To have a successful job search you must be prepared to put a lot of effort in, to be patient and to carry on when things don’t go as planned. However, it’s not that easy, and so many individuals give up on looking for a job in just a few short months because they find it extremely challenging.
Yet, if you know about the difficulties that await you, you’ll be able to tackle the issues head first, and you will have a successful job searching journey.
If you follow all our recommendations you should find a job within 2-3 months. But you need to understand that when you stop complying with the rules, the duration will increase.
The journey to finding your QA job will be like climbing up a steep hill that has many twists and turns along the way. All of this is there to test you to the max, but it’s your job to travel through this tough terrain to reach your end goal.
Let's see what challenges you may face during the job searching process, and let’s find out how to resolve these difficulties.
Issue 1: Slowing down
CHALLENGE: After 1 month of looking for a job, many students start to slow down, they lose enthusiasm and stop actively looking for work. This means that the student starts to send out fewer applications, and they get less responses and interview opportunities from recruiters.
In addition to this, the fewer interviews a student goes to the less chance there is of them finding a job and getting a good offer.
SOLUTION: Here at Careerist we have career coaches who are able to deal with such occurrences. They can give you feedback, help to motivate you and can help you practice for interviews. But, it’s still very much up to the student to make sure that they work hard to get a job too.
You need to send out 30-40 applications a day, and you must get continuous feedback from recruiters and career coaches to see how you can improve your application/interview technique.
Only when you’ve done this will you see where you're going wrong, and how you can make the situation better for yourself.
Luck can sometimes play a pivotal role and some individuals get a job within 1 month, or even 2 weeks (!). But you must understand that you cannot pin all your hopes on luck.
Issue 2: Lacking confidence when answering questions
CHALLENGE: In most cases, interviewers focus more on the soft skills an individual has rather than on their technical knowledge, which is especially true for manual QA interviews.
There are not many ways you can show off your knowledge of manual testing. Therefore, when you go to an interview for a manual testing role, interviewers will take note of how confident you are when answering questions.
SOLUTION: To sound confident when answering questions you need to practice giving your answers. You need to practice giving your answers out loud, say your answers to your coaches and tell your family.
You will become more confident as you go to more interviews and as you get more practice in.
Additionally, you could try applying for any position in any organization, just to go to interviews to get practice in. This will get you into the mindset of going to interviews, and it’ll help you to practice giving your answers, so you’ll become more confident.
Issue 3: Rejections
To get 1 ‘Yes’ you’ll probably get around 1999 ‘Nos’.
CHALLENGE: Getting a lot of rejections is difficult. Students start to feel low, they start to question if QA is for them and they just don’t want to continue in some cases.
Nobody really wants to hear one rejection after another, and that is understandable. Plus, it doesn’t exactly promote confidence.
SOLUTION: You should remove the rejection notices from your field of vision. You can skip reading emails with refusals in them and just delete them.
Issue 4: Competition
CHALLENGE: Many people want to get into the tech world, and the first step into this field is usually through manual QA. So, there will undoubtedly be a lot of unavoidable competition.
Indeed, the competition is high in this area, and because of this, there are so many refusals notices being served, and it’s why the job search takes 2-3 months.
SOLUTION: It’s very important to remember that in our digital world there are more and more applications and programs being created all the time. Which means more and more specialists are needed, including manual testers, to complete the testing for such projects.
So, while there is an increase in candidates, there is also an increase in the number of jobs available - supply and demand are growing at the same rate.
You just need to understand your competitive advantages and make the most out of them.
Issue 5: English language
CHALLENGE: A huge part of QA involves communicating across different channels and with different people. There are many meetings to attend, requirements to cover, and decisions need to be written up clearly and concisely.
So, for non-English-speaking candidates it can be very hard to enter a team when their level of spoken English is not to a high enough standard.
If your level of spoken English is weaker than that of your teams, you can quickly become isolated and feel lonely at work.
In fact, it can be difficult for non-English-speaking candidates to pass interviews in the first place.
SOLUTION: If you are concerned about your level of spoken English you need to practice speaking in this language as much as you can. Listen to the radio, watch movies, go and chat to people in cafes, and learn how people really use the English language.
Join everyday conversations with various people and you’ll soon pick up their word choices, and perhaps their accents too.
Conclusion
The road to getting a job in QA will not be smooth, in fact, it will be very bumpy. The key is to keep on going because you will reach your destination. The tests you will endure along the way will make you stronger and more confident.
Address the challenges above, and work on them to improve them right now.