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Discussion on: I'm a Tester, Ask Me Anything!

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karloabapo profile image
Karlo Abapo

How would you teach or train a newbie tester or someone who's interested in testing/qa role?

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mfurmaniuk profile image
Michael

Find out what their strengths are, what they are interested in and give them something to work their skills on. Once they have some confidence assign a harder project that will require more work, and research, but check in with them to make sure they are on the right path. We recently had an intern that we did this with. He knew our space, he was with us last summer, so we knew what he was capable of so we gave him a good task that was easy for some of us but challenging for him. He did it, longer than it took us, but we helped him along, regularly checked in and gave advice on what to search on and look at for examples. It worked great, and at the end we had some pretty nice additions to our test framework.

Testing is wide, there are a lot of specialties and niches in it if you want to look around. There are a bunch of different testing "schools", I'd get someone new to search for what resonates with them. Get them looking at some books, or sites to increase their knowledge. Lunch and Learns are great, not only do you need to learn something but you need to speak to it. I find that more valuable since I learn better by teaching someone else because you get questions you didn't think about and if you can't describe something you know well to another, how well do you really know it?