Certification spoiled testers...
Submitted by Ainars Galvans on Mon, 28/05/2007 - 08:29.
general software testing | people issues | perspectives
Now as I am ISTQB certified tester I want to tell you what do I think about it. I did believe for years there should be some value other than marketing of the training provided which is validate by the test. I did so even when read my worst book ever, even once passed the test (mostly the terminology/process based). Only as I tried to imagine any person just from university passed the same test I realized that the damage to their thinking about testing would outweigh the knowledge gained.
My Story
Recently during local conference keynote there was announcement of ISTQB Latvia board created and a group of local testers did their examination. I later mentioned that I was in that group and did some comments about the test. Later – during a coffee break - I was asked something like this: so if there are two newbie candidates and the only difference between them is that one is certified, which one would you prefer? My first answer was the one with certificate. But then on a weekend I recalled how we do hiring interviews. One of my favorite sentences was “at least he is not spoiled with wrong thinking of what a testing is”. And this is exactly what the certification will do to a person without experience from a real life. A simple proof for this is the following fact: in the ISTQB compliant book I mentioned above there is the last paragraph in a lot of chapters noticing something like "however - in real life things are not typically done this way".
A bit of context
I've added this chapter after thinking again about this. What I've just mentioned is only about my project and me. I know other test team leads hire not based on person ability to think, analyze and advance, some of then hire based on ability to follow the script and experience in writing instructions.
I also remember during keynote it was mentioned that ISTQB primary aim small companies (10 employees). I think that in small companies there is no need for dedicated test engineers, so their goal in certificating is to have a person who could pretend quality process is in place in that company. Well if that is the goal, perhaps ISTQB training is good enough.
What should they (students) learn ?
I remember in University of Latvia most professors were proud that (at least in Faculty of Physics and Mathematics) their are teaching way of thinking rather than knowledge. During the tests they typically allowed using books as in real life we will be able to use books, internet, etc. to solve our real life problems.
Now as working in industry I see that we could get new employees though our processes quite fast and I could describe them any term they don’t know in a minute whenever they approach that term in their work. I believe that learning when you could apply what you have learned immediately is the most effective.
So what I really want them to know is how/when to ask questions, how to try find answers themselves (in internet/books), how to solve real-life problems given they have found all the theoretical knowledge they need to solve the particular problem.
P.S. Special thanks to Artur who talked me into this and James whos blog supported me getting "out" :) .
My Story
Recently during local conference keynote there was announcement of ISTQB Latvia board created and a group of local testers did their examination. I later mentioned that I was in that group and did some comments about the test. Later – during a coffee break - I was asked something like this: so if there are two newbie candidates and the only difference between them is that one is certified, which one would you prefer? My first answer was the one with certificate. But then on a weekend I recalled how we do hiring interviews. One of my favorite sentences was “at least he is not spoiled with wrong thinking of what a testing is”. And this is exactly what the certification will do to a person without experience from a real life. A simple proof for this is the following fact: in the ISTQB compliant book I mentioned above there is the last paragraph in a lot of chapters noticing something like "however - in real life things are not typically done this way".
A bit of context
I've added this chapter after thinking again about this. What I've just mentioned is only about my project and me. I know other test team leads hire not based on person ability to think, analyze and advance, some of then hire based on ability to follow the script and experience in writing instructions.
I also remember during keynote it was mentioned that ISTQB primary aim small companies (10 employees). I think that in small companies there is no need for dedicated test engineers, so their goal in certificating is to have a person who could pretend quality process is in place in that company. Well if that is the goal, perhaps ISTQB training is good enough.
What should they (students) learn ?
I remember in University of Latvia most professors were proud that (at least in Faculty of Physics and Mathematics) their are teaching way of thinking rather than knowledge. During the tests they typically allowed using books as in real life we will be able to use books, internet, etc. to solve our real life problems.
Now as working in industry I see that we could get new employees though our processes quite fast and I could describe them any term they don’t know in a minute whenever they approach that term in their work. I believe that learning when you could apply what you have learned immediately is the most effective.
So what I really want them to know is how/when to ask questions, how to try find answers themselves (in internet/books), how to solve real-life problems given they have found all the theoretical knowledge they need to solve the particular problem.
P.S. Special thanks to Artur who talked me into this and James whos blog supported me getting "out" :) .