Career Advice

TLDR; Write your CV as benefits, and build a portfolio, to become more than just another CV on the pile and help the busy CV reader see the value that you can bring to their team.

TLDR; If you want a new job, then build a portfolio while you ’learn'

Following on from the ‘How do I learn ‘automation’?" question. We had to ask questions to see what they would do with this newly learned ability to automate. And because they want to perform ongoing work and this is part of their learning plan we can answer.

TLDR; Learn with an end goal in mind. That will keep you focussed.

Following on from the ‘How do I learn ‘automation’?" question. We had to ask questions to see what they would do with this newly learned ability to automate. If it was to find a job, and they had a specific type of job in mind then I think we could probably answer the question.

TLDR; Don’t just ’learn automation’. Learn it for a reason.

Back in 2001? 2002? Back whenever I noticed the ISEB certification starting, I thought “Hmm… how strange, I wonder why they would want to do this”.

I read an early draft of the syllabus online and thought “Well this seems fairly simple, but misses out a lot of stuff that I do in the real world, but what harm could it cause?”

What an easy target ISEB makes, it comes in for a lot of criticism. And I think it should. To an outsider like myself the certification train looks like a money spinning exercise, why else keep cranking out certification levels? I wonder what they could do to change my perception…

While trawling through my hard drive on a deletion frenzy, I found my old notes on what I did to pass the ISEB foundation exam. Bear in mind that I made these notes in 2003 and the ISEB syllabus has moved on since. But I have updated all the links and someone might find my updated notes useful.

At EuroSTAR 2007 Michael Bolton started the conference off with “Why I am not Certified” - Michael had obviously kept more up to date on the ISEB progress than I. I looked at the ISEB site recently, and now I feel uneasy.

I state no “MUST"s in here, you don’t “HAVE” to know how to program to work effectively as a tester but…when you do know how to program, then you have more options. How many more? Well…