Your first QA job: valuable experience, first QA experience, internal transfer, job market.

First QA job. QA Testing career.Question: After QATUTOR course do I still need to try and get experience? Or I can just start looking for a job?

Answer: That really depends on your previous non-QA job experience and on a job market.

My student just got employed, because he had strong background in finance – his primary value to employer was his knowledge of finance. Another example of this kind is the professional photographer who is Photoshop and Lightroom expert – any company that develops image editing software would love to have QA with that kind of knowledge.

Some students are already employed, but want to learn QA to change their job function and get transferred to QA department.

For many students, I recommend joining uTest community and gaining QA experience with actual software projects. Participation in actual projects makes a great addition to the resume and employers percept uTest experience as a valuable one.

Participation in beta-testing projects also helps you gain testing experience and improve your resume.

A lot depends on a job market. For example, my home market – Silicon Valley has been offering A LOT of QA opportunities and entry requirements are relatively low. Some other markets do have QA jobs, but their entry requirements are high as well as competition between job candidates.

IMPORTANT: You should really understand your local or target market BEFORE you decide to invest your time/money into pursuing any kind of career.

And as always, I want to point out that your attitude and perseverance are the most important factors. Myself and many of my students changed our lives thanks to QA, but those changes were defined by hard work, positive attitude and strong desire to join software industry.

It’s all very individual and I provide my opinion to students about their particular situation.