Starting your Search for a QA Tester Role

Certification is not required to get roles (and there is even some debate within the Software testing community as to the true value of certification). While we're not here to tell you to certify or not, we want to make you aware of available certifications so you can research them and determine if they would help you as a job candidate. Three certifications to research include:

• International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB/ISEB),
• Black Box Software Testing (BBST) series,
• Certified Agile Tester (CAT).

Once you feel you're ready, you will need to take time searching for real QA Tester roles. As well as preparing your resume and we recommend also creating a portfolio of your QA testing work. A QA tester portfolio doesn't have to be anything fancy, you can create a blog or a Google Drive directory with samples of test cases, bug tracking and so on.

Through Next Chapter you will spend time crafting your resume and searching for jobs. As you do this, it will be helpful to research sample QA Tester resumes, like this resource from Job Hero.

Some final resources we highly recommend that aren't covered in this pathway but will be beneficial as you prepare to get job ready:

• Agile Testing
• Modern Testing Principles
• Tips for Interviewing Junior Software Testers (tips for how hiring managers approach job interviews of candidates

Here are a few sample job descriptions we used to map the outcomes you learn in this pathway to real job skills and requirements.

Sample QA tester job posting

Sample Games QA Tester job role

Using the commenting tools, share what job roles you are looking at, what resource you use to find job roles, and how you determine that a particular job might be the right fit for you.