Landing a Junior Position in Software Testing
A couple of days ago, I’ve posted an opening for a junior software developer in test. The floodgates opened within minutes. After reading through the first 100 resumes, I paused. I found it odd that not one of them made me want to pick up the phone or shoot out an email (figuratively; actually, we have people for that).
But I did ask myself, why is that? These are ads to catch my attention. Why are they not targeting me better? Why don’t they make me want to bite?
So, for my own sanity, and yours, I’m happy to provide a bit of context and dole out some advice how to get that call when you’re looking to start a career in testing.
#1 — Why testing?
You need to know that in testing, retention is a big problem. Many budding developers see a testing specialization as an inferior career option. They’re willing to take anything to get that crucial first foot in the door, and then keep looking until something more attractive or lucrative pops up.
Hiring managers are sensitive to that.
If I hire you, I want to be assured that you stick around for long enough to make my investment in training you up worthwhile (2 years). Even better, I would like to see you grow in your job and become an expert resource to my team for the long run. Ideally, I’m looking for real passion, interest and aptitude for my field.
So, if your resume tells me that you studied game design, machine learning or robotics, with no further hint on why you suddenly want to test financial systems, you’re going to find yourself on the reject pile.
Instead, let your resume tell me why you want to become a tester. Is it the sleuthing? The problem solving? The passion for making things better?
Show me how your experiences and choices lead to it. And if you cannot do that, perhaps because you’re planning to make a real left-field turn from fish farming, at least write a header paragraph or cover letter to clue me into your rationale.
#2 — Why junior?
In the last few years, the world of software QA has seen tectonic shifts in the needed skillset. From manual to automated, from offshore to onshore, from traditional to agile, from once to continuous etc. And that’s not even counting the rapid evolution of languages and technologies themselves.
Many testing professionals find themselves sidelined by that. They are willing to step down into more junior positions to catch up on trends and tech, or to just get plain working. So, even on junior positions we tend to get a fair amount of resumes with several years’ experience.
If this is you, be aware that this doesn’t sell itself.
Hiring managers might not be sitting there thinking, “Oh, I can get an experienced person instead of a rookie.” Instead, they might be concerned about letting stale skillsets and bad habits into their team. Of having to train away old methods. Many simply prefer to take a bright young mind and train from a blank slate.
Be aware of this. Spell out your career goals and make it clear why you’re considering such a step. Be frank, when you think you have catching up to do, despite your experience. That awareness and willingness to relearn might just get you onto the interview list.
#3 — Be a person, not a list of bullets
There is a real difference between hiring juniors and looking for more senior folks. Technical positions are often key-word driven (domains, technologies, languages, methods, tools), but for junior positions this is less important.
Most applicants are blank slates, fresh out of school, looking for their first job. Schools often teach the same things. Resumes tend to look alike. In other words, it’s not your skills or experiences that will make you stand out.
Juniors are more potential than actual. So as a hiring manager, I am looking to determine how much of a prospect and talent you are. I look for clues in your resume that tell me how driven, how committed you are, how much of a learner, how active in the community. I want to imagine you on my team, how you fit into our culture, how you will work out.
And you only get one page to show me that (because, trust me, I won’t make it to the second page).
The upshot of this is to present yourself as a person, not a list of bullet-points. You have a story, with a unique point of view, and you need your resume to tell it. Don’t reduce yourself to skill lists or projects you worked on. Create context. Add details that help me imagine you. Tell me what you want and what you can do. Show me purpose.
(As an anecdote, the one resume I remember from the first 100 I read was one that said they were looking for a job to pay for air-conditioning. I imagined a hot place. I imagined a real drive to change one’s circumstances. It was just a smidgeon of humor that made this applicant come alive for me, but it could be anything else.)
And this leads me to my last point …
#4 — Sell what you have to meet my needs
This process of imagining needs to work the other way around. You need to try and figure out what an employer is looking for, and then tailor your resume to that.
Look at the job posting and figure out what is boilerplate and what is specific and most likely important. If it states that you will need to code in C#, then don’t highlight your experience in JavaScript, Ruby or WordPress. Describe instead how much experience you have in similar languages, and/or when you learned something new and became productive in a short time.
Look at the company’s business domain and what kind of products or service they offer. Emphasize anything in your resume that has a connection to that. And if cannot do that, tell me why you are interested in switching into a different world. If the job is testing embedded software on parking meters, don’t detail your track record in building games or websites. Tell me instead what hooks you into testing IoT devices and what you know about firmware.
So good luck with sticking out of that pile, and let me know if this has helped.
Cheers :)
