How to Interview the Tester? Watch Him in Action

Oct. 4, 2011 - PRLog -- To see your new stuff in work you should organize your samples in hiring to estimate the actual weight of the submitted resumes. Even if you conduct a telephone interview, rather than face to face, the samples will help you get a richer understanding of the opportunities of the candidate and his ability to adapt to your working environment.
Watch the candidate in action.
The samples help to see whether candidate copes with the real work.
Determine the expected skills.
Identify the skills that candidates must demonstrate to successfully pass the test. Make the job description, paying attention to what the candidates have to do and what results are expected from their work.
Select the skills to conduct tests.
When you know exactly what skill you would like to check out, creating of samples is very simple - to create a task in which the skill is demonstrated. But often you want to check more than one skill. Supposed to verify that the candidate knows and understands a lot of different ways of software testing http://qatestlab.com/company/why-software-testing/ and can quickly develop a lot of different small test. For these two skills form the two samples: a mini-trial for a phone interview and aimed at the 20-30 minute test for a personal interview.
Create a sample.
For phone interview it is better to start with the skill of "rapid development of small tests."
If a candidate has access to the Internet during the interview, send him (her) a reference to a product that is available via the Internet (for example, a Web application http://qatestlab.com/services/types-of-applications/web-a... or a downloadable product), and ask to make some tests for this product. After discussing this with the candidate are different ways to create tests for the selected application and the reasons for which he (she) has chosen one or another way to create tests during the task. If a candidate does not have access to the Internet, give him a pre-time (5-10 minutes) to create a small test for a well-known applications, or for some speculative application to the description, then hold a discussion on the phone.
During the personal interview, you can use the same set as for a telephone interview. For example, ask a candidate to list all the ways you can test your product.
Before proceeding to samples, make sure that the candidate has a basic understanding of the skills that you are going to check. Ask some questions that will help you determine whether hi (she) apply earlier this skill in their work.
Carefully and clearly formulate the tasks.
During the development of tasks try not to use the questions, leading to the answer. For example, such questions like "Name at least three ways to do it." On the one hand, you should be sure that each candidate able to find at least three ways. On the other hand, some people after such a question name three ways and stop, even if they know more. Do not forget that during the interview people are nervous, and it is in some degree constrains their thinking.
Best to write the task on a piece of paper, so that a candidate could at any time read it again, not asking you to repeat it.
Check the samples at your employees.
Before use the samples check it out on your staff, otherwise you can develop a test to which no one else can handle.
To sum up.
Samples allow you to see candidates in action. Listening on the phone about how the candidate solved the problem, or watching a candidate for the job, you get a clearer idea of its capabilities and how easily he can adapt to your working environment.

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QATestLab is independent, offshore software testing company located in Kiev, Ukraine. QATestLab performs testing of products on each stage of software development cycle.