Recommended skills and abilities for a beginner tester

Immediately after making the decision to become a tester, you will be interested in such questions as what you need to know, what skills you should have, and where to start the learning process. After reading this article, you will be able to make a clear plan for your training and have a list of necessary skills to develop for successful employment and professional growth. So let's start.

The article is written so that you can understand where to start your testing journey. Then we will tell you how to improve your skills, and in conclusion, we will focus your attention on what you need to learn more about and what will be useful in the future.

What should you start with

1. Searching for the information you need

Do you know why the majority of professionals don't like working with newcomers? Because they usually have to explain elementary things to them. Make it a habit to constantly search for information that is new and unknown to you. If you have a task to “go through and complete a checklist” and you only understand the “go through and complete” part, you need to google the rest of the information and analyze it on your own. We live in a world with fast-paced information technology, so any query on the Internet can be followed up with gigabytes of information in minutes.

2. Ability to think

Reading this paragraph, you might say: “It's absurd, who doesn't know how to think?” Let's look into this topic more deeply. If you've already been interviewed for a tester position, you're familiar with situations when you're asked to solve a particular problem. In this way, employers can evaluate the thinking ability as well as the strategy of a potential employee, and not just how mechanically the theory materials were studied. Here are some of the questions that testers may ask themselves on a daily basis:

• Why did this error occur?
• Why wasn't it found earlier?
• What can I do to prevent it from appearing again?
• What else could go wrong that I can check?

3. Curiosity 

If you are told to «take a broom and sweep». You need to think about it and clarify the following information:

• Why is it necessary?
• Where to sweep?
• What to sweep?
• How thoroughly do we need to sweep?
• What should we get as a result? (a clean entire area or just a slightly cleared path), etc.

Therefore, when you receive a «broom», you do not need to go beyond your limits and expect everyone to appreciate your diligence. Be sure to clarify with the customer their expectations from your work.

4. Writing a CV

You shouldn't be surprised to see this point, because a poorly written CV is a sign that a potential employee is unable to handle even the first point of this article. A well-written CV can increase your chances of getting the promised phone call.

5. English language skills

The truth is that 90% of the projects that testers work on are in English. Testers must have a good reading level of English. If, for example, you can learn the basics of testing in a month, you won't be able to do that with English. Therefore, the better the potential tester's English, the more chances of successful employment there are.

6. Successfully completed the «Software Testing: Basics and Practice» course

This point is rather a recommendation because the learning process is much easier and more interesting when there are people to guide you in the right direction, evaluate your work, and help you solve problems. After completing the free course, participants who successfully pass it can expect to receive a job offer.

After completing the free course, participants who successfully pass it can expect to receive a job offer.

Ways to improve your skills

The core of the basics for every tester is the ability to describe bugs, create checklists and test cases. Each of these elements has its own attributes, more information about which you can find in other articles on our blog. In the «Software Testing: Basics and Practice» course, the skills of correct bug description, checklists, and test cases are taught under the careful supervision of the company's Training Center staff.

Also, as a tester, you can improve the following skills:

• testing the documentation and the ability to understand the product when it is not available;
• thinking about different scenarios of software use;
• testing using various test design techniques (analysis of equivalence classes and boundary values, etc;)
• selecting the right tool for a particular task;
• working with VCS (version control system).

Now, let's move on to what beginner testers need to study more in-depth for their further career growth.

Additional skills that need to be developed

Every tester should be able to test:

1. Web applications. Be able to find defects on both the client and server sides.
2. Mobile applications. Mobile application testing is a separate and quite interesting branch of testing. How will the app react to an incoming call or message? What will happen after connecting the charger? These and many other questions are common in the field of mobile application testing.
3. Games. The presence of game mechanics makes such testing more difficult. In applications, there are algorithms according to which they work, but in games, there is no such thing. Games are highly variable, and there are a lot of situations where things can go wrong. That is why it is better to get involved in game testing for those who are at least interested in them and like to play.

Each tester should also be able to perform different types of testing, such as:

• load testing;
• security testing;
• usability testing;
• localization testing, and many others.

More information about the types of testing can also be found in the blog on our website.

Apart from that, a tester must know the basics of SQL, be able to read database schemas, write simple select queries, know what grouping results are, etc. Also, this list should include REST API, SOAP API, CI configuration, and automation testing, but we'll talk about each item separately another time.

There are many directions in testing, so if you don't like testing web applications, you might be more interested in game testing. Also, the field of testing is constantly changing, so once you've acquired the basic skills of a tester, you shouldn't stop there and keep moving forward to study more.