Søren Lynggaard and Pusser Janvit, KMD

T2 - How To Hire A True Tester

www.eurostarconferences.com

@esconfs#esconfs

LINK

”Everybody can test” - attitude is harmful for the hiringprocess

Testing profession is sometimes regarded as limited to acting like an end-user

HR people do not ask questions about testing - most managers do, but only few of them really understands the answers

What do you think?- about the interviewer- about the interview technique- about the candidate. Is she a true tester?

Steps in the new hiring process:

1. Determining required skills & experiences for job posting

2. Screening of applicants – selecting candidates for interview

3. Interviewing selected candidates

4. Screening of candidates - selecting the new true tester(s)

… is a term used for describing the ideal tester at KMD A/S -your company probably has different needs

… really understands the complexity of software

… can apply various testing techniques

… cooperates effectively with developers and otherstakeholders

… has a logical and systematic thinking – but is also creativein eg. explorative testing

… can quickly understand the domain of the users

… has the right tester spirit

Be as specific as possible – true testers like it

Setting the bar too low generates a lot of irrelevant applications, you have to handle

Write what you do not want (ie. exclude skills you do not need)

Establish weighting of the individual qualifications and skills

Tip: Applicants with some developer experience are often good candidates for being a true tester

Determine and prioritise desired/required qualifications based on knowledge gained so far

Evaluations of applications by looking for the preselected properties of the applicant

Stack ranking of applications

Tip: Excel is your friend (see example on next slide)

Identify questions and problems which will reveal the skills you are looking for

Include both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ test questions

Create lists of most likely answers – AND the answers, you are looking for. This saves interview time as you only have to set check marks and keeps the conversation flowing

Tip: Search for ”Microsoft/Google/… interview questions” to get inspiration, but beware – the applicants do the same !

On-going selection of questions and problems dependent on results of previous questions and problems

Interview answers are mostly recorded by marking check boxes

The technical interview is supplemented by a HR interview in the 2nd interview round

Purpose: Getting started and determine the candidate’sperception of best bug, testing succes …

Q1: ”Please describe the best bug you found during yourlatest testing task”

Q2: ”Please describe your greatest success / failure in testing”

Purpose: to see, if the candidate can understand simple source code, document test cases and know the importanceof testing against requirements

Q: ”Please write the necessary test cases for testing this functionality”

int function mb2 ( int x )

{

if ( x == 7 )

return 10

else

return 2 * x ;

}

Inputx

Expected outputmb2(x)

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

+1 : using equivalence classes / all path coverage

+1 : structuring input and expected output in a table

+1 : consciously avoiding x=5

+2 : considering over-/underflow

+3 : asking for requirements / design

Purpose: reveal the candidate’s ability to apply basic testingskills such as Boundary Value Analysis, Equivalence Partitioning, input and output domain coverage

Q (excerpt): ”As a tester you must design test cases for a web application ”3angle”, which has three input parameters A, B, C (lengths of the sides of the triangle) and outputs this information about the resulting triangle:acute-angled (Y/N), right-angled (Y/N), obtuse-angled(Y/N), isosceles (Y/N), equilateral (Y/N), error (text)”

… see the complete problem in the technical paper

Purpose: observe the practical testing skills of the candidate

Notice the demonstrated approach

Try first without - then with requirements provided

Q: ”Please test this web application as you would normally do”

Application hereRequirements here

Purpose: Identify the candidate’s approach to act in a difficulttesting situation and handling the team’s expectations

Q: ”You have just joined a team as tester. The development of the product is almost complete, and you have witnessed the project manager giving a brief demonstration for the team. The test environment is almost ready; but some problems remain, which block the product from running. The team expects you to start testing tomorrow.What do you do?”

Also evaluate the demonstrated testing attitude !

Thank you

for your participation

Søren & Pusser