Author Archives: bjosman

Recruiting for testers – a hiring perspective

In recent times I have been heavily involved in hiring testers. This is includes fine tuning the hiring process, screening CV’s, interviews, take home exercises and so forth. It also includes spending time with recruiters. I have found two aspects of hiring interesting and we’ll look at one vital component of the process in this post.

Recruiters

I have found recruiters fall into two categories – those that listen and those that don’t. I have met some very good recruiters who have gone out of their way to build a rapport before trying to sell me their wares. I have appreciated this as I have found that they’ve listened to what we were after (our ‘requirements’ if you will) and we got to know each other better. This is important as testing (and the tech business) is about people after all. An example of this is when I recently spoke at a testing conference in Melbourne, Australia (ATD2K16) – three people from the same recruiting firm came to support me because we had established a very good relationship before hand!

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Test Metrics Debunked – Residual Risk (1/5)

Metrics and the desire to measure things (especially in software testing) is often used and abused.  The craft is rife with misplaced, misunderstood, and at times dangerous measures.  In particular, a recent post entitled “5 examples of metrics that matter” goes some way to support fallacies in the software testing space (http://blog.softed.com/2014/04/28/5-examples-of-metrics-that-matter/).

What follows is a series of five explanations as to why these metrics miss their mark.

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WeTest Workshops

http://www.meetup.com/WeTest-Workshops/

The brain child of Aaron Hodder and Katrina Edgar… and thanks to Richard Robinson and David Greenlees for sharing their experiences on setting up a meet up group for software testers….

For testers in Wellington who are interested in testing discussions with other practitioners.

Monthly workshop events of a similar format to KWST – a presenter introduces a topic to the group, and attendees are then encouraged to discuss, question, challenge, and share ideas on that topic. Participation is expected, so come prepared to contribute!

Meet thinking testers in the Wellington testing community, engage in practical discussion, and eat pizza.

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KWST#2 Test conference is coming!

The second KWST or Kiwi Workshop on Software Testing  with be held on the 15th and 16th of June 2012, Wellington, New Zealand. KWST is modelled on the LAWST style peer conferences and is the only testing peer conference in New Zealand. There are a number of things that make this conference unique:-

  • It is an invite only conference – we are looking for industry thought leaders
  • James Bach will again be back as content owner and helping grow the core of professional test leadership in New Zealand
  • Some of the brightest, insightful test thinkers down under will be there
  • Unlike any other conference held here, this is a CONFERence where ALL participants participate!
  • The theme is Ethical challenges faced by testers which is relevant considering the prevalence of dubious practices and certifications in our industry

The twitter hash tag will be KWST2 and we will be tweeting all of the great thoughts and ideas that will flow from this conference. See http://bjosman.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/kwst-kiwi-workshop-on-software-testing/ and http://bjosman.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/kwst-kiwi-workshop-of-software-testing-day-2/ for details of last years event.

Author: Brian

Thoughts on one New Zealand test community

In November 2009, I created software testers new zealand google group. It’s not limited to just Kiwi’s (we have members from Australia, India and the US that I know of). The point of the group was to provide a *local* forum to communicate matters related to testing. Since then, I’ve notice some interesting behaviour about the group which I would like to share here….

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