Why fake pilots scam is headlines in India while fake testers scam is not?

At home, while the whole family was watching a reality show, I happened to take the liberty of changing the channel to NDTV 24x7, a leading news channel. A news that had been making headlines over the last couple of days was a prime time discussion.

The issue is this. A pilot produced fake document to get and got to fly a commercial airliner. Once /a/ pilot was identified to be faking, the investigation began to check if there could be more. Eventually, a flying training school was identified to be helping pilots who wanted to fake their number of hours of flying experience in trade of money. It appears that the norms of the civil aviation mandate at least 250 hours of flying + a simulator test before a pilot is inducted. Turns out that those pilots who faked hardly clocked 40 hours.

An experienced pilot was invited on prime time to talk to share his views and he shared something like this, "I am more surprised how these pilots got through the simulator test. If someone fakes the flying hours, they should have been caught at the simulator test. So, there needs to be a scrutiny into how the simulator tests are conducted".

I listened to that and started laughing. People at my home for a moment shifted their focus from the television to me. This is not the first time they are seeing me react to something in a different way than what they thought someone would. Yes, I was definitely thinking about software testing and those who fake their experience. I guess, people at my home know why I laugh.

As you know, I am a strong advocate against faking. I have written a blog post against faking experience and also do have a podcast on it. If you go through the comments section of the blog post, you'd know how people have tried using all F words, B words and A words against me. What you don't know is that, there have been people who have written emails to me abusing me for not understanding why they faked. Most of these people were hoping the world would sympathize against them but they saw me helping them learn that they are spoiling the craft I respect so much. They couldn't tolerate me as much as I couldn't tolerate them.

I was laughing after I heard the news because a thought crossed my mind. I imagined a situation where all testers who have faked their testing experience are put on a flight where both pilots have faked their experience and then there is a thunderstorm and there is an engine failure mid flight. Pam Pam Pam!

Wow! I love to put a camera over there and watch how those fake testers are reacting to such a situation. Now, am I such a sadist to watch people cry out for their life? Not at all. I want to let these people know I care for them but how? It may appear from my previous blog post about faking that I have behaved like an aggressive pitbull and they reciprocate the same when we have bumped into each other.

After a couple of years of writing that post, I see that my focus has shifted from those who fake from those who facilitate people to fake.

Here is a story : Srividya (name changed) sent an email to me telling that she completed a testing course in an institute in Bangalore and she felt they were unethical. She also mentioned that the institute had provided certificates to a lot of testers in her batch and she suspected the same might have happened to hundreds of batches they churned out and to all future batches. Now, every student of that institute didn't buy the idea of faking immediately but to convince them, the institute organized a meet with their alumni (who had faked and got a job in top companies in India). I was so excited to be interacting with a person like her and then she invited me over coffee to talk more details.

On meeting her I discovered her story to be inspiring to a lot of people who would fake their experience as a tester. Most often, it is the desperateness to get a job that drives people to fake. She was the only earning member of her family and she had two brothers studying college. She was working in a BPO after completing her engineering degree and found out that she wanted to get into IT (a typical story). However, what she told me was, "Its easy for a person like me to give in to faking experience and getting a job but I don't want to do that because I have personal ethics that don't allow me to do. I would get in touch with all my friends over the next couple of months who may help me financially, till I get a job as a tester without the fake one".

I was so happy to meet such people. It also made me realize the fact that all these years my focus was on people who end up faking but not on those who opposed it and didn't give in to it. I would definitely want to hire such people for Moolya and I bet these testers would shine and help the company shine.

What I find funny is that NASSCOM is aware of such things or if they are not aware, its a bigger sin. They don't appear to have been bold enough to make a statement as beautiful as the one I am going to make, "All fakers, beware, if you are caught, you can never work in IT".

I see a chemical equation and I am going to help you see it. I have heard from sources who don't want to be quoted at all that faking happens not just by candidates seeking job but also by services companies. So, there goes the balance of the equation. Some clients insist that they need someone with some kinda tool experience for a specific number of years, irrespective of whether the tool exists that many years.

