Tag Archives: software testing analyst

A Winning Combination: Mastering Manual Testing and Test Automation for a Successful Career as a Software Test Analyst

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Introduction:

In today’s competitive job market, aspiring software test analysts need to equip themselves with a diverse skill set that includes both manual testing and test automation. The ability to seamlessly transition between these two realms not only enhances your marketability but also opens doors to a wider range of opportunities. In this blog, we will explore the importance of mastering both manual testing and test automation, along with essential tools such as Selenium, Cucumber, Jenkins, GitHub, Jira, and API testing. By acquiring the right software testing skills, you can boost your CV and position yourself at the top of the candidate pile and securing a rewarding career as a software test analyst.

1. The Power of Manual Testing:

Manual testing forms the foundation of software testing and is essential for understanding the intricacies of the testing process. Mastering manual testing allows you to gain valuable insights into the software and its functionalities. It enables you to design effective test cases, execute them meticulously, and identify defects through hands-on exploration. Manual testing helps you develop a deep understanding of the software’s behaviour and user experience, allowing you to provide meaningful feedback and contribute to the overall improvement of the product. Essential knowledge areas here include:

•     Analysing various forms of requirement documents

•    Producing Test Plans.

•    Identifying Test Data required.

•    Determining Test Environment.

•    Understanding the context of the test effort.

2. Embracing Test Automation with Selenium:

Software Testing

Test automation has become an integral part of the software testing landscape, and proficiency with automation tools is highly valued in the industry. Selenium, a widely-used open-source automation framework, empowers testers to automate web service testing. Learning Selenium enables you to write efficient and reliable test scripts, execute test cases across different browsers and platforms, and identify defects quickly. By incorporating Selenium into your skill set, you showcase your ability to expedite testing processes and ensure robust software quality.

Essential knowledge areas here include:

  • Learning how to set up WebDriver, launch browsers, navigate web pages, locate and interact with elements
  • Effectively locating elements on a web page is crucial in test automation
  • Handling Alerts, Frames, and Windows
  • Page Object Model (POM) and the Page Factory pattern
  • Using reporting libraries and frameworks compatible with Selenium, such as TestNG, JUnit

3. Leveraging Agile Tools for Collaboration:

In today’s Agile-driven environment, collaboration and efficient project management are key. Familiarity with tools such as Cucumber, Jenkins, GitHub, and Jira can significantly enhance your employability as a software test analyst. Cucumber facilitates behaviour-driven development (BDD) by providing a common language for communication between stakeholders. Jenkins enables continuous integration and automation of test execution. GitHub offers version control for collaborative development, while Jira helps manage Agile projects effectively. Proficiency in these tools demonstrates your adaptability to Agile methodologies and enhances your ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams.

4. Emphasizing API Testing:

API Testing

API (Application Programming Interface) testing plays a crucial role in validating the integration and communication between software components. Understanding API testing and becoming familiar with tools like Postman and SOAPUI expands your testing capabilities beyond the user interface. Proficiency in API testing allows you to validate data transfers, test API endpoints, and verify proper functioning of backend systems. This skill set positions you as a well-rounded software test analyst capable of handling diverse testing scenarios.

5. Giving Your CV the Competitive Edge:

CV with a competitive edge

By acquiring a combination of manual testing, test automation, Agile tools, and API testing skills, you provide your CV with the competitive edge it needs to stand out. Employers value candidates who possess a holistic understanding of the testing process, as well as the ability to adapt to evolving industry trends. Highlighting your proficiency in these areas demonstrates your versatility, adaptability, and commitment to professional growth. Showcase your hands-on experience, certifications, and successful project outcomes to give potential employers confidence in your abilities as a software test analyst.

Conclusion:

To secure a software test analyst job and position yourself at the top of the candidate pile, it’s essential to master both manual testing and test automation. Additionally, gaining proficiency in tools like Selenium, Cucumber, Jenkins, GitHub, Jira, and API testing adds significant value to your skill set. By learning the right combination of manual and automated testing techniques, along with familiarity with Agile tools,

New Software Testing and Business Analyst Training with Work Experience and Mentoring Programme launched

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Are you an aspiring Business Analyst or Software Tester? Have you been looking around for a course that will not only teach you the basics but give you the practical project level knowledge? Fantastic. you are in the right place and we can help you towards landing that dream job.

