Marianna Nechypor – founder and instructor of the Practical Course on Testing with Employment at Quality Assurance Group
✓ CEO at QArtrock
✓ 11+ years in IT, created an independent testing department at CoreValue
✓ Together with a team of professional IT specialists, it promotes the career growth and development of testers and beyond.
Marianna answered the most common questions about the testing course that concern our audience and students.
What are the benefits of the Practical Employment Testing Course?
The name itself speaks for itself – this course is PRACTICAL.
In this course, students work with four real-world projects.
They start by working with requirements – it's one project.
Later, they fully study the testing process from start to finish – this is the second project.
Next, they work in SCRUM – this is the third one.
And they complete the fourth project while working independently.
The independent work lasts for a whole month. Our students form teams, we give them a project, and they test it from start to finish.
They define business goals, create a traceability matrix, write a test plan, test cases, test, write bugs, and report. Later, they present their work at the Open Defense.
What are the advantages of the course over others?
The first advantage is that we made the course multifaceted so that our graduates have an in-depth understanding of the software development process.
The course begins with a study of the basics of business analysis.
Why is this important to the tester? Because the tester partially performs the work of a business analyst - working with requirements.
The tester must first focus on the clarity and correctness of the requirements in order to write the correct test cases. It is best when the QA engineer works in step with the BA on the requirements, and thus they make them more perfect and the probability of a bug appearing during software development is significantly reduced.
No testing course includes the basics of business analysis
Second , our testers go through the entire testing process in both Waterfall and SCRUM.
Third , they are studying API testing, which is very important right now.
Our testers study Performance testing, both in theory and in practice.
They will learn the basics of automated testing and mobile application testing.
Fourth and very important, they study the basics of project management to understand how the entire process of working on a project works. To properly communicate and provide information to the RM.
Be able to test, fix errors, and correctly present results to the client.
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Registration and detailed information at the link:
Practical Course on Testing with Employment
What is the value of the course?
In its versatility and practicality. This is a practical course that provides theoretical knowledge, understanding, and practical experience that students put on their resume.
Tell us about the course instructors
The course instructors are working specialists in quality assurance, in the IT industry. They all have strong experience, and they have something to say. They can not only explain in depth, but also share their experiences. Listening to a person with experience who talks about production nuances, about what happens, gives examples from production - this way our students get to know the profession better. They adapt to production conditions faster and make professional progress faster.
How is the preparation for the interview going?
Before preparing for an interview, our recruiter conducts a class where he talks about the concept of job searching, where it all starts, how to approach it correctly. He talks about how to properly create a resume, what it should contain, what the company and the recruiter expect to see there. He helps you fill out a LinkedIn profile.
Our recruiter also receives requests from IT companies. We have been working with companies for over 6 years, we already have a base. Everyone knows that we have professional, well-trained QA engineers. They contact us - we send resumes that are already ready, the company contacts the candidate and conducts an interview.
In addition, the recruiter conducts individual interviews to prepare the student for it, checks where the student makes mistakes, and whether he or she is providing information correctly.
Thus, our students often find a job on the first try. And sometimes they receive several job offers and choose, having long discussions with us about choosing a company.
What questions are asked in interviews and what do you need to know?
Beginners need to have an idea of what testing is, what types of testing there are, what the testing process looks like, what a test engineer should know and be able to do. All the theory is in our textbook, so it is worth reading it carefully before the interview.
As for the practical part, if a student actively participates in completing homework assignments, does well on independent work that lasts a month in a SCRUM-y team, that's really cool. Our students have something to tell, they tell what they did, and share their impressions.
There are those who like performance testing and they test.
There are those who like working with requirements and they go to work as business analysts.
There are those who like to organize teamwork and they go to work in an IT company as Junior PM.
How to write a quality resume?
First, there is clear information about you: last name, first name, contact details (email, phone, Skype...)
Important information about the professional skills you possess. Technical and practical, which are needed by the specialist this company is looking for.
For a software testing specialist, this includes: the ability to write test documentation, conduct certain types of testing, and mastery of testing tools.
Next, we need to focus on professional education. Our graduates already have experience working on 4 projects. They record each project in detail in their portfolio.
Below is a list of your most recent experience: what you did and what you were responsible for. It is definitely worth writing this down, because perhaps this experience may be key in choosing you for this position, and your work may be as useful as possible on this project.