I guess it was Michael Bolton who once pointed out in twitter that he saw a job ad asking potential candidates to have experience in a specific tool for many years while the tool just was introduced a couple of years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if someone applied to the job and got it because their resume' did show the experience asked for.

I am asking the same question, "Why didn't the simulator tests (interview) catch the fake pilots (testers)?"
Time and again, we have been debating a more stringent way of determining experience and what you might be seeing in STC Job board is a change I am happy to be seeing. If I were to write from the influence of the book Outliers ( Malcom Gladwell ), I would have to say, "I am so glad I was born at the right time to see the most important transition happening in testing".

So, coming to the question of why fake pilots scam makes headlines in our country while fake testers scam is not, is because most people in our so called industry think its not as risky as hiring fake pilots to hire testers who have faked their experience. I think its equally dangerous. It may not directly result in loss of lives but it definitely results in loss of a lot of business and hence a lot of jobs and hence a lot of lives are impacted.

Now, someone from NASSCOM is going to say, "Hey, Pradeep doesn't know anything.We have National Skills Registry in place". I don't know why such a powerful organization as NASSCOM isn't putting the red hot iron on such institutes who don't fear to announce in their class, "Students, go fake. You will still get a good life". Oh, by the way, some of the fakers I know got into some of leading companies registered under NASSCOM. So, dear NASSCOM, who is using your National Skills Registry and why don't you publish how many fakers are prevented from getting a job?

Once in a while companies like Wipro, Infosys, TCS announce they have caught the fakers and have removed them from their jobs. Don't believe? Read it here. OK, I appreciate it and what next? Has it stopped? I bet not.

Now, there is another pattern you notice. It's the Indian IT services companies that have caught a few fakers. What about the product organizations? Having worked at product companies (of whom some don't do any background checks) I know their interview process is stringent as compared to the IT services. Also, they don't hire in bulk as much the Indian IT services do. So, there you go. However, I know a few fakers who got through some product firms but I guess, they deserved it for the kind of interview process they had.

As you see from the news, it is a civil offence and I guess an organization like NASSCOM should make a press release. Well, well, well. Who wants to admit that our IT industry lacks a lot of ethics?

Almost everyone in the IT industry and a couple of years of experience on their belt earn sufficient money to make themselves look clean and good. There are definitely a lot of real good people but what's the use. They don't fight against the bad. I guess, the problem is that they are good but not good enough.

I had a false dream a couple of years ago that I could change this whole faking thing happening in India. I walked into a training center pretending to be a person who wants a fake certificate and recorded the conversation I had with the institute as a proof I could show it to the world. I then was advised to focus on people who deserve my time. I have been trying to do that but often realize that the institutes who promote fake experience also deserve my time and attention. I just lack the support I would have needed.

The students in such institutes have already demonstrated by being silent to the bad advice that they don't care . So is NASSCOM, appearing to me as ignorant in bringing a permanent solution to this.

If someone from NASSCOM is going to read this post (which is so unlikely) and is at least as bold as me, I want you to know that if there is one person in India who can help NASSCOM identify and put a permanent stop to this solution, its me. Do you care? I bet not. Will I continue to care? I bet yes.

I am not trying to project, "I am a hero, don't you see that" kind of an image through this blog post but I am trying to project an image that, "You may be a hero and if you are one, speak out. Most importantly, do in your own ways something to prevent the faking thing to grow bigger by each day. At Moolya, our hiring process doesn't ask for someone's CV in the first place. Its their skills and then more skills and then much more skills that matter. The world doesn't listen to small time businessman like me. I need to be an Azim Premji or Narayana Murthy. If I become one, I shall eradicate this whole faking business in testing.

We need to figure out a way to rehabilitate those who have succumbed to the need to fake. That's another thought which if new to me that I didn't have a couple of years ago.

This issue isn't headlines, yet. This shouldn't get to that point. That's all. 

Who is making software testers, dumb and bad?

