Welcome to another episode of the Evil Tester Show.
And in this episode we are going to look at recruiting testers
The audition process, not just an interview process, an audition process
And how to write job specs, because
All of that is hard. So first a quick word from our sponsor which is
me. EvilTester.com that's the website, that's where
You go to find all the show notes and blog posts and extra videos
So lots of good testing content at EvilTester.com
Now this episode was originally recorded live
For my Patreons in 2019
January 2019, which is why if you're watching the video version
You'll see I've got so many layers of clothes on and it was January
And it was cold. But I'm going to go through some of the old
Material that is on Patreon and try and release some of it
To the general public. But for this point in time this just a quick 10
Minute podcast on how to recruit testers.
Space invaders hoodie.
I got a couple of LinkedIn
messages from someone who's
struggling to recruit people.
Now the unfortunate thing is they
weren't saying Alan we would like to
employ you to help us recruit people
because that can be quite good.
I've done that before.
I quite like that.
But I had a look at their...
they've got the battle that they're
in a location that is not easy to
recruit for they're not
they're not particularly near a city
but they're close enough to three
major cities in the UK that they've
got a fairly big capture area
but those
people are much more likely to work
in the cities. So they have to offer
rates that are
competing with that and sometimes in
those cities some people will
commute down to London and get
almost double the salary.
So they have a fairly
hard task.
But they were making it worse for
themselves because they didn't
have a good job description.
Now one
of the issues that we have with
communication is that communication
is in the
eyes of the beholder.
It's in the ears of the person
receiving it. Its in the
understanding that they take for it
it and
They have a very
traditional
description "so it's
we're looking for someone who
is 100 percent team player but can
work on their own".
"We need someone who can
plan what they need to do and
handle multiple shifting
priorities at a fast pace."
Anything that is vague and
ambiguous...
and whatever report we do
whenever we're doing a test plan,
schedule, risk, whatever...
anything that is vague and
ambiguous.
Someone, and they are well
within their rights to do this.
Will read this
in a negative light.
When I see conflicting statements.
I view that negatively
as you really don't
know what you want.
or if that is how you're approaching
this. You really can't manage this
situation.
If
you say things like "well you need
to handle shifting priorities fast."
I read that as we don't
know what we're doing as a business,
we don't know how to set priorities.
We don't stick to plans.
There is
also,
well you need to be hands on
testing, coming up with test plans
and test ideas.
You need to be an expert test
Automator and understand tools
but there's no specifics.
There was no well what tool
specifically. how much experience
specifically. do we need to code or
is it capture replay.
What kind of experience?
experience in automating mobile?
web? Desktop?
what is it?
what is it you want?
And then I read into
that as "yeah we don't really know
what we want. We just want someone
that can do everything but we
just want to pay this small amount.
because if we knew what it took to
get someone who can do everything
the numbers would scare us".
And recruitment is hard enough.
If you have a look on the Ministry
of test website they've got a job
section and I'm not encouraging
you to apply for jobs.
I'm encouraging you to look through
the listings there because
some of the listings. I think it's a
good place to have a nice central
place of listings all of whom were
advertising for the same thing.
They're advertising for testers
and you can see very quickly the
difference between the
way that people write job specs.
Some of them are very much
describing the environment "you will
work with these people, we have
these expectations..." they're very
clear.
I think that is a much better way
of recruiting people.
Just being as clear as humanly
possible.
Don't try and make it all folksy and
HR and everything else.
just state you have to work with
their manager and the manager is
going to set your goals, we're going
to evaluate it on a weekly basis.
you get to work with the development
team.
Do do do do.
These are the technologies we work
with. We're expecting you to
test the web application using
angular.
We currently have automation in
place using C sharp and
we want people who can contribute
to this and expand it.
You won't have to start from
scratch.
All that kind of stuff making it
very clear I think will help
because what you're also trying to
do is filter
out candidates.
you want your job spec not just to
attract people but to
have people, if you give people the
ability to self filter.
If your expectations are clear
then they know what will and will
not work in your environment and
they won't try and sell themselves
into something that they are clearly
not wanting
to work in.
They don't want to work in that
environment.
I think there's a lot of good
examples on there on the ministry
of test site job board for
looking at how to write a good spec.
That's half the battle.
Once you've got people in you have
to figure out how to interview them
effectively.
