Interview advice for Test Analysts

hi I'm Julie mom biloba and I had a power test team here at Qualcomm consulting I'm joined today by Lee Rathbone he was here to tell us what makes a good test analyst and Lee is from shop direct he used the test principle over there I'm so we're quite lucky to have him today really ok Lee so why don't you begin by telling us a little bit more about your professional background ok cool been in the testing arena for twenty years now now that sounds a long time but in that twenty years I've been in twenty ten different companies so started in 1998 as a test analyst and I realized very very quickly in my first job that I was lightyears behind everybody else regarding skills and testing knowledge so I devised a quick strategy of jumping around for the first four years to gain knowledge from other companies so the first four years for different companies and then I settled down at Sony Ericsson where it was fantastic I was dealing with cutting-edge technology the world's first touchscreen smartphone which made me feel a bit like a rock star it was really cool working on the world's first SmartWatch in 2006 and it felt wonderful there seven years and I did many different roles there and then in 2009 moved to Sony Playstation another company that has a bit of a WOW factor that is that's the impact I get and people when I do that all worked at Sony Playstation and I spent three wonderful years there as well as head of European test operations learnt a hell of a lot traveled the world and learnt a lot about managing people and from there I've done I've been head of test manager at clinical software firms I've been head of tests I think money which is an online bank company and I'm currently no tests principal shot directs been there probably about two and a half years done a couple of different roles there as well been involved in transformation I'm currently looking at the agile ways of thinking and your ways of working and it's really exciting every day is really different so it keeps me on my toes so that's basically what I've covered in in 20 years of testing very interesting you've obviously mentioned that you've been had a test test managed at multiple organizations I'm sure you would have seen a couple of hundred of the CDs thousands probably I bet I'm so I mean for you what what makes a good to test test analyst that from a CV about that that's layered many layers there so I think the first thing to do is is you get the CV down yeah so for me series all about opinions just like testing is all about opinions and what I like to see on a CV I'm really quite picky about I've got some real pet hates that I don't like to see on CBS and then there's some things I really like to see about a CV so let's start with what I don't like to see on a CV for a test analyst role well I don't like long CDs yeah and I still get to this day see these that six eight pages long and I just think no get to the point because I've made my decision probably within reading a third or two thirds of the fan page so they're just wasting their time going into detail with roles with twenty years ago I don't want to know I want to know where they added value in their latest roles in their last couple of years where's the value add what have they done and when I say dawna what I don't like to see in a CV is almost like a like a job description I don't like to see all I can do defect management well so what what does that add value to who does it add value to what have you done regarding changing test processes that have added value to your customer have you added value to your customer by testing in a different way that's what I'm looking for I'm looking for passion on a CV I'm looking for someone to get to the point quickly probably three pages long it all depends on the role you're advertising for as well so if you look at vert izing for automation and you want to roll this heavily automation based then you're going to be looking for more technical skills you're going to be looking for what languages they've used what frameworks but if you're looking for more of a manual role then you're going to be looking for your more manual exploratory testing skills you're going to be looking for have they done the agile quadrants what can they do around the agile quadrants for are they actually talking the actual quadrants language on their CV are they talking collaboration on their CV this is really important in this day and age and this is the difference now isn't it so if you went back 10 years ago it was all very well to say yeah I work really well in my test team but that's changed now they need to get across on the CV how they collaborate with developers how they're collaborating with business analysts the product owner the Etna scrum master how they're adding value to their customers and that's what I'm looking for on a CV I also look for probably five things throughout the interview process and if I don't see it on the CV I do questioning the five things are the passion yeah curiosity the ability for self-development and this is the main one what you do with those self developing learnings do you come back and bring it back to the team because that's really important isn't it it's all so if you go off and do self development don't keep it to yourself come and bring it back to the squad and then the last one is the team player so you want the same player so that's really what I'm looking for on the CV to the point concise relevance and then I'm looking for those five skills to be embedded somewhere throughout okay Lee so now that you've been blown away by the CV vaccine and what what are the next steps then what would you recommend should be the approach at interview stage well I always think preparation is key and I always can spot a test engineer or a test analyst or anyone that comes in for an interview and hasn't prepared so I'll just give you a few examples how I prepare and they are a bit extreme but I think it'll land a message so things like I will research the people that are interviewing me now I know that sounds really obvious but it when you go for a job interview you usually picked up in reception and you