Business Analysis and Quality Assurance online work experience and mentoring

The truth is that the more live project experience you have then the better prepared you will be when it comes to facing tough questions at your Business Analyst or Software Test Analyst interview.
Especially if they are scenario-based and set up to see what approach you will take and whether your current skillset will add value.
Furthermore, after successfully bagging the job the next problem is knowing exactly what to do for each task you are saddled with. This is very important if you want to keep the job after spending so much time in preparation for it.

On top of the 2 weekend training we have now launched a 4 week work experience and mentoring project to give you that valuable experience you need.

Why is this aimed at Business Analysts and Software Testers?

We strongly believe in the “Three Amigos” concept. This involves a business analyst, a software tester and a developer all coming together and reviewing anything that has been created for the project. As a group they ask any questions and define a clear view of what is being developed.

This type of group is best formed at the very beginning of the development process. They will oversee and have input from the initial planning stages all the way through to release. They are usually the group that does demo acceptance or actively organizes and directs the workflow. The main focus is for the team to show that they understand what they need to do. And they do this through questions, discussions of concrete examples, and proposed solutions. All this helps to mitigate issues later on in the development cycle

When working in this fashion there is huge scope for team members to develop  a wide range of skills (including Agile, User stories, Project backlog, backlog grooming, Test Plan, Test cases, Test reports, Defect management, Change management, etc)

To participate in our live projects aspiring Business Analysts need to be able to:

  • Create a Requirements Catalogue using MS Excel
    Cleanse data, create reports/data visualisation using MS Excel
  • Write User Stories with acceptance criteria
  • Understand the different Ceremonies involved in Scrum (Sprint, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective)
  • Write User Stories with acceptance criteria for an agile project
  • Understand how to use JIRA to document requirements and assist Product Owner with Backlog grooming.
  • Understand  how to use Confluence to annotate your tasks and communicate with team
  • Create Swim Lanes & Pool Diagrams using MS Visio or any other diagramming software
  • Create Flow Charts using MS Visio or any other diagramming software
  • Create As is & To be Gap Analysis using MS Visio or any other diagramming software
  • Create Wireframes using MS Visio or any other diagramming software

To participate in our live projects aspiring Software Test Analysts need to be able to:

  • Analyse requirements documentation
  • Analyse and comprehend User Stories
  • Understand acceptance criteria
  • Verify test data and environments for use during testing.
  • Create test plans
  • Create test scenarios
  • Create test steps using MS Excel
  • Create test scripts using MS Excel
  • Perform Front-end and back-end testing of website applications
  • File bug tickets based on the outcome of QA test cycles in JIRA
  • Be able to communicate with team via Confluence
  • Create comprehensive QA reports

The main business analysis essentials training and software testing essentials training program is quite wide and generic. It touches almost every area that a Business Analyst or Software Tester should be familiar with (and could be involved with from project to project).  The live Project focuses on delivering a solution for a particular  problem and as such it is narrower in scope of the BA and QA techniques used.
That being said we still give refreshers in all of the above “essentials” on the mentoring program but it is ideal if the students really understand fully the how to, why, where and when to use certain techniques.

The project
The next project on the cards for our Business Analyst’s and Software Testers will involve enhancements to an existing web portal. The project will be run in an agile mode and will be lead by a team of experienced Senior Business Analysts and Test Managers.
As you know for software products already developed, there is still a need to maintain and update it to fulfil the changing needs and demands of the users. As such good quality long-term support that can allow the effective implementation of any changes is required. The Project team will be expected to map as-is, to-be, analyse current requirements/change requests, hold story-sizing meetings, propose enhancements for client to review, create to-be flow charts , interpret, manage and test change requests accordingly.

June -September 2021 Software Testing work experience group
October – December 2021 Business Analysis work experience WhatsApp group

We are now inviting aspiring Business Analysts and Software Testers to join the project and get a feel for working on a  live application with various modules being built.