Not so long ago, I thought there existed a set of testers called, "bad testers". I hated them. I wanted to punch them on their face and get their face to bleed. I wanted to become a powerful politician and kill them all and escape without being charged for genocide. I wanted to become a superhero and get people to fire them from their jobs. I wanted them to beg for jobs, money and survival. I thought that is the way to get them to open their minds for learning. All this should have shot my blood pressure up while those bad testers remained cool. They were untouched by my criticism and continued to think that I was an asshole.


Whenever I found them, I insulted them as much as I could till I realized that they needed more care from me than those whom I was already caring about. I started caring for them. My world changed and so did theirs.


I was always wondering how these bad testers are happy. Needless to say I thought I am a great tester and still continue to think that way. By "great", I mean, "just what is required". Today, you can be a great tester by being just what is required. Tomorrow, the case might change.


I tried shifting the question from "Why are bad testers happy about themselves?" to "Who is making these bad testers happy?" and "Who is preventing the bad testers to learn that they are doing bad testing?"

That's when I said to myself, "There are no bad testers. There are some who are forced to practice bad testing. The force is either internal or external or a combination of them".

That was an important shift in the strategy that helped me in my exploration of identifying what factors cause a tester to appear bad or practice bad testing.


Internal forces 
I mean, ones that the testers themselves are responsible for or have control over.

• Money more important than anything else: For some testers who are sole breadwinners of the family, they might internalize the idea that what works for others is a safer route to traverse than exploring new paths and risking their cash flow. They spend their life traveling those peoples route who themselves have followed someone else's route. All finding it to be safe and hence not wanting to change.

• Fear of losing the job: For some testers, losing a job means unbearable social pressure. These testers don't ever try to speak against anything to protect their jobs. Their whole life is spent on running just one test case - Is this the right time to shut my mouth? - to which the result always remains - Pass.

• Shallow ambitions in life: For some testers, their ambition is to never do something fascinating but just run the rat race, build a house, buy a car, get married & have kids. They also try to ensure that their kids continue to run the rat race. I am not speaking against taking care of the family but taking care of the family should be balanced with building high ambitions in life and working towards it.

• Victim of Rutherford-Bohr's experiment: Some testers, no matter what exciting stuff they are presented with, try to return to their most stable state of ignoring all the exciting stuff because their life is already happy (grounded). 

• Living someone else's dream: Some testers, don't have dreams of their own. They just pretend to have their own while they are living other's dream. Some live the dream of their parents and rest their manager's. Living others dream makes their life boring and they give up on almost everything, forget testing.

• Taste of early success causing a drift from continuing to learn - Mostly a very dangerous one. These kind of testers think they are on the right path and there is no reason for them to change. 

• Having learned that good testing is hard - Some testers acknowledge what good testing is but they also learn it is very hard to test well. Out of that, some of them make up their mind saying they are not in for such hard work because they think life is bigger than doing good testing. Nothing wrong but they don't seem to be doing to the big part well, either.

External forces
I mean, the ones who are responsible or has a power or influence to get good testing done.

• Head or Tails of testing - I have talked to at least slightly less than a hundred Heads of Testing of big, medium and small scale organizations. They have so much power to change things and yet they don't seem to be doing anything about it. I must also admit that some people are doing very well while most don't appear to be. Why don't these people take a break from their work, sit along testers on one of the project and test for just a couple of days to realize how hard it is and what can they do to help these testers do a great job. 

• The interviewers - At least people in India, when they are out of college, want to just learn enough to crack an interview. When interviewers emphasize on demonstration of memorization than skills, its easy for a billion plus population to crack them. Fakers get in, Genuine people might not.

• Testing institutes - Business demands scale, I agree. Scaling at the cost of quality of education is in my opinion, spoiling your own country's chances. Please read the book Outliers by Malcom Gladwell and more specifically Chapter Five - The Three Lessons from Joe Flom. You'd know what your business needs for future if it has to remain scalable.

• The experts - If you have great ideas, please price them a little lower for the first few years or based on the geography. You won't be considered cheap, trust me. Don't make money an entry barrier to someone who wants to get excellent at testing. 

