Lots of people use the Christmas and New Year break as a time of reflection. I have certainly done so in the past and it’s a tradition I’ve tended to find extremely useful. Sometimes, it’s led me to make some life-changing decisions. Most often, it’s simply helped to give me a sense of purpose and direction heading into the new year.
Typically, I’ll find my thoughts drifting in a couple of directions when I’m reflecting on my career. Either, it’s time to upskill in my current role. Or it’s time to start looking for a new one.
In case you find yourself in a similar situation, I thought you’d find it helpful if we pointed you towards some of our content that will help you in both of those areas.
for QA and Development Teams
Looking to Upskill
Various people in the testing community have written about the benefits of being “T-shaped”, so I won’t go on about it. If you need some further explanation then Rob Lambert’s post here is a good one to review. Suffice to say that if having reflected on your current situation you’ve arrived at the conclusion you need to widen your skill base, then you could do worse than to learn some development skills. Read the articles below for a primer:
- Should Every Tester Learn to Program?
- Top Programming Skills for Software Testers
- How I Learned to Build a Test Suite
Testing Tools in Python - I Taught Myself to Code and You Can Too!
If, on the other hand you decided to go deep, review the articles below to strengthen your testing skillset.
- 10 Must-Read Books You Didn’t Know Were About Software Testing
- 10 Web Security Testing Tools Every Tester And Developer Should Know
- Getting Started With API Testing For Fun & Profit
- 9 Ways to Become a First Class Noticer
- 6 Technical Testing Skills that Aren’t Automation
- Everyday Agile Practices for Every Tester
- The 5 Competencies of a Mobile Testing Specialist
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Looking for a new role
If things are dire (or exciting!), and you find yourself in the position of wanting or needing to find a different role in the New Year – let me extend my commiserations (or congratulations!) in the first instance. And then I