. Also, requiring new testers to do basic testing tasks and manual work.

Regarding quality assurance tester salary, do not expect to be paid a certain huge amount. An amount that even exceeds that of experienced QA testers. You are a starter and therefore be flexible enough to accept any pay till you advance in skills, knowledge, and expertise. In addition, after getting the job as QA tester, you may not get vast assignments at the beginning. Be patient and show your passion for learning and accomplishing more tasks. Engage with other experienced testers.

 

Author

Lisa Griffin is blogger and freelance writer for EduZaurus. Her lifestyle credo is “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”