• Commercial conferences - If you have have had good deals of sponsorship and paid delegates for a specific year, consider giving 80% discount to 10 people who cant afford it but want to attend it.

Combination of internal & external forces

When the external forces & internal forces combine, its a killer combo for bad testing

• Lack of speed in firing poor performers - If the people responsible to get good testing done are delaying in firing poor performers then the hope in the poor performer rises that he or she is doing well and should continue doing that. In at least half the organizations I consult, I get the opportunity to consult because they haven't fired the poor performers for a long time and something went kaput.

• Not paying good testers well - I have been to a few conferences in India where Head of IT or Head of Dev or Head of Testing are keynote speakers. Their speech is usually, "We have come to realize that testing is of great importance" but then they don't match the pay of the good testers they have to their claims. People call that "keynote". Can you walk the talk?

• Waiting till the year end to spend on training budget - Wondering why many organizations keep their training budget till the year end and not organize a training when the team needs it sometime mid year? As a side note, I wish, in India, the Learning & Development department, which is a separate entity in the organization is eliminated and every department becomes Learning & Development apart from what they do. 

• The book writers - When you write books that are not different from any other books that are available, you are re-iterating the point that the industry isn't changing. Many testers who accidentally pick up a book and skim through it read stuff that they have read a couple of years ago feel they are on track (and also end up not buying your book). Is that a message your book wanted to communicate?

I am 30 now. I am more curious about my age of 50 and waiting to get there, because I hope, I would have seen many changes - lots of positive ones. Mostly because the generation to which I belong or the generations junior to that of mine would have solved the problems I have listed and might have gone beyond that. I am not discarding the fact that the older generations have not solved it. There are dozens of them out of a population of millions.

When I tried punching just one bad tester I met, blood oozed out. Not on the face but in my hands for it was a mirror that I saw. 

BPO / Support / Call Center / Homemaker to Software Testing

Over the last few years, I have received at least about 40 emails and a couple of phone calls from people working in tech support, BPO, call center, homemakers asking for my advice to get a job in software testing or to make a career in it. I am tired responding to the same set of queries from different people. Now, that doesn't mean I wouldn't be interested to talk to people. I just hope they read this and have a different question or a situation they'd like me to address. 


However, this post is not just for those who want to change their career from BPO or Tech support to software testing but also to those who are hiring managers, interviewing testers and to all those who are aware that they are a part of the future of software testing.

1: Chasing dream versus chasing a day job

A friend of mine gave my number to his friend who works in a Technical Support job at a reputed organization and wants to move into software testing. So he called me to seek my help. I asked him, "Why software testing and not something else?" and he didn't have an answer. That is perfectly fine. He then said he wanted a day job and found software testing as an easy possibility.

I started to probe his dream of what he wanted to be before he landed up in Tech Support. His dream was to be something else. I then explained that moving to software testing might not help him feel any better than starting to chase the dream. He agreed and is now chasing his dream of photography.

2: Turning lemon to lemonade than faking it as orange

Some people have asked me if it would help to fake their experience of a tester of the product they were providing technical support just to get interview calls. I have helped them understand that there is a lot of value in presenting the truth than trying to show it as something else, get caught someday and be blacklisted by NASSCOM and a whole lot of companies spoiling future growth chances.

Having worked in several product organizations, I realize the importance of interacting and collaborating with support teams. If I were to hire a few testers for my team, I would definitely be interested to talk to a support team member. We did that in one of the product organizations I worked. I have talked to hiring managers of large and small product organizations who have done that. I think most of them are internal hiring and some rare cases of external hiring.


To all those who are considering to hire testers, stop doing what you have been doing all this while - hiring those who have been in testing only. Where were you before you started to do testing?


3: Learning software testing in 10 days OR Crash course about how to crash


With many folks wanting to learn software testing, lots of people are making money out of it. For all those in the world of software testing, do you know how many institutes are there per square inch of Ameerpet in Hyderabad who can teach testing in 5 hours if you'd like so and have enough cash? 


