Software Testing Jobs for freshers: How to get an entry level position?

In several forums, particularly Yahoo Answers, I have seen posts by users looking for entry level positions in the field of software testing. The problem is that most job posts for software testers seek candidates with not only specific skills but also substantial experience (in years) using those skills. This post should help the people freshly out of college and others who wish to begin their career in software testing. View the video on tips to get software testing jobs or read on.

First of all, a fresher or a beginner in software testing would do well to ensure that they have the basic knowledge that is going to be needed. In order to achieve this, one might use the following resources:

1. Courses
I have uploaded my entire manual testing tutorials set on YouTube. It is a set of 37 videos that covers all the basic software testing concepts in detail with multiple examples. These videos should be viewed in the order given. These are public videos so you can view them freely as many times as needed to understand them. See my Manual Testing Tutorials.
Also, there are numerous institutes that teach software testing. One may be able to find a good local institute. A good institute should offer placement assistance to its students and alumni.

2. Books

There are several good books that teach software testing. Here is one list of such books.

3. Tools

The developers of many popular automated testing tools e.g. QTP, Rational Functional Tester, and LoadRunner make evaluation copies of their tools available free of charge. You can learn LoadRunner using my free LoadRunner Tutorials.

Several popular testing tools e.g. Selenium, Bugzilla are open source. One may explore such tools to understand their features. Learn about Selenium using my free Selenium tutorials.

One should use all the relevant job web sites to search the entry level jobs. Some employers may be willing to relax the experience requirement if the candidate has a good knowledge of the testing work. If one is already employed, they may explore the possibility of an internal transfer to a software testing position.

There are a number of jobs posted on software testing forums. Examples of these forums are:

1. SQAForums

2. Software Testing Space

The additional advantage of joining such forums is that one is able to learn from and take advice from senior software testing professionals.

One should take others’ help in gaining the software testing position. In addition to asking for help from one’s friends and acquaintances, one should consider joining social networking sites like LinkedIn (which has an enormous number of professionals as its members). If one is a member of LinkedIn, one has the option available to join several groups which may have their own job discussions. One may also find work on tester communities like uTest.