Are you a Quality Assurance Engineer (QAE)? Are you specialized in a set of technologies like Web Based QAE or Android handset based QAE? Are you just getting an interview call for the role QA? Are you a professional who are focusing on enhancing your skills to become an effective QAE? Well, you have reached the right place. Here is a guide to crack Quality Assurance Interview. Let us begin our learning with what Quality Assurance is.

What is Quality Assurance (QA)?

QA is the processing of supervising and verifying services provided by a business to guarantee that it satisfies the needs of clients and customers. Even though QA cannot ensure the production process quality, it can enhance the client service to raise it likely. The organization includes QA team for two main things. They are

1. For the service or product, that is the fundamental requirement of the client or customer.
2. Whether the client or customer will favor the service or product in the future. That is, determining the market needs of the service or product to win the future traffic.

How to Prepare For a Quality Assurance Interview?

There is no wonder that even the efficient candidates who possess all the required skills feel nervous while appearing for the interviews. An outstanding way to perform well in an interview without hesitation is nothing but a prior preparation. Once you have satisfied yourself that you have prepared everything for the interview, then you won’t get any hesitate to track your interview process.   Generally, a job interview is based on the various parameters including job titles, departments, responsibility, technology type, project type, experience, skill type, and interviewer/interviewers mindset. In addition, the interview also depends on the candidate background, education, and university. The result of the interview depends on how you impress and persuade your interviewer with your communication skills, background and other things that are required for the job. Let us explore deep into the tips on how to crack the Quality Assurance interview.

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Recommended Approach for the Interview

1. Prepare well with entire required Computer Science concepts like Database, Operating System, and Networking Questions.
2. Prepare with the defined code and algorithms around that, have a clear knowledge of the data structures.
3. Prepare well with the clear objective of the Quality Assurance field.
4. Understand your passions on the job.
5. Understand, do you have the skills to codes as well as capable of breaking the algorithms and code written by others with your inspired inputs?
6. Prepare your CV as well. For example, a well-written resume includes about yourself, your educational background, your achievement, your strength, and your goals. Be natural to mention your details. You can get the professional guidance to structure the details on the resume. In addition, you can highlight your skill sets, which you possess for the QA job like any experience on the automation tools. It is also advised to add your basic technology knowledge that you possess. This can add value to your profile.
7. Before you appear for the interview, overview the job profile to understand whether the requirement is Automation Testing, Manual Testing concepts or on both. In addition, make sure your job profile matches the expectation of the organization. Generally, the interviewer will ask questions around the provided job profile and the details that you have pointed out in your resume. Make sure to answer the questions that relate to your resume. The track of the interview questions depends on how the conversation goes between the interviewer and candidate that might lead to questions in other areas too.  You should have a basic understanding of the expectation of the companies in terms of the Quality Assurance Engineer. The following are some of the job responsibilities of the QAE that most of the companies expect that candidate should meet.

• Understanding embedded domain testing and web domain testing.
• Experienced QAE should modernize their testing as well as a deployment process using software Quality Assurance process like continuous and automation deployment.
• The candidate should test code both manually and use automated tools.
• The candidate should have clear knowledge on a variety of testing techniques like the gray box, black box as well as white box testing.
• They should be capable of the understanding internals of software, debug issues using log files as well as automate repetitive actions with the test automation frameworks.
• They should work with software development teams to understand technical implementations and features. They are also required to work with Product Mangers, Customer Support personnel, and User Experience Design personnel.
• They should understand customer usage plans, develop, test suites and test plans, which approximate real world use cases and environments.
• These are some of the skills that organizations expecting from the QAE. Before appearing for the interview, just make sure, that you can able to meet these responsibilities.

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Things You Need to Aware About the Quality Assurance

Here are some of the essential things that you should know before applying for a Quality Assurance Engineer job.

Testing concepts, especially Manual Testing techniques are the first basic thing that you require to aware. However, knowing various testing concepts are not enough to achieve a positive result in the interview. The next most essential thing is to aware which concept/technique/type of testing can be used at what stage of the Software Development Life Cycle.

You should be clear on what should you test and when you should test. Most of the freshers, even testing professionals might not include the working knowledge on some testing domains like time Zone testing, localization testing. However, attempting to learn more than what you’ve worked on will support you to deliver the best answer in the interview. It is essential to keep your testing knowledge updated based on the current project scenario.