Not just Ameerpet, there are lots of chota Ameerpets that I have come across. These kind of training centers are a huge contribution factor for spoiling young minds in India. If God makes me rich, I shall wipe out each one of them.  These training centers run weekend batches for Tech Support folks and spoil their ability to learn testing. 


So, when folks who work in Tech Support and have attended such draining programs (yes, that was intentional) get in touch with me for seeking advice on job search, I have helped them to pick up two books: Testing Computer Software & Lessons Learned in Software Testing. For the most recent ones, I have also suggested Perfect Software & Other Illusions about Testing.


I also have suggested them to hook up with a tester every weekend and try some hands on testing or participate in open source projects for a while. For just one I have helped by doing a paired exploratory testing. One of my student in the Hands on Software Testing Training - India's first true hands on only testing training I delivered for Edista in 2008 & 2009 was in Support and he demonstrated his testing skills to his employer to be moved to testing.


4: Test Report instead of Resume / Profile


When my father started his first job after his Diploma in Electrical Engineering, he applied to the job with a CV / Resume. So, using a CV / Resume is that old an approach which hasn't changed much, except that he used a typewriter and we use MS Word and a Laserjet Printer. Lets try to change.


In the last 3 months, I have 4 emails from hiring managers in Bangalore, Chennai and a country outside India seeking help to hire skilled testers. One of the things I have suggested to them is to not ask people to send their resume unless it is accompanied with a test report. For hiring managers, it would be easy to see what kind of tester they want by looking at the test report. If the person says, "I am skilled at automating checks", so be it, demonstrate it and attach the scripts along with the resume. Needless to say without violating any Non Disclosure Agreement. Open Source software testing suits best. The interviews are actually discussion around the test report rather than "What is the difference between this and that?"


I am writing a whole big book on software testing interviews. A publisher just rejected the book but that's OK.


BTW, don't send me your resume and ask me to refer to those hiring managers.


5: Why some developer guys from India suck big time?


Nothing about their programming skills. I have done career counselling almost all through my career for others and myself. Hey, its a skill with which we are born, at least that's how we behave when someone approaches us for advice :)


So, having worked with some testing institutes, I volunteered to take up any work I could that would let me to speak with testers and potential testers for my own learning purpose. My blog, as you know, has brought me a lot of people with varied kinds of queries. So, I have some experience dealing with those developer guys who walk in months after their marriage, looking for a job for their wife.


These great developer guys come and ask, "I want my wife to take up a software testing job, do you offer job guarantee courses?". So, to the question, "Why software testing?", they'd without any bit of shame, answer, "I want her to earn and come home on time so that she takes care of office work and home work in a balanced way". 


One guy tried interviewing me to see if I know enough testing to teach his wife and help her learn testing. Not just me, one of my student, Arindam, was inspired to coach testers and works for an institute in Bangalore part time. That institute runs a special batch for home makers. Arindam shared his experience with me about the batch. He too said what I had already experienced. My advice to all housewife / homemakers whoever you want to call yourselves as is to read Parimala Shankaraiah's blog & Meeta's blog. Hey wait, there are quite a few others in India. Read their blogs to understand how passionate they are, how difficult it actually is to be good in testing and how they manage home and office work.


6: A break / sabbatical in career is just fine


Some women testers who take a break or sabbatical, try getting back to the industry but the industry treats them bad. Most hiring managers are blind in noticing people with break. They think they would be at loss of value if they hire them. 


I think stopping someone who is passionate in testing but had no other option than to take a sabbatical or break not getting a job is a big hindrance to the entire software testing industry. If I were Parimala Shankaraiah's employer and she needed a sabbatical, I would welcome her anytime she wants to come back. Not hiring her is like fooling myself and my company HR policies.


7. The actual meaning of "Our company is an equal opportunity employer"


There is a VERY BIG company who has an office even close to my home who has this statement, "We are an equal opportunity employer" in their website but didnt allow me to even apply to an opening just because I didn't have an ISEB/ISTQB certification. Let me tell this to you: I felt blessed by God to be not eligible to even apply to such companies because such company environments wouldn't have made my career strong.