go to a room to be interviewed and that walk from reception to the room could be anything from a couple of seconds or in my instance with direct it was actually about four minutes because it's quite a big site so how you're gonna fill that time really important so what I did with direct was I thought my the person interviewing me I looked at LinkedIn I looked all his likes on Facebook and I started to realize that he was in Shrewsbury and he liked real ale so those two things I combined and in that painful what can be a painful walk and an embarrassing walk from reception to the interview room I just said oh you're from shoes Bri aren't you anyway yeah yeah I am yeah oh you like real eh oh there's a great brewery in Shrewsbury and he was like solo peon I was like yeah and we struck up a conversation immediately nothing they were testing it was a relationship forming and he realized I'd done some research on him as well which I think he quite appreciated so I would say prepare by knowing who's interviewing you researched them look at what companies have been at another instance was at think money the CIO I stalked him and I did my research on him and I found that he'd written a book and it was awesome so at the end of the interview he said if you've got any questions Lee and I said yeah I've got a book for you to sign pulled out of copy of his book and asked him to sign it now that seems creepy and a bit OTC but we laughed and I said I don't want you to sign it I just wanted to show to you that I've done my research on you and not just the company yeah right so research the people are going to interview research the company for God's sake you're looking you're going to a company and you want them to offer you a job yeah why on earth would you not research that company because there might be something in there that you don't actually like it might be they haven't made profit for five years would you want to go to a company that hasn't turned a profit for five years yeah the flip side of that is Spotify haven't turned a profit for ten years and yet they have no problems recruiting so there is a flip side to that but there's loads of things that can do in the build-up to the interview I do expect test analysts or anybody I interview to be smart now I think in the old days that meant a suit and tie I'm slightly more relaxed now in the IT world where you know there is this Google wear jeans to an interview and t-shirts and I'm alright with that as long as it's not a football shirt or something with offensive writing on or the name of a band so that's all the preparation looks ma look the part that's a nice saying that it's not look smart look the part so the preparation is key I would expect them to know the Job Description inside out why wouldn't you you're applying for a job why on earth would you not know the Job Description inside out I would expect them to come prepared with questions but what am I looking for for a test analyst and the interview process I think something is quite important I want to relay actually I always start the interview with a real strange question and I want to tell you what that is I don't want your reaction okay so this question is usually at the end of an interview but I think making a test analyst test engineer make them feeling relaxed is really important so the question is this tell me about yourself what you get also outside of work forget work what's important to you outside of work now that's a very open question now that's usually the question you ask at the end isn't it what's your interest what's your hobbies that kind of thing yeah but actually asking it at the beginning actually can shape the rest of the interview you know letting them tell you that they like really or they support certain Club you can have a bit of banter with them during the interview at the right stage and I'm not saying look Jack laughing and joking throughout but you can't have that banter then and that's quite important to make them feel really relaxed and calm because they're nervous aren't they we've all been friends abused you get really nervous so I try to make them relaxed so that's all the people side of it during the interview I want them to show me what they're gonna come and answer my company I want them to tell me how they're going to change our testing world I want them to show me how they're going to become a better test of them mate I don't want to recruit people that are not better than me I want them to be better I want to learn from them and I want them to walk our average bar and uh pits are there so in in an interview I want the test analyst to demonstrate that they're curious they do their self-developing they come back and share their learnings they go to meetups listen to testing podcasts they watch James Whittaker on YouTube and watch his videos and get great inspiration from that don't read a testing book everybody has a different style of learning I want them to demonstrate in that interview what is their learning technique of what do they get from the learnings how do they then bring them back and change the world if they go to test conferences test conferences what do they bring back it's not a case of just going on a journey what are you coming and bringing back qualifications is tqb you probably coming across that they've got to be is TQ being qualified why would be my first question but those that have it on their CV my question to them is that's great you've got it but how did it change the way you acted what did you change when you passed your exam what did you do after that's what I'm looking for the curiosity and a question I always ask in an interview which shows the curiosity bit is what's the best defect you've ever found and why now that's a kickback for me is a kind of question because first of all it makes it really is a swerve ball question in the interview it's like wow I wasn't expecting that but the answer is really important because what I'm looking for is they found a defect it made them curious they then went and research the defect they look for the root cause analysis the one who spoke to people about it they engaged people they then looked at different