How to become a test professional

So you want to be a test professional? Here’s my become a test professional in 1 month recipe.

Ingredients:
- One college educated applicant
- Computer/IT mindedness (IT education not really important)
- Analytical skills
- Communication skills
- A little cash

Recipe:

So you have a higher education, want to do something in IT because you are IT minded but don’t really have a degree in IT. No problem, you could be the perfect functional test engineer.

Functional test engineers are somewhere in between business people and technical people. Your job is to verify technical systems versus technical and business needs. So what’s important when doing this job. Analytical skills, ability to use technical products en very good communication skills because you will be talking to both ends of a very wide spectrum.

Step 1. Make sure you really want to do this. Make up your mind!

Step 2. Learning the skills:
- Go to the bookstore and buy:

One book about TMap – Tmap is the main test process used in the world, all other test processes are essentially rehashes of TMap. In this you’ll find the extremely important concept of the V-Model. Read it – Learn it. It should take you about a week, it’s not terribly difficult.

One book about SQL. The standard query language for databases. You want to access a DB directly? You’ll need SQL. Nobody in IT can do without. It’s not difficult so three days should be enough to learn it.

One book about UML (unified modeling language – a method of analysis for applications, it’s not the only one, but it’s an important one) - 1 week

- Goto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_testing - Read it! - 3 hours

- Learn about:

Test Techniques: ways to make test cases. Not used very often, but you will be asked about them. Make some execises. They are more difficult to do then to explain! 1 day

Testing Tools: Read up on testing tools, especially test and defect trackers.
If you have the opportunity to actually install and use a test tracker or or test tool, do so! Read up on automation and performance tools (not your biggest concern right now, but you need to know about them) – 2 days
(tip: Mercury/HP has about 80% of the market when it concerns test tooling so start there – Quality Center/Quick Test Pro/Loadrunner)

- If you have the cash get certified:

Look into ISEB (http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.6942) or
ISTQB (http://www.istqb.org/).

Don’t be afraid of certification, you basically have to be a retard to fail at these exams. If you study for 4 or 5 days, there’s no way you can fail this and it improves your chances of finding a job greatly.

Step 3: Put your resumé online, apply for some jobs, go for an interview and get a job!

If You can talk about all these subjects and understand them, there is no way that you can’t find a job as junior test engineer!

Happy cooking!!