Next, write down all your studies (university, courses, everything you studied, everything that could be useful in the direction of testing or the profession you choose.
Don't forget to write what languages you speak and at what level. You can also indicate your hobbies, which you do, this can also be a nice feature for you as a candidate.
What is open protection of testing projects, who needs it and why?
Open Defense of Testing Projects is a very interesting event, because in 20-40 minutes we see this result, an extract of all the work that our students have been doing for 3 months. And they look pretty cool and professional.
Often I look at them and can compare with those testers who are already working, and often our students sound much cooler and have a much deeper understanding of the product.
Why? Because, in fact, those basics of business analysis, the basics of project management, going through test projects several times, repetition, in-depth understanding, teamwork - all of this is very important.
It's very nice to watch when people report on the results of their work, and how they, like clockwork, clearly convey the topics of the story to each other. How they share the benefits they found, how they write test documentation, how they planned, who will do what, how they share their impressions, why they made certain conclusions. It's very nice to see how professional they are.
You can view open defenses here:
Open Project Protections Testing
Tell us about the relevance of the vacancies
The IT market is very hot. We always had a lot of vacancies and we closed them.
Our graduates have proven themselves very well and are now working in almost every IT company. Everyone knows their attitude to work, their approach, experience, their understanding of processes and teamwork.
There are so many requests for our students now that they are sorted out at the beginning of their studies, after 1 month of the course. Yes, they can work after 1 month, because during this time they go through all the basics that are important for a tester, and then they gain and deepen additional knowledge in the technical and managerial areas. So yes, they are ready to work.
If you look at the defense of the 40th group, out of 30 students, 15 were already working during the course. And all the others also quickly found jobs.
Today, we also have requests from companies and have sent out all the completed resumes.
How quickly do you find employment?
After 1 month of studying on the course, the student is ready to work.
Do you have a contract with IT firms?
We have agreements with companies: they send us all open vacancies, and we help fill them whenever possible.
How is the employment process?
The company (recruiter, PM) sends us a request that a QA engineer is needed, we send a resume. People go through interviews, and employers already individually select the candidate upon request.
Of course, sometimes there are difficulties, it happens that someone does not find a job right away. Then we work individually with the candidate and find out what is wrong.
Sometimes a person needs to brush up on their knowledge. Then we provide the necessary materials or discuss certain topics with the person.
Or, if it's about soft skills, I conduct the interview myself to understand what exactly is holding a person back. Often, with technical knowledge, everything is easier - a person can go and teach.
Sometimes you like a company and they like you, but you don't know something - then you can agree that you will teach and come. This is if your soft skills are suitable for the company.
Soft skills are a delicate matter. And if everything seems to be going well during the interview, but something doesn't add up and you're not being told about the technical ones, then most likely it's a matter of soft skills.
Often after individual interviews with me, our students get jobs.
How much are IT professionals needed now? Tell us about the hot market
The market is very hot, it is bubbling and steaming. It is expanding, the industry is developing rapidly, many software products are being released. Also, the testing direction itself is expanding greatly and, accordingly, the demand for testers is increasing. There is high competition in the market between software products, and the quality level of those products is becoming extremely important. And the further, the greater the competition for quality will be. Therefore, testers will always have work.
Who else can students of the Practical Testing Course with Employment become?
After the practical course, our students go to work not only as testers. They work as business analysts, project managers, and requirements managers.
What are the directions after the course:
- Manual Testing Tester
- Automated Testing Tester
- Business analyst
- Project Manager
- Our graduates also become recruiters.
Everyone finds themselves through their strengths. Sometimes a person comes for an interview, and the recruiter sees their strengths. And the tester can go to another position.
What kind of education do people come to the course with?
We have very different people coming to us. People without specialized education, athletes. We had a swimmer who had no inclination for this profession. He put himself on a regimen and simply forced himself to study the subject, graduated from manual and automated testing and immediately went to work as an automated testing engineer.
Economists, cybernetics, journalists, accountants, lawyers, and philologists also do fantastic work because they know how to work with information. And if it's also a foreign faculty, they feel like a fish in water.
Mathematicians are quickly moving into automated testing.
Theologians who took a liking to business analysis.
Mothers on maternity leave, people without education and people with very good education, candidates of sciences, teachers, physicists, chemists. And they all find themselves in IT. The first criteria are the desire to learn and work, and perseverance. If a person has these criteria and tries hard, he will definitely achieve success, and great success.