devices it's all curiosity yeah then that's the why question why is that happened and it's all this curiosity that I'm looking for and then it's not just a case of finding a defect and throwing over to the developer it's giving the developer as much as possible the team as much information as possible in order for the squad to decide whether they fix it what they do with it whether the product owner understands it it's the whole journey I'm not just looking for oh I found a defect and it crashed the system so what yeah it's how did you find it what made you curious about that defect what made you go deeper into the code did you go into the code you know it's all of that is the whole story I'm looking for them to tell me a story yeah storytelling is really important in this day and age I think to get your points across so I'm looking for that storytelling almost technique to relay how curious they are really really important for testers so what else am I looking for obviously how they interact with swerve ball questions so that one about what's your best defect yeah I've I've seen testers with 20 years experience completely fold because they couldn't think on their feet and sometimes testing is about thinking on your feet for Ettore testing is about doing your next action based on your last action that's what exploratory testing is it's exploring and if you have to stop and think for an hour as to what you do next then you're gonna be wasting time so those kind of swerve ball questions there emotional reaction I think can tell me a lot about how they were cope in a real-life situation where they're given a swerve ball let's face it in software when you build software now you're thrown swerve balls every day because software so complex now sometimes you don't know what you're gonna get so those were balls how they react to I want to know sort of what technical skills they've got so have they gone below the UI layer and gone to the API level yeah are they testing using postman suits oqi are they automating any of those tests are they going to the developers and talking about unit tests are they going look to the developer and saying hey dude show me what your units has to look like give me a test drive of your code before you actually pass it to me it's these kind of behaviors which means they actually get quality because sometimes I think testing and testers think they own quality they're a gate and it's all on them the world's changed 15 years ago that was where testing was in the software development world the world's changed testing is now everybody's responsibility everybody should be doing some form of testing and thinking about quality and this whole developers doing unit tests that's great but actually the conversation between the developer and the tester about what the developer unit tested is as important because then that drives the testers behavior as to what they need to do because they shouldn't be replicating what the developer does so what I'm looking for is examples of collaboration what challenges they face would going and speaking to developers because developers can be introverts let's face facts so how do they overcome that hurdle so I'm looking for a number of things that makes a great test engineer or a test analyst okay Lee so everything that you've been saying has been very very interesting I'm sure the listeners and viewers will find this very very interest in themselves and what would you say is the one big tip that you you would give test analysts out there you know some sort of advice on their career growth and self-development really wow that's a really good question I think I would say get involved with the test community in your region so every region I think the test community in Britain is really strong so yeah it's incredible Ron blown away by and I think if you look at the other crafts I think the developer community is always being quite strong the other crafts don't seem to be on the same level as maybe the test communities so wherever you are in Britain there will be a test community you can plug in so physically by visiting people but the test community is more than that so that visiting people could be in the shape of meetups or the event that we're going to tonight the test bus so all these community events take place but if you're not a person that likes to go to meetups then there's other ways to get involved in the community the online testing community is really strong so whatever it is explore where your test community is explore where you get your learnings and your self development from and follow that path so an example could be 2009 I got I discovered the test community on Twitter I didn't even know it existed I'd been on Twitter for about a year I thought it was just a place where you just win and spoke to some celebrities and you might get some replies but then I discovered a whole load of testing thought leaders were on Twitter and they were giving away their thoughts for nothing they were giving away their help and advice for absolutely free and it bred this giving back sort of community feel and it's bread and bread and now everywhere anywhere you get involved in the test community you'll come across people that just want to help they want to give advice they want to help you build your career and we see it at the liberal tester gathering the event I host with with the other guys we have people making their speaking debuts of which you saw two people make their speaking debuts when you came a couple of months ago test bash which is coming up in October again will see people making their public speaking debuts there which is brilliant it's giving them the opportunity of life skills you know there's podcast going on so there's let's talk about test baby which is Jim Hill she does podcasts in this city every two weeks she's out with a microphone interviewing test testers saying how you upscaling how would you give back to the community it's brilliant man and this is going on I'm just giving you little snippets but this is going on everywhere there's a great podcast called testing in the pub which has got Dan ASPI on it and it's Brit because I actually record it in the