The company which actually is an equal opportunity provider is one that selects its employees based on skills and not if they purchased a certificate. So, if you dont get jobs in such places, feel blessed, you really are. Keep demonstrating your skills and jobs will come to you. 


Santhosh Tuppad, my student with just one year of testing experience (and tons of experience in finding and reporting bugs) got an offer to be a Test Lead for one of the top companies in Asia. Although he couldn't take it up then but I just wonder if he had to be a Test Lead at some of those fake equal opportunity providers, how many white hair he should have had.


So, here are some points to ponder:

• If you choose to be misguided by what others say then you deserve it.
• If you have some other passion and want to be a software tester because you think its an easy job, you are spoiling an opportunity to help your children see you as their inspiration to pursue what they want to be.
• If you are OK to live others dream, don't question, just follow. Never crib / complain in life.
• If you want to test out testing, do so with open source projects and by collaborating with some good testers around you.
• No job is easy but all jobs can be done in an easy way.
• Fakers will get caught.
• Build your testing skills and demonstrate them.
• Attract employers don't always get attracted.
• Build your own brand. Get organizations proud about hiring you and not the other way.
• Many services companies count heads - not brains. Target tech start ups.
• If nothing works out and still you dream to be a tester, start your own testing services.
• Its OK to fail.
• Its important you succeed chasing your dream irrespective of whether your chase was successful or not.
• Chasing your dream is the only way you can know if you can really be successful

As and when I encounter more points or more different questions, I shall update this post.

Testing Experience Magazine : The voice of ISTQB

I agree you need money to run a business but then...

If you are subscribed to Testing Experience - The magazine for professional testers, you would have got an e-mail recently ( a day or two before this post ) announcing first year anniversary of the magazine. I am subscribed to them from their third issue and in an year they have grown to about 350,000 subscribers ( as per their own website claim )

I congratulated Jose Diaz for running the magazine and for completing one year with it, and offered my respect to him for doing it. I also wrote in the same e-mail to him that I see the magazine becoming too much of ISTQB stuff to which he seemed to disagree with me. I am surprised with that.

I decided to investigate if I could be wrong and presented my findings to Jose over an e-mail:
( modified the construct for your reading and not the content)


Here is my experience of going through Testing Experience magazine

• When I open the website www.testingexperience.com I am forced to look at a pop up ad for ISTQB. Only after closing that I am allowed to browse through the pages. [ As on May 29, 2009 2300 IST ] Do you see anything different?

• Let's look into the latest issue : Security testing: Page: 2 : The opening ad of Testing Experience is ISTQB. It kind of puts in my mind the thing that Testing Experience means ISTQB.

• Page 3: Jose Diaz has personally covered ISTQB in letter from Editor section and he says, "Last but not least, I want you to pay attention to our new e-learning portal www.testingexperience.learntesting.com . You can register for ISTQB Foundation Level and very soon for Advanced Level. Enjoy Learning". When the chief says pay attention to something it indicates to me that Testing Experience is supporting ISTQB because they are feeding Testing Experience with enough money to do that.

• Page 6: Yet another ad of ISTQB in German language or something similar to that. Hey look, before I even get to read the first article in a magazine, I am asked to cross 4-5 instances of ISTQB.
  

• Page 13: Another instance of ISTQB half page attractive ad
  

• Page 21: ISTQB again

• Page 24: Erik Van Veenendaal writes about ISTQB and wooing people to go for it. Here is an excerpt from that article: "The ISTQB Advanced Level scheme offers a complete 5-day module on technical testing which may seem irrelevant to testers today, but I'm convinced will become more and more important to the near future or even already today".
  

• Page 27: Interview with Mike Smith: Yet another ISTQB masala flavor in the form of LearnTesting. 3 pages full of that. As though - Learn Testing means only about learning ISTQB way of testing.