I very often do
phone interviews. in fact not "very
often" I always do a phone interview
first. I never jump straight to a
face to face interview because that
wastes their time
and my time.
so much of my time during job
hunting was wasted with face
to face interviews that within the
first few seconds
you knew this wasn't going to work.
This wasn't right, the people, the
expectations, this wasn't the right
thing.
And they knew you were not the right
kind of candidate for them because
you're coming in too hard
too fast for them.
So phone interviews first.
You always get a good feel for
are people going to talk in
specifics.
and if people are answering in very
vague terms it's your job
to ask questions that are getting
ever more specific,
based on their answers.
How specifically did you
implement this automation test
framework?
What specifically did you
code or write in your framework?
How specifically did you...
and just very specific on it to see
if they're actually bluffing or
not.
Because very often people find it
easier to bluff on the phone because
they think well if I can get in
there for a face to face I'm in.
And what you're trying to do is
avoid wasting time.
You have
to get good at phone
interviews and asking good
questions.
Then face to face interviews.
While you can ask lots of questions,
and people go what questions do you
ask?
The best thing I have ever
found...
if I am recruiting someone
and my main expectation of them is
to automate something.
To put them in front of the computer
and get them to automate something.
But because that can be panic
mode.
I get them working on existing code.
so I'll get them on existing code
that is working that is doing
something. or is broken and we'll
get them to fix it.
I'll pair with them.
I will ask them questions as we go
through so we're discussing
automating in general in context
in automating.
Now the reason this is hard,
and the reason people don't do this
is that you have to know how to do
the work in order to audition
in a very practical and contextual
hands on way.
Test managers who don't know how to
automate can ont audition
and question people
in that hands on way.
People who do not know how to do
exploratory testing of web
applications can not pair
with someone and audition them
as a testing process.
When I'm getting people who are
primarily going to be testing
web applications we will sit down in
front of the web application that
they are going to be expected to
test and test
it.
With just the tools that are
there. So the browser, the dev
tools, they can make whatever
notes and we'll ask them. What tools
would you normally use?
Which browser do you prefer?
What are we going to look for?
and see what questions they come
back with. Then you get a feel for
what the flow when they work is
going to be like. how would you
normally take notes?
Would you'd like to take notes now?
What is stopping you taking notes?
The audition is
absolutely key.
You can ask as many questions as you
want.
People go through rounds and rounds
of interviews asking questions
and as soon as they're in front
of a computer you instantly
know it falls apart.
So just do that early.
Auditions are absolutely
key.
But that means you have to get your
best people at that activity
to audition people who are going to
be coming in.
but you also have to respond
contextually to that person
and adjust it to their
level of knowledge and experience
and assume
that there's some set of nerves in
there and take account of that
in the process.
And it's hard and
nuanced. and I think a lot of H.R.
departments don't like that because
it is completely custom to
each individual.
What they want is to
be able to say that they are
not in any way biased.
So they want a consistent set a
questions. I think that is just the
worst way to recruit
people.
I think it's much more fair
to approach everything the same
even though it's contextual for
that person.
So I always audition.
If the H.R.
people want to have a consistent set
of questions then we
might put in as
the start of one of the interviews
or afterwords or whatever, but the
audition is they key part
for telling whether people are going
to be suitable or not.
But
you have to have an advert that is
going to filter people out and
attract them and people hide
things like salary, people hide
things like what percentage is
the pension, or how much is
the insurance cover.
Don't hide any of the numbers.
Just put the numbers in.
Assume that people will
negotiate afterwards, but hide
nothing.
And I think a good sales technique
is showing the price so that when
people come in they know what it is
and everything else is a bonus.
Right. because if you're matching
the price that people want, or if
the price isn't quite there you're
showing them the extra benefits
and bonuses that make the workplace
and the approach
very clear. Because if it's unclear,
why would people want to come in?
So that's some of the advice
I gave them. Clearly it was coming
back as questions and I don't know
how they've responded to me going
"this job description is not
as clear as it could be." "This
is vague, this is how I'm
misinterpreting this, I assume I'm
misinterpreting it in a negative
way. but it might not be.
So,
Interviewing is hard.
Recruiting is one of the hardest
things to do.
And remember to check out EvilTester.com, that's where we put out all the
Show notes. And the reason I put out this type of content is because I''m trying to communicate
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