Wanted - Software Testers!

I just read Pradeep's post on the Change in Hiring and Interviewing Process in India. Wonderful Article. Last time around when I was looking out for a job change, I used to be surprised whenever a HR person called in to check if I had any QA Certification. If my answer was in the negative, they would say that my profile did not suit their requirement. How can people judge me based on a certification? Shouldn't they challenge my ability to test a product instead of asking me whether I have passed a QA Certification or not?

I get excited when I hear that Testers are going to be tested real-time by giving a product/application to test, observe the test report submitted by them and then assess the tester. This is a huge challenge though. Every candidate needs to be given a separate application to test. If a candidate has gone through this test once, then the word spreads that the Organization X gives an application Y to test. Hence the application needs to be sufficiently complex to challenge the candidate no matter how well prepared the candidate is. From the Organization X perspective, it takes a lot of courage, patience and time to adopt this practical method of interviewing software testers. Calling in scores of testers to take up real-time testing challenge, arranging machines for them, reading through their test reports and finally assessing them is definitely very very tough and time consuming when compared to giving a written test and interviewing the highest scorer. Its sad, but true that a lot of testers either interview in this traditional way or get interviewed in this way.

Lets denounce the Traditional Way of Interviewing!

Happy Testing,
Pari - http://curioustester.blogspot.com/