How do you hire a junior tester?

I recently participated in a workshop that was co-hosted by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) and New Zealand IT Professionals (ITP). They're exploring the idea of creating a new qualification for software testing within our tertiary education system.

One of the topics of conversation that I found interesting was the question of how employers currently recruit junior testers. By junior, I mean a person with no experience in testing, regardless of age or other work history. As there are no dedicated testing qualifications* at present, where do new testers come from?

I sat in a discussion group with Aaron Hodder, Adam Howard, and Anna Marshall. We came up with a list of ways that we found the junior testers in our organisations that included, in no particular order:

• the business - subject matter experts who show aptitude for testing
• overseas - new arrivals to New Zealand may start in a junior role
• internships - through programs like Summer of Tech
• consulting firms - local consultancies who run their own graduate training and placement
• graduates - those who are fresh from study

In my experience, finding candidates for a junior testing role is not a problem. When I've advertised a role that is suited to the wide audience defined above, I've had a lot of applicants. Testing is seen as a pathway into the IT industry, so there is a lot of interest.

I think that the workshop question is more interesting when it is considered in a slightly different way. As there are no dedicated testing qualifications at present, by what criteria do you recruit junior testers? In other words, how do you decide which person to hire?

I assess the testers who work in our agile delivery teams by six criteria that can be broadly summarised as:

1. Testing knowledge and experience
2. Automation knowledge and experience
3. Agile knowledge and experience
4. Domain knowledge
5. People skills
6. Growth mindset

I'm not looking to hire people who hit all of those criteria. I am looking to create testing teams with complementary individual strengths that mean we are collectively strong in all of those criteria. This applies across all testers, not just juniors.

When I hire a junior, I'm generally looking at the latter criteria in the list. While a junior may have knowledge of testing, automation and agile, it is likely to be entirely theoretical. I probably have strong testing, automation, and agile skills in the existing testing team anyway. The strengths that a junior might bring are their domain knowledge, people skills, and growth mindset.

I've talked previously about why you should hire junior testers. The benefits that I see in making junior testers part of the team, which largely focus on their attitude and behaviour, can be difficult to quantify. Similarly, the attributes that I am looking for in order to realise those benefits can be difficult to quantify, which means that they generally aren't assessed in an IT qualification.

I look for juniors who can communicate and work well in a team. People who are eager to learn, pick up new ideas quickly, and constantly search for a better way of doing things. Perhaps people with these traits are more likely to pursue higher education, but not necessarily. A person can pass a qualification without possessing these particular skills.

So, would it be useful to create a software testing qualification? Perhaps. If the qualification had a strong syllabus that was delivered in a practical manner, then hiring someone with this qualification might save some time when explaining basic concepts.

Would the presence of a software testing qualification change how I hire junior testers? Perhaps. The presence of such a qualification might increase the chance that I interview a candidate as I would spot it when screening CVs, but I'm not sure that it would have a significant bearing on the final criteria by which I hire.

Does New Zealand need a new software testing qualification? Perhaps. When I received the invitation to the workshop I thought it sounded like a great idea. As a trainer I was excited about the challenge of creating a syllabus. But the more that I've thought about it from the perspective of an employer, the less sure I become.

Now I'm curious. How do you hire a junior tester? By what criteria do you choose a candidate? Is there a software testing qualification in your country? Do you think there should be? I welcome your comments below.


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* ISTQB is a certification, not a qualification. A certification is an official document attesting to a status or level of achievement. A qualification is a pass of an examination or an official completion of a course, especially one conferring status as a recognized practitioner of a profession or activity.