We are now taking registrations from aspiring Business Analysts and Software Test Analysts for the next programme.


This is set to commence from April 2022.
If you want to be part of this exciting team please sign up on our dedicated IT professional training website: careertesters.com before January March 19th 2022.

Remember, there is no need to visit our training centre to participate as everything is done online via Zoom, Google Meet, email and WhatsApp groups. As long as you have access to the internet, time available in the evenings to attend meetings then you will be just fine.

For more details of what our work experience and mentoring program involves please visit  our dedicated web page for this here:
http://www.careertesters.com/work-experience-mentoring.html

if you don’t have the required knowledge as detailed above and want to train as a business analyst see details of our standard business analysis training here.
if you don’t have the required knowledge and want to train as a software test analyst see details of our standard software testing training here.

Call us on 0208 443 2888 if you want to have a 1-2-1 conversation about any of this before joining.

New Work Experience Cohort for Business Analysts and Software Testers Launched

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Here’s a chance for aspiring Business Analysts and Software Testers to get stuck into some real online meeting of BA's and QA'slive work experience!

BA Wireframes
The most recent project which started on February 6th has been extended due to additional requirements. The project involved building an e-commerce platform where Corporates, Individuals, and families can interact digitally with professional,  certified Interior designers to create custom concepts with a view to obtaining bespoke design solutions for their home or office.

 

The Project also includes the build of  a module which will include assigning of Designers, sharing concepts, User interaction, choosing designer packages etc

Business analyst use cases

We are now inviting additional aspiring Business Analysts, Project Coordinators, Software Testers to join the team and get a feel for working on a  live application with various modules being built.

There is huge scope for team members to develop  a wide range of skills being involved in a project like this ( FRD, BRD, SCope doc, UC, USer stories, UML, RTM, Change mgmt, Project backlog
Test Plan, Test cases, Test reports, Defect management etc)…and get valuable work references as well.

We are now taking registrations from aspiring Business Analysts and Quality Assurance Analysts (Software Testers) for this programme. If you want to be part of this exciting team please sign up before May 2nd 2017.

Remember, there is no need to visit our training centre to participate as everything is done online. As long as you have access to the internet and time available in the evenings to attend meetings then you will be just fine.the testers use Jira for defect tracking

For more details of what our work experience and mentoring program involves please visit  our dedicated web page for this here:
http://www.careertesters.com/work-experience-mentoring.html

New Work Experience and Mentoring Project for Business Analysts and Software Testers

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We are currently rounding up our Project which started  in November. This project covered the building of  a software application for a client who is a health/protein food (raw material) manufacturer. The raw material  is sold to companies where it undergoes processing and dilution.  The software application would cater to the needs of the client’s employees who work in the areas of manufacturing, merchandising, logistics and others.. It was quite demanding for the Business Analysts and Software Testers who had to utilise their skills to the fullest as it was a complex application. The students  and their Project Manager (Chetan) have worked very hard on this and  a lot has been learnt. We’re now looking forward to a new project which will kick off on February 6th 2017.

Project Charter

The new project  involves building an e-commerce platform where Corporates, Individuals, and families can interact digitally with Professional & certified Interior designers to create custom concepts with a view to obtaining bespoke design solutions for their home or office. The Project also includes the build of an a module which will include assigning of Designers, sharing concepts, User interaction, choosing designer packages etc

There is huge scope for the BA/QAs to develop  a wide range of skills being involved in a project like this.

We are now taking registrations from aspiring Business Analysts and Quality Assurance Analysts for this programme. If you want to be part of this exciting team please sign up before January 31st 2017.

For more details of what our work experience and mentoring program involves please visit  our dedicated web page for this here:
http://www.careertesters.com/work-experience-mentoring.html

Update on our BA & QA Work Experience Projects

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The current project is an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software application for a company that deals with fashion & lifestyle products.
The application is needed for teams in the company that manage multiple consumer brand portfolios consisting of different products that are sold globally. The application includes bespoke requirements for the company itself and would be usable only by designated employees. These employees have been using a spreadsheet for a long time and want this target application to replace the spreadsheet and also do much more than what the spreadsheet does.