• Page 30: Yet another ad for Learn Testing who in turn promotes ISTQB and run by Testing Experience.
  

• Page36: An article from Rex Black, a popular founder and face of ISTQB. To his credit, he doesn't talk about ISTQB.
  

• In what way is his article on page 66 to 70 that talks about Advanced Software Test Design Techniques is related to Security theme of the magazine? Do we have so less people on Security Testing that we'd have to compensate it by a non security article.

• At least aren't there any other brilliant ISTQB certified testers who can write good articles on Security Testing or maybe even the Advanced Test Case Design Techniques?

• Page 52 & 53 has the ISTQB and information such as "We are the community with 1,10,000 people. Are you on the right side?". Its a Shame. Rex Black speaks against the idea of Schools of Testing but has ads asking testers, Are you on the right side? with a link to ISTQB below it. What is the message?
  

• Page 58: ISTQB in France

• Page 70: Another article from Rex Black
  

• Page 78: RBCS & ISTQB
  

• Page 99: There is ISTQB, yet again and a full fledged article on it for 2 pages.

• Page 103: Is yet another mention about ISTQB being there and being here for those who didn't know it will soon be everywhere .

• Oh and Page 104 also ends with ISTQB training and other details. ( There are only 104 pages of this magazine )
  

• Compare their first edition of magazine and there on, you would see ISTQB increasing with every edition. I wouldn't be surprised that the future editions is only about ISTQB and I see the future in their latest edition.

Testing is Questioning

Where is all the money that many testers across the globe paying to ISTQB certification and training going? Asks Michael Bolton on James Bach's Blog

Is the magazine becoming an official mouth piece of ISTQB or there is so much of bias that it makes me think so?

Whose money is all this? Your money. You didnt know you can make someone as rich as you wanted to be?

I think anyone who is running a business can cling to a brand to build their own brand but not to an extent that the other brand swallows it. If that is the mission, I think Testing Experience is headed on the right track.

I don't know who is in the review board and I suspect that it might not be diversified and have only ISTQB promoters.


What do you think?

• So, you reader of this post - What is your opinion? After seeing all this would you think the magazine is neutral or is serving the purpose of promoting ISTQB?
• Should magazines like these that claim to be for Professional Testers be promoting one kind of stuff or be helpful to the community in allowing different kinds of people to mix with?

Test Republic is a social community for software testers and a not for profit service by Mohan Panguluri, COO, Edista Testing Institute. You can witness that by visiting it. It has events of ISTQB posted in the past, it has CAST conference details and QAI conferences. It has a blend of all kinds of thought process in software testing and arguments. They allow all kinds of information to be posted from all kind of communities and schools. They keep aside their business and do this for benefiting the community. Another example is STC by Rosie Sherry. I think there is lots to learn from people like Mohan Panguluri and Rosie Sherry, for the rest of the world who also claims to be doing it for Professional testers.


The philosophy

Jose seemed to be OK with my above response of facts about ISTQB in Testing Experience's latest issue but wasn't comfortable after I mentioned to him that I plan to blog about it. He cited that his lawyers might have a look into my blog if I do so.

So they might be reading this post along with you. If I question ISTQB, the dynasty of ISTQB will hire lawyers to see if I can be attacked for questioning them?

How cheap? Software Testing is such a nascent field, we haven't even crossed 50 years and already someone is saying "The best practice and right ways of testing" and "we control the field and there is no room for disagreement".

Kudos ISTQB certified testers. You are sinking the field you are working on without knowing you are doing it. Fantastic, go ahead get certified!

Change in hiring and interviewing process in India for software testing and software testers

I claim to be one of the most experienced and most affected tester in the context of interview in India and here ( in this link ) is more information about it. After going through that link or this video you would know that I have been struggling to not see another Pradeep Soundararajan in the job market who is frustrated with this industry's idea of interviewing. Edista Testing Institute ( my client and partner ) is constantly pushing towards seeing a better testing community and that's why I chose to work with them.

