Comments on: Question: Which applications do you use during interviews to ‘see’ how candidates do exploratory testing?

By: Scott Seltzer

Scott Seltzer — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:15:34 +0000

Mine is similar to Adam’s. Since my company’s software has a sign-up process (and it’s a feature that most people are familiar with), I ask them to tell me how they’d test a simple registration form with name, password, and a submit button. It’s good for making sure experienced testers really have practical experience and it gives me a good clue about people trying to enter the field.

Until now, I’ve always drawn it on paper and asked them to explain how they’d test it, but I’m thinking now that I should have them go to a real site and show me how they’d test it. It would also show me how efficiently they work (on top of their testing techniques). I’m not going to create an application with built-in bugs because I think that just seeing their test cases would give me enough information.

-Scott

PS – I just came across your site today and I definitely like it.

Thanks Scott. I paid a visit to your site. Fantastic. Now I feel inspired to get back to a decent 4 ball cascade.

By: Adam Goucher

Adam Goucher — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:09:30 +0000

I just use the whiteboard instead of a particular application that way I can tune things depending on the role I’m trying to hire for. In general I draw a little ‘screen’ on the board which has three text boxes: name, state, zip (in that order) and two buttons: cancel and submit.

I then ask the person to test it.
- do they ask about their mission?
- their oracle? (which in this case is me and I’ll answer any question about it)
- what sort of ‘buckets’ do their questions / tests fall into?
- do they ask about the larger system this might be a part of?
- do they draw on their experience to recommend changes?
- etc.

This lets me guage their clue level and where there might be gaps (as I percieve them) as well as see how they think about / approach a testing problem. To me, those two things are more important than specific test technique knowledge.

Thanks Adam,

That seems like a pretty re-usable method without any technology hassle and splendidly open ended.

By: Marta

Marta — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:38:45 +0000

I used to ask the candidates to test a very simple app that I got from James Bach, he used it in his tutorial "Exploratory Testing Explained" at StarEast 3 years ago (unfortunately it stayed behind when I left Sweden). I have been tested myself during a phone interview on the Calculator functionality of the Google homepage (doing the testing on the computer while on the phone, which I thought was pretty cool), and on a board describing how i would test the registration process for Gmail. I have also heard people using specific features in Word and/or Excel, as you mention. That's all I can think about for the moment! Cheers, Marta Thanks Marta, I don't think I have ever used the Google Calculator...time to investigate further.