1. JOB SEARCH SKILLS
WELCOME

2. JOB SEARCH SKILLS Getting a job = selling your skills
(and not just skills)

3. JOB SEARCH SKILLS What is the value offered?
Short-term polishing (SQA Training, Test Automation)
Long-term foundation (maturity, documentation, quality)
17 seconds rule (liking-not liking things)

4. JOB SEARCH SKILLS What is our target market? Who is your competition?
Not the entry level niche – we apply for 2+ year posts
3-6 month contracts – simply the best to start with
Limited time frame for hiring consultants
Faster growing compensation
Faster building your professional network
More intensive professional growth
No long-term commitment on your side
Good chance to be offered permanent position right there

5. WE WILL LEARN: Dynamic of sales Ratios to watch Troubleshooting
How to find open positions
Talking to recruiters
Answering interview questions
Asking interview questions

6. RATIOS IMPROVE OVER TIME
Numbers and ratios
1000 Resumes send (exposures) 
Contacts (calls/ s) 
Resumes sent by recruiters to hiring managers 
Face to face interviews 
3 Job offers
1000  400  40  10  3
RATIOS IMPROVE OVER TIME

7. Job seekers complain: Nobody calls me I have no interviews
I have no job offers
WHAT IS THE REASON?
CAN WE FIX THAT?
HOW?

8. We find jobs using: Internet (where?) Networking (be careful)
Friends, family members, colleges, college mates
Social networking web sites (MySpace, Friendster, etc.)
Professional networking web sites (LinkedIn)
Local SQA events (

9. LinkedIn.com - 70% of open positions not advertised
- Networking is how we want to find future jobs
- LinkedIn – tool for maintaining contacts
Open an account
Read LinkedIn help on how to use the service
Create detailed profile
Apply for Portnov group membership
Invite classmates to join your network
Invite your friends, college mates
Join QA-related groups

10. RESUME SENDING RULES Craigslist, Dice, Monster, CareerBuilder
Keywords: QA, SQA, Test, Quality
Post resume on job search engines
Update posted resumes every day
Keyword code when post resumes
Up to 50 resumes sent every day
50% match – good enough to apply

11. COMPONENTS OF SUCCESS
Motivation
Focus
Environment
Schedule

12. RULES OF SALE People buy to improve their situation
People buy emotionally and later justify the purchase intellectually
Sell from the position of strength
Find the pain in the past or the future

13. LIFE PATH CONCEPT How do you see yourself in 1-3-5 years from now?
Tell me about yourself
Why should we hire you?

14. WHY ASK QUESTIONS? Demonstrate your qualifications
Eliminate their unwanted questions
Learn the buyer - identify the pain
Having Big Picture conversation rather then talking about small detail

15. QUESTIONS - COMPANY How old is your company? How big is your company?
How many products do you have on the market?
What is your competition?

16. QUESTIONS - PRODUCT Would you please tell me more about the product
What is the current version of the product to be tested?
What are the competing products?
What makes your product competitive?
What are major functional areas?
When are you planning the next release

17. QUESTIONS - TEAM How big your QA Team?
Do you have further hiring plans?
What are the responsibilities/areas of expertise of other team members?

18. QUESTIONS - POSITION
What are the responsibilities of the person you are about to hire?
What is your definition of an ideal candidate for the position?
What do you expect from the new hire after 2 weeks (3 month) of employment?

19. QUESTIONS - SQA Learning the product Test documentation/planning
Test automation
Relations with development
Typical problems they are facing

20. QA INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
How do you know if the bug found is hardware or software bug?
Give me an example of a problem you found in your last test assignment and how you identified if it was a software or hardware bug?
How much PC hardware and system configuration have you done? Do you like it?

21. QA INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Which do you like better, coding or testing? Why?
Do you prefer white box or black box testing?

22. QA INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Do you think it is possible to get all the bugs out of application before shipping it?
What do you think the objectives of Software QA Department of a software company are?

23. QA INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Write a sample bug report in such a way that the developer would both understand it fully and be able to reproduce it easily
Regression testing: what would you do to make sure
The bug was fixed?
Nothing else in the same area was broken

24. QA INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Provide sample list of criteria for QA to certify software product
Why are test cases important for QA to maintain?
You have reported a problem to development and they say it is not reproducible and request to close it. What is the right thing to do?

25. Tell me about the company X
How old
how many people work there
product line
who it competes against
is it public or privately owned
is it profitable or not yet, startup
story attached if any
Plans: original and how they changed
building
benefits
work environment, culture

26. Tell me about the application
Created for what kind of users and needs
Major features and functional areas (shopping cart, catalog, search, registration, etc.)
Competing products and what makes our product different
Customer base
Market share
Dynamics of growth (sales, customer base, releases, features, hiring)

27. What was your role?
As the only tester on that project I was responsible for the entire scope of SQA activities
As a member of 5 people QA team I was primarily focusing on ... (regression testing, test automation, testing the database…)

28. What do you like about QA?
I like to see how the application changes as a result of bug I reported. It gives me a very good feeling of being a real contributor.
I really enjoy the level of appreciation I have from developers and other QA team members.
I think I can realize myself professionally in that area.
My previous background makes a good combination with my QA skills.
I really have passion for quality since I remember myself.

29. How do you see yourself in 5 years?
Making difference in Software Testing
To get there I need to work on good projects, next to good professionals
Besides that I want to specialize (chose the niche) in whatever they are (give reasons)