pub and you can hear glasses smashing and people talk in the background but the testers because London has that community of meeting up in pubs after work it's a natural place to talk afterwards so they've built a community of going to the pub and talk and testing recording it and giving it back to people I think that's amazing it blows me away I think it's the strongest you know when it comes to podcasts and networking events and you know that the everybody's generally together it is becomes a small world once once you're in it almost in fact it is it is big I mean could you give us some examples you've already mentioned some events that people can attend right test boss Liverpool Tesco they're in a van and could you could you give us like some some more examples and we're yeah sure this is Leeds testa Gathering which is a fantastic event run run by a Gwen diagram and Ash winter they're two really cool cats they also do agile eats and they're involved in that and they also do something called bleeds at cilia which is something they do every six months it's one days of conference it's very rustic and bohemian and that's free to attend free and all day test conference it's free so that's the sort of Leeds area in Manchester we have the test hive which is every month it's run by a couple of called caps from thought works and they go really deep into testing topics and they're really technical really cool and we have the Manchester tester Gathering which had their event two nights ago where they spoke about AI and the return of the robots and all that and that was really cool they had somebody from Twitter darling via Skype and give a talk over Skype about AI so that was really cool as well so those are the two events in Manchester we have dev my chest the depths which isn't a testing meter but I think something really important to land here is if a tester wants to grow they will get fuel from the testing community but actually getting fuel from other crafts is really important yeah so Chester devs is really cool it's run really well and then there's agile Manchester which is a meet-up and it's run by oh god is known in Ian Carroll really cool cat and that's all I can tell obviously so of course if you want to get fuel there's loads of different things you can go to there's gonna be a new testing meetup in Stoke which I think Matthew Parker is gonna get involved in okay so that's that's not too far away from the northwest so you can see all these little fire starters starting their their own meetups and it's because they get support from the test community yeah and even the test community supports Chester domes or supports at John Manchester Liverpool test together and we promote at John Manchester because we think some really cool events so there's loads going on if you go to the meetup app you can just type in your postcode do search and a load of meetups will come back and you can choose what you want to go to yeah really cool and Minister Ministry of testing has a web page that says he's the upcoming events so you can go to their website and that's really cool and just get a hit there on Twitter and say dudes I'm from this part of the country is there anything happening that you guys are aware of and I'll give you a great example a lady who works for a gaming company got in touch to me said I've just moved to Stockholm is there a meet-up in Stockholm so all I did was put it out Twitter yeah the replies I got was incredible this is something like three different testing meetups in Stockholm and she's now going to a couple of them that's powerful isn't it that's the test community helping each other just linking each other up with eg brilliant thank you ever so much late for all of this information I've personally found it useful as a recruiter and I couldn't imagine what you know test analyst and even test managers test leads and heads of test might you know how they would find this so relevant and just before we wrap up obviously there is so many events out there I'm sure people the viewers will want to get in touch with you personally yeah sure how can they get in touch with you there's loads of ways they can come to Liverpool testing gathering and have a chat with me on Twitter I am at Villa beau I'm easily findable on LinkedIn because there aren't many Lee Rathbone spelt the way I spell my first name that can drop me an email at shop direct that's leader Rathbone at shop direct calm I'm very open to having chats on skype on a night time I often do that with people complete strangers which blows the wives mind when I say I'm having a Skype session with a complete stranger but what I'm trying to do now is collate all of the articles are right for LinkedIn and all the powerpoints on SlideShare what I'm trying to do is collate a central place I'm just going to try and build my own website so that people can just go on there and if they want to see a blog that I did on LinkedIn that can go on there and find it if they want to see a PowerPoint that I did on SlideShare it'll be there so I'm trying to get all my thoughts are put on all the different social medias I'm just trying to put it into one place so it's when I've published that I'll put it through all the social medias they've been easily findable absolutely and obviously congratulations on that as well cos a very very big step isn't it yeah and building your own website and getting your own stuff and everything so never know might become a celebrity Thanks thank you so much thank you lovely pleasure all right thanks Julie thank you for watching today's interview with Lee Rathbone if you'd like to get in touch please follow us on comm consulting co uk well you'll be able to find some more videos podcasts white papers and if you need some of our support on your CB or anything further you can get in touch with us on there

Channel: Corecom Consulting

Views: 6,106

Keywords: Test Analyst, Test Analyst advice, Software Testing, Software Testing Interviews, Leigh Rathbone, Corecom Consulting, IT Recruitment, Interview advice, interview advice for test analysts

Id: Jg6apW44zzg

Length: 24min 53sec (1493 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 17 2018