Business Analyst Training

Business analyst and software testers work experience

The application is divided into multiple modules – Administrator module, where the Admin creates User profiles, Brand profiles, assigns permissions and restrictions to users based on their roles.
Actionlist Module-  This is where the business activities related to marketing, advertising & promotion are handled by the users.
Reports module- This module deals with generation of reports of various types that display the information in the form of graphs/charts to the users.
In this project, the trainee Business Analysts have accomplished end to end tasks of a BA- from Analysis to Sign-off of the documents.

The tasks they have worked and completed are:

– Elicit & analyze project requirements

– Facilitate Client meetings & interactions

– Interview and clarify project expectations with the client

– Create Product backlog

– Define Business Requirements and create Business Requirements Documents

– Define Scope of the project

– Create Functional Requirements Document (FRD)

– Create Use Case Model based on users and functions identified

– Design Process flow for the project

– Create elaborate Use Cases & User stories

– Design Wire frames/mock-ups

– Get the documents/artifacts reviewed by Client

– Update documents based on Client’s inputs

– Understand the Testing process and create Test cases

– Get all project requirements frozen and BA documents signed  off by the Client.

QA’s Quality Assurance analysts
were involved in

Test Planning,
Test Scripting,
Test Execution,
Defect Reporting and Tracking
Test Result and Completion reporting etc.
There is a new project in the pipeline and is expected to kick-off in mid June. It deals with the trading and auctioning of seafood and aquatic products in the international market. This project would actually demand the Business Analysts and Software Testers involved to exhibit their skills to the fullest as it is a complex application. Those who are familiar with subjects like trading, e-commerce, auctions will find it quite interesting and those that aren’t will be gaining valuable experience in a new domain.

For more details of what our work experience and mentoring program involves please visit  our dedicated web page for this here:
http://www.careertesters.com/work-experience-mentoring.html

New Work Experience and Mentoring Project for Business Analysts and Software Testers

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This will be an ERP Project  – Enterprise Resource Planning tool for marketing & tracking consumers commencing 21.3.2016

The project is about developing an application that will be used by Marketing, R&D and Advertising personnel within a reputed designer/lifestyle company.Management-Banner
Designated employees of different departments, i.e. marketing, brand managers etc would use the application to track activities of users around the world.

We are now taking registrations from aspiring Business Analysts and Software testers for this programme. If you want to be part of this exciting team please sign up before March 20th 2016.

For more details of what our work experience and mentoring program involves please visit  our dedicated web page for this here:
http://www.careertesters.com/work-experience-mentoring.html

It’s been quite a while!

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Yes. It’s been a while since our last blog.
This always happens at this time of the year.
The new academic year means new syllabuses.
New courses added to the portfolio.
New material to be written.
New trainers to induct.
And so we have had our hands completely full.
Pressure is beginning to ease so you can expect that normal blogging duty will resume soon.

New things to look out for…

CeMAP 2012/13 Academic year material now completed. So for those looking to do CeMAP distance learning can rest assured we will only be sending them current material.

DipFA Coursework and FactFind Training has been going very well. We’ve been closely monitoring the success rates of our students and can only recollect a few that have not passed! We have our new tutor , Paul, to thank for that! He really cares about the students and provides them with a lot of aftercare support. The rave reviews he has been getting are extremely well deserved.

Stocks, Shares and Investments courses and our Day Trading Forex programme has been running smoothly under the management of Umar. He has brought a very practical slant to the courses and his post course mentoring is just first class. It’s no wonder people are queueing up to join his classes.

We’ve also been working hard on a Business Analysis course which is scheduled to kick off October 28th. For this we have recruited the services of a very senior Business Analyst at Amazon. We get so many Software Testing Analysts looking for a career progression route…and for most – this is it!

Our Software Testing Essentials course has had some new additions to it. We’ve added an extra day on to the course thereby incorporating Test automation into the programme.

