Today's Resume tip

Today's Resume tip ...

I was going thru a set of resumes for test engineer position. Following are few things that I really find un-appealing and takes off my interest. I suggest to my fellow test professionals (others in general) - watch out for these (irritants) and if you are convinced that what I am saying makes sense - Clear your resume TODAY....

1. Open your resume in Word and search (Ctrl F) for words like "Involved", "Participated" etc. and delete the sentences containing them. The recruiter is not interested in what all are you were involved or participated - but he/she would like see "what you achieved" by doing that. Here is a way to rate your resume - Give one negative mark every time you encounter such word in your resume. How much did your resume score? Now do you understand why you are not getting enough interview calls?

2. I will not press very hard for this one - but if you do it is better. Get rid of words like "was Responsible for" or any variant of "Responsibility". What attracts recruiter is action word - "Achieved zero Downtime for systems I was responsible for" v/s "I was responsible for maintaining systems and ensure that downtime was low”. Notice the power of action. You will be delivering the same message but in a power packed way. That catches eyes of who "matter" in getting you a new "dream "Job. It is very important that you load your resume with these power packed action words, lots of them - especially in first 1-2 pages.

3. This one is the most "useless" part of resume if it is present. Writing paragraphs about the application that you tested with the names, versions, modules, detailed functionalities. Looks like a copy paste from functional specifications or SRS (System Requirement Specification) of the software product that tested. Watch out, some times this might land you in legal issues with your employer dragging you to court for leaking strategic product information to public - via your resume. This is big TURN OFF for the reader - especially a recruiter who would process and see thousands of resumes in a day.

Don’t forget the thumb rule – 1 page of resume for every 2 years of experience. So a person with 8-10 years of experience should not have a resume that exceeds 5 pages. Less and crisp is better and easier to read.

Enough? Open your resume and sanitize it TODAY.
May God bless you with job offers and interview calls pouring all the way !!!

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CONTEXT-DRIVEN TESTING AT A CROSSROADS

CONTEXT-DRIVEN TESTING AT A CROSSROADS

Cem Kaner, who controls www.context-driven-testing.com, has announced an interesting change in his view of the Context-Driven School. He says he prefers to think of it in terms of the Context-Driven approach, not a school of thought. This is a significant change from his original view, which was that CDT is a different paradigm.
That means I’m the last of the founders of the Context-Driven School, as such, who remain true to the original vision. I will bear its torch along with any fellow travelers who wish to pursue a similar program.
Polarization? No. Paradigm!
One of the things that concerns Cem is the polarization of the craft. He doesn’t like it, anymore. I suppose he wants more listening to people who have different views about whether there are best practices or not. To me, that’s unwise. It empties the concept of much of its power. And frankly, it makes a mockery of what we have stood for. To me, that would be like a Newtonian physicist in the 1690′s wistfully wishing to “share ideas” with the Aristotelians. There’s no point. The Aristotelians were on a completely different path.
For me, Context-Driven thinking is delightfully about listening to people and talking to people about practices and dynamics of software testing. But this must happen within the humanist framework that we laid out in the seven principles of the Context-Driven school. That’s our world.
Polarization is beside the point. Polarization is a natural consequence of the fact that our world view is simply different. We are a different paradigm. Our paradigm cannot be explained or contained by any other testing paradigm, such as the Factory School, or the Analytical School. We must have the stomach to keep moving along with our program regardless of the huddled masses who Don’t Get It.
Why Is This Division Happening Now?
Cem’s change of position is happening partly because, after 16 years, he and I are no longer collaborators. Due to a simmering personal dispute (nothing to do with testing) that blew up last year, we no longer can stand to be in the same room with each other. Alas, I don’t think this will change. What that means, professionally, is that the conversations that we once had– the passionate arguments– which led to mutual accommodations and syntheses, no longer happen. This is too bad, because the Factory schoolers, who greatly outnumber us, will make good rhetoric out of any appearance of confusion between Cem and I about our visions of testing.
Meanwhile, I will say this about Cem: He’s a great man. His contributions to testing have been enormous. I disagree with him on some aspects of testing, but by and large he does great work. I’m sure if he weren’t so furious with me and I were able to talk to him without feeling an overpowering urge to kick holes in walls (I mean that literally), we would still be able to develop testing ideas together. However, I trust that whatever he does will be worth looking at. And I do have many other bright collaborators, so I’m going to be fine.
The Context-Driven School continues, because I, and those like me, are compelled to pursue excellence wherever it leads us, even if that means breaking with “conventional” software testing thinkers. I wish Cem luck as he consorts with those guys, but I fear his time will be, for the most part, wasted.

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