In case your interviewer asks a question on the topic that you’ve never worked on, for example, you do not work on web related projects and interview raise questions regarding “Yahoo Mail Application”. Then, what will you do? The best case here is you should have the curiosity of learning. This will help you with any of the questions regarding the topics, which you have not even worked on those. Hence, try to be curious about your every action on your daily work. Since there is, no harm in knowing more and this will definitely support you to deliver your thoughts on the unexpected questions.

If you are a Fresher and applying for a Quality Assurance Engineer position, then you are not expected with any kind of domain knowledge. The only thing that is expected from you is the better knowledge of testing basic concepts. At the recruiter’s point of view, freshers have a steep learning curve. Hence, if you possess the basic knowledge, then they can mold you into any domain. Therefore, the main advantage of freshers is that they need not to concern about the domain.

Most of the Software Quality Assurance Interview would include questions related to coding as well as test cases around it. They evaluate your communication skills while you explain the concept. Here is an example of Test Cases and Coding question:

• Explain the test case to show your way to be perfect.
• How to replace the frequent integer with a number in an Array?

The interviewer not only looking the solution of these questions, but also evaluating your thought process including how many solutions you can able to offer, which solution you chose and why? He tries to find out whether you are focused only on solving the issue or attempting to solve the issues with the best algorithm and problem-solving skills of yours.

He evaluates following things:

• Have you understood the issue?
• What norms you’ve made?

Hence, it is suggested to prepare a strategy to understand the provided issues during the interview and a strategy to solve it with the best method. Even you are not able to solve the issue, it would be better to attempt it with a reasonable approach. If you talked smartly, approached the issue with reasonable steps, and you are confident that you are best with your technique, then you would have a positive appearance in the front of the interviewer.  A lot of practice is required to build such kind of approach. For example, you have to understand the question before start to answer and you have to have a polished set of questions to ask in order to gain relevant details regarding the asked question.

How To Appear for the QA Interview?

It is essential to be confident while appearing for the interview. Generally, most of the interview starts with asking a brief introduction about the candidate. The main reason for this question is to make yourself comfortable. It is suggested to start with the following sequence: Your Name, Your Qualification, How you started your career, etc. Some interviewer doesn’t want to hear about your personal details. Hence, don’t proceed with this information unless he asks for it.

The essential thing in interviews is the way you present yourself. Especially, you should convey yourself with the right attitude. Many managers can able to judge your attitude effortlessly. In addition, your way of the answer can easily make them aware whether you are really working on the projects or it is a fake experience. The level of confidence with which you deliver your answer gives a strong impression about you. Even though you aren’t sure about the right answer, just make a try. Don’t just give up. It is also recommended to discuss the things, which you learned with your interest in free time. This makes them aware that you are a learner and can take initiative as well.

When answering the questions, just explain what you aware. It is not advisable to talk about ideal cases. Generally, interviewers are preferred practical approach instead of ideal cases. Make your interviewer understand your way of solving issues by explaining your method. Don’t give a word by the mean of blaming the programmers or developers for an issue. If you did so, they will conclude that you aren’t mature enough for the position. At these times, most of the interviewers ask about the scenarios instead of direct questions. If you are new to this scenario, then ask for the time to think and then answer. There is no need to hurry up things.

Keep in mind that it is not compulsory that an interviewer is a person from the Quality Assurance background. Your interviewer might also come from the developing background. That is, you should be ready to face the person who has not worked on the Quality Assurance processes. If you are in that situation, then you must answer very carefully. Since there may be a chance that your answer sound illogical. However, remember, if a person from the non-QA domain interviews, then you will have a good experience; since, you get to aware how others profess the QA.

If you are experienced, then the interviewers keep raising questions regarding the processes, which you are familiar with or followed. You don’t need to worry if you’ve never followed any kind of processes. The type of processes following depends on the company and the QA doesn’t do much related to that. However, undeniably, one can follow some sort of processes for his own task. You can explain those processes. Nothing depends on the kind of process, you can follow the process, but that should offer good result. Hence, instead of blaming your previous organization, you can take the steps to do it. Remember that the quality of initiative is the best factor to impress the interviewer.

In addition, keep in mind that you should tackle your interview with your patience skills. You should ensure you would not annoy the interviewer at any case. There might be several answers to a particular question; you must find what exactly the interviewer is looking for.

Hope the above details will give you a confidence regarding the Quality Assurance Interview. Just follow the guidelines, update your skills and face your interview in a positive way. All The Best.

You may also like to read: All about Dynamic Testing and it’s Types in Quality Assurance

Our Advanced QA Training Course will transform you into a QA expert, You’ll master the many facets of QA. Learn the latest tools, techniques, and concepts with hands-on experience in projects and labs. For more information please go through our website. 

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