Career Advice – 3 ways to land a Software QA Job

By Diego Casillas

This next piece is for those who already know what Software QA is and is ready to go all in on this career. For those who haven’t read the previous QA articles, I suggest going back and going through the quick primers on Software QA. Part I is here and Part II is here!

How to get a QA job?

Now comes the fun part, how do you get a job performing software quality assurance while holding a degree in African-American studies? I will post a couple of strategies I have personally witnessed work, including what I did for my job:

 

The Internship strategy – this is a much simpler strategy than the aforementioned one. Many companies offer software development internships for students still in college. One of the most popular internships for students is sometimes doing software QA since QA is often a necessity that isn’t always filled for whatever reason. I have seen companies so desperate for QA resources that they open up these internships. Furthermore, I have seen non-computer science students be able to get these internships. Once you’re in, your chances for gaining a full-time gig doing QA increase mightily. You might be thinking that you already have a degree so you can’t get the internship, but this is far from the truth. Companies often times hire interns who have already graduated from college.Your steps for this strategy are to hunt down QA internships via job boards and go at it with everything you’ve got. If you hear back from recruiters, at that point it is time to study up on the profession so that you can impress the hiring managers. Use some of the resources posted at the end of this article for help on how to learn and brush up on specifics that might show up on an interview.

 

The YOLO strategy – believe it or not, I have seen this strategy work. For those who are scared of the internet and don’t know what YOLO means, it means “you only live once” which is a silly way for me to say apply for the damn QA job flat out. Once more, there are companies desperate for QA support who will hire you outright contingent on an impressive interview. Use websites such as DICE.com, Indeed.com, Monster.com, and even local Craigslist ads. Remember, the smaller the company the better the chance that they’ll take a chance on you. If you hear from a recruiter, do your homework and kill the interview.

 

The Networking strategy – I am very fond of this strategy since this is what worked for me. The Networking strategy is one in which you aim to get a job in a software company by applying to jobs that don’t necessarily require technical skills. Being an entry-level prospect, this is to be expected. However, many employers and recruiters are still going to want some sort of background in computer science or development for QA even though it’s truly not necessary so this could rule you out (but it might not, see strategy #3). Software companies almost always require having some sort of a customer facing support mechanism. Technical roles working in a company’s Support department are perfect for you, the aspiring QA analyst. Support roles are usually not extensive in their requirements, usually just demanding that prospects are eloquent enough when dealing with people while also having analytical capabilities for troubleshooting issues (luckily humanities degrees teach these skills in spades).

Your goal is to make a list of software companies that interest you. They can be popular ones, they can be local or far, it just matters that it’s a company whose values speak to you. Once you have done that search for the job postings. You can find their job postings either by searching popular tech job searching sites such as Indeed.com, Dice.com, LinkedIn.com, or Monster.com (there are others but these are the major players). You might find that your desired company does not have these listings on a job posting site. In this case go to the company’s official website and try to dig up job listings via their Careers page. If a company does not have support positions available look for other options such as business analyst, product analyst, etc. The point of this strategy is to get hired by a company and then network yourself with software QA hiring managers. You have now been hired, congrats!

Now the tricky part is getting to move to another department. Companies can have really stringent policies on inter-departmental transfers such as an employee must have worked in their role for a total of 12-24 months. Many companies, especially the smaller less corporate ones do not really have those limitations. At this point your job is to find and network with a QA manager, Director of Software Development, or something of the kind. You will want to become friendly before ambushing them with a request to transfer. Build a relationship by speaking to them in hallways, at lunch, or even on the job if you are working closely with that department already. Eventually you should invite this individual to do an information interview: “Hey Mark, you mind if we grab lunch later this week? I’d like to pick your brain on software QA stuff, it seems really interesting and something I’m considering doing as a career.”

Depending on the company’s need for more QA resources, this might be an easy transition, but it might not and it could take a year or more to network, get QA funding for a new spot, hire and train your replacement, etc. In my case, I was working as an IT guy so I had already built a rapport with QA and dev. Furthermore, I was on great terms with our CIO having worked on a lot of difficult projects with him. The CIO knew I had aspirations of working more closely with software. After a while I noticed that there were QA openings and just went straight to him. He immediately spoke to the hiring managers and made it happen, just like that. Sometimes in life I think it’s easy to forget how powerful asking for things can be (assuming you’re doing all the other little things right). This strategy got me hired, but I’ve seen it happen with a handful of co-workers as well. Companies have a much easier time investing in a known commodity than going through the painful and expensive process of hiring an outside and unknown resource.

 

 

Conclusion

I never thought I’d ever write so much about software QA as a profession and quite frankly I had to be disciplined and stop myself when I did because I could have kept going. Software QA is a very unique and niche role that offers amazing career prospects for those who hold degrees in the humanities that quite frankly most people don’t even know exists. Furthermore, unlike many other professions that seem to have a low ceiling, QA is a career that can lead into directorship levels or extremely technical roles as well. The ceiling is high and the demand is even higher. If this is something that truly interests you feel free to reach out and we can try to come up with a plan on tackling a job and getting your foot in the door into this cool industry.

You might require a couple of tools to prep for this job hunt so I have outlined a list of resources at the end of this article.

 

Resources:

 

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