We now have beginners to advanced WordPress courses ranging from the basics (using WordPress.com) to intermediate and advanced levels using wordpress.org and all the benefits of flexibility to looking at how to build your own themes and understanding the php code that allows you to customise your wordpress site even more.

We are also trialling the ACA qualification for those looking to gain Adobe accreditation in either Photoshop or Dreamweaver.
A goal for the Adobe Certified Associate certification is to address the real world, entry-level skill expectations for web communication, rich media communication, and visual communication.

This certification is a credential that validates entry-level skills needed to plan, design, build, and maintain effective communications by using different forms of digital media.

The qualification is open to anyone who takes our Adobe Photoshop Next Step Course and Adobe Dreamweaver Next Step course.

So as you can see there’s lot’s to look forward to at Futuretrend this academic year.

3 things you need to do to clinch your first Software Testing job

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How many bugs have you found today?

How many bugs have you found today?

A software test analyst reviews software functionality and documents the testing of that software.  Essentialy, a tester will read through specifications of an application and create test conditions to check that it works as specified.
As no particular programming knowledge is required there are very few barriers to entry and  therefore it has become a very competitive field. In 2012, landing a job as a software tester will require you to completely stand-out amongst other applicants. By following a few practical tips, you can easily get that interview you need to move you to next base.

 

CV

Software Testing isn't for dummies

Software Testing isn't for dummies

One of the first things you need to focus on is your CV, as this is your advertising medium. It is your opportunity to demonstrate your capability as the best person for the job. Moreso, you need to prove that you understand what an employer is looking for. Your services as a Software Tester are an essential element to a company’s reputation and as such they need to know how reliable, responsible and serious you are.

So firstly, don’t just go and copy any old bog-standard CV template that you find. Many of them are really appalling! Your formatting is very important here so be certain to use nothing less than 11 pt and either Arial or Sans-serif font.
Secondly, always include a covering letter. I cannot stress how important this is. Here you can focus on what the employer wants and prepare a list of your skills that matches that job requirement. Highlight these skills within your CV. State your objectives clearly but keep it all short, only one to two sentences. Be sure that any skills you have in software testing are emphasised. Avoid writing your life story and irrelevant interests in your CV. I once read on a CV sent to me “I have a dog called Muggles and just as parents love children and children love parents, I love my dog and my dog loves me” Seriously? If you are applying for a dog-walking position fine but on what planet would this be of interest to anyone in IT?

I could write a whole book on CV do’s and don’ts but this isn’t the forum for that. My final point on the matter is don’t turn yourself into a bullet-point Billy or Belinda (every one does that!) I really want to read your timeline as a tester; don’t just tell me what you did, tell me why you did it and what the result was.

 Get Experience

Ensure software does what it says on the tin

If you don’t have relevant software testing experience, then get some by all means possible. This is invaluable; so try amd get some specific practical training working on dummy or real live projects. There are many of these available on the Internet. Look for software programs like inventory management software to work on. Download the software and documentation and follow the testing process. Get your work evaluated by other software testing professionals.


If you require a training course to hone your skills then ensure that you will be working on practical exercises just as you would if you were at work. Better still if you can find an internship/work experience scenario Even if’s unpaid take it! Some people will give their left arm for the opportunity!

Certification

OK I’ve left this last deliberately –  that’s because it’s the least important of the three
(imho). Employers these days will not even consider applicants that only have a theoretical overview ISQTB qualified or not. As laudable as that may be (becoming certified), what they will need you to demonstrate is knowledge of real world Testing scenarios and solutions.
So why become certified ? To understand testing methodologies and processes. More importantly, to get your nose past the glorified gate keepers aka recruitment consultants. Yes, those agencies will throw in the kitchen sink along with all sorts of qualifications and skills that they deem to be essential for you to have before applying to their testing role. Most of them really don’t have a clue as to what their client is looking for but are continuously regurgitating the same old job template they’ve been using for the last 5 years.
So get your certification by all means but don’t rest on that as the other two are far more important. Good luck !
Femi Lana is the Managing Director of Futuretrend Technologies Ltd who run training courses  for aspiring software testers via CareerTesters.com