Landing a Dream Job

I’ve recently been interviewing for a Lead Tester to join my Team and I’ve been a little dismayed about how unprepared some of the candidates are for interviews be they telephone interviews or face-to-face interviews.

So I’ve decided to put together a few little hints and tips to hopefully help candidates in the job market land their dream job.

• Firstly make sure you customise your CV for each job you apply for. Never send a generic CV to a company and expect it to be good enough. Look through the job specification and list of requirements and tailor your CV to match what they are looking for. Go through your past roles and pick out the parts of the role that matches what you think match the Job Specification.

• Now lets take a look at the cover letter. They do have a bearing on if you will get noticed and virtually all potential employers will look at your cover letter before they look at the CV so make it count. It needs to be about you on a personal level as the CV will tell them all they need to know on a professional level. Hopefully you’ll be like myself and have a real passion for testing if that’s the case then you need to make sure that it comes across in the cover letter.

• Do your homework on the person who you be looking at your details and also the department where you would like to work for. Doing your homework on the company alone is not enough. Anyone can visit the company website and read the blurb however you need the edge so research as much as possible and then use all of that research to let them know you’ve taken the time and effort to find out more than the average Joe about what they do.

• If the Company in question has a Careers or Job offers page or sub site then make sure you register and upload your details before sending in your CV. Not only does it show your interested, it will also show them that your serious about working for them and you are not just sending in your details to every company that comes along.

• If you go to a Careers Fair make sure you have your customises CV with you. It should be no more than 1 page of A-4 you may use both sides if you must however try and bullet point to one side. This CV version is just for the company staff member or Test Manager to see if they think they would like to know more.

• At a careers fair tell them about you and not about your CV they can read the CV however what your CV will not say is what type of person you are and what things excite you.

• Make your CV results oriented. It will mean more if you state  I did this and the positive result for the business was this, over I this this.

• Please show some emotion. You may not believe it, but it’s hard work interviewing all day. It makes it much easier on the both sides if the interviewer can see that the interviewee is excited about coming to work for their company.

• Remember not to be so nervous,  I always tell interviewees that an interview is a two way process and that they should be interviewing us to see if we match up to their ideals as well as us interviewing them to see if I think that they would be a good fit into my Testing Team.

• Keep a note of who you have applied to and if you had a Telephone interview then during the conversation make sure you note down any keyword which you think may be relevant. You can relate these back to the interviewers in a face to face interview.

• Look into Forer Effect Statements / NLP / Confirmation Bias and Subjective Statements. However before you attempt to use any of these techniques make sure you know what your doing as they can work against you if you do not know how to use them correctly. Once mastered you’ll find them indispensable not only in interviews, they can help out also in every day business.

• Look for yourself in a Search Engine and make sure that what you find is suitable. This means that if a potential employer Googled you, would they get a positive result or not?.

• Salery Negotiation – Make sure you know how much it would take for you to leave the place you are currently working and if asked never answer with an “Urmmm” or “I’m looking for something around” . Let them know how much you would like and have a reason why you think that you are worth that amount.

• The most import and last one is BE HONEST.

Good Luck

Martin Hall

Test This

I spoke with one of my previous employees last week who had attended an interview.

The manager of the company in question put a pencil on the table and said “Test That”. Stewart played along and said “where is the Spec”, what is it? what is it’s function.

Now Stewart is no dummy he knew it was a trick question and infact when he told me of the interview we both laughed for about 5-10 minutes saying we need to get some pencils made up with the words  Test That along the side of them for conferences etc.  Needless to say he did not accept the job offer and he classed it as a bad interview. Managers must know that such a basic and 1970′s type question is not going to catch anyone out. Infact its only going to make you and your company look dated. We’ve all heard that question many many times before and it doesn’t get any funnier or more interesting.

My point is that a job interview is a two way process. Yes I’m looking for the right candidate, someone who I think will be an asset not only to my testing team but also to the company as a whole.  A person who will come on board and give their experience gained in other workplaces willingly,  and one who also will be willing to learn a thing or two from the staff members whom are already on the team.  (Personal Development is a great thing).

I also know however that its not only me wanting them that counts but its also them wanting us. This brings me full circle to the post title “We Know What Good Looks Like”. Those were the words used by a previous manger of mine in an interview with me, This statement made me think that things there were not perfect,  however they wanted to change and that if I worked hard I could help them affect this change.

I was infused and accepted the job offer. If that same manager had put a pencil in front of me and said “Test That” I would have just gone through the motions of “what’s its purpose – is there a spec for the pencil”. Playing along with the game. Lets excite people when they walk through our door and not play games.

What does the “Test That pencil”  tell me about a candidate?. It tells me that they have been around the testing circuit.

Why not ask them “Give an example of when would you would have a high priority and low severity defect”. This tells me they know about prioritisation. You’ll be surprised how many people stall on that one.

One of my favourite questions is scenario based and I slip it in after about 10 test based questions.  “Pretend your the manager in a Supermarket and there is a power cut what do you do?”

The great thing about this one is that there is no right or wrong answer. However what I learn from it is the candidates ability to prioritise and also a little something about their skills of thinking on their feet, One thing I’ve noticed that people with management experience almost always go the health and safety route. And testers with no prior management experience attempt to save all the food. What about the tills? can we still take cash, what about the freezer items and those which are perishable. How much light do we have in the store etc.

Like I said there is no wrong or right answer but it has to be a better question than Test That.  If you do use the Supermarket with the power cut then please let me know the types of responses you receive, I’ve had some great ones that have really opened my eyes to candidates lateral thinking.

one of the best posts I’ve seen recently was this one by a company which states “We make shitty software with bugs”

“We’ll make it less shitty. Just watch!”

Yes I laughed but I thought these are guys who know what there are talking about.

So lets be honest with our candidates when they come in for interviews and tell them that even though we may not be the best company in the world we are trying to get there and are putting in place processes and procedures to make it happen.