I consider the following as one of my biggest contribution to the change the industry needs. Most training institutes in India (even the so called highly reputed ones) have people who dont know to test, teaching testing by running a thousand slides. I think they have so many slides that if you run 25 slides a second to watch it like a movie, it still runs for about 2 hours. Such slides have always caused an avalanche slide of many victims career, knowledge and skills.

Edista started to redefine things by hiring me and then allowing me to hire Manoj and then Sharath and then now more people. The last I heard from Manoj is that testers who were interacting with him are now excited about what Manoj is doing and are enquiring what it takes to be able to get skilled in testing.

You might also discover that Manoj has started to publish his practice sessions on testing in his blog.

We sit to gether, test, learn from each other, create exercises, practice pair testing, discover new tools, debate on ideas, think about more heuristics, brainstorm test ideas, discuss about bugs, run a test club ( like the movie Fight Club ), teach people how to learn and then how to test. We are never away from testing and we are never away from anything about testing.

We aren't skeptical about the fact that there could be more people like us and who knows they might be interested to join us. So here goes the job posting for the same: ( and I have posted this in LinkedIn and other communities - please feel free to share this job posting to all other Indian testers )

Consultants in Software Testing and Software Test Education :: Bangalore

Profile:

Edista Testing Institute ( www.edistatesting.com ) has a couple of openings for Consultants in Software Testing and Test Education.

It wouldn't be wrong if I say, they are looking for people who have the urge to be heroes in software testing. This role demands you to train ( yourself and others ), collaborate with the on going research activities, test products, learn and innovate.

This role also demands you to grow to an extent to be able to contribute valuable things to the testing community and work for its betterment.

About your co-workers:

You would work with skilled testers and brains who constantly engage in learning activities, blogging, discussions, teaching, mentoring, challenge and argue online in testing forums ( like www.testrepublic.com ), offline and reinvent the art of reinventing things in testing.

If you think you wanted to be a hero ( or hero-in ) in software testing and never got the opportunity, here it is.

Eligibility:

We'd be glad if you have worked as a tester for a while ( at least 2 - 5 years ) and also be glad if you are willing to travel within India (or abroad ) on short term assignments.

We would prefer you have a degree in Engineering or Science however if you dont have them but have a demonstrated ability of good thinking, we'd be fine.

Interview Process:

Our interview process is cut above all other organizations that neighbor us. We put you in the testers seat, give you time to test a product and have a discussion of your testing based on the report you produce.

We aren't too bothered if you dont know the difference between Sanity testing and Smoke testing because we believe, knowing the difference ( even if it exists ) doesn't make a huge difference.

We aren't bothered if you have a certification in Software Testing or not as long as you are passionate, skilled in testing, and have the fire and fuel to take you a long way. In simpler words, it *doesn't matter* if you dont have ISTQB, ISEB or CSTE certifications.

About Edista:

www.edistatesting.com

Time to join:

Immediate is preferred. A little delay is fine if you are stuck somewhere.

Contact:

Send your profile to : resume@edistatesting.com

If you can crunch your profile in one page, we'd silently thank you for that.

The results so far:

• We invited about 7 candidates so far who claimed to have energy, passion and demonstrable testing skills.
  
• We are seeing great benefits of this approach.
  
• It makes us spend 3 minutes ( after a person has finished the test and generated a report ) to know about the claims a tester has made in his profile are fale and a little bit about the organization that said, "Yeah, he can test".
• We spoke only to one person in depth as his report was quite interesting.
• We know that we can filter more candidates with lesser time we have and get better ones to work with.
• It would be dangerous to get a person who cant test and report credibly into any organization that wants to hire testers.
• Those who fake testing experience fear to even apply or even if they do and by our overlooking we invite them for the testing session, we dont need to spend time beyond 3 minutes post their test.
  

Testers have to be tested on their testing skills and not on memorization skill. The best test ( based on the current situation ) you could give a tester during an interview is to make him sit on a computer and asking him to test a piece of software by giving a meaningful mission and time to do it.

Side note: Are you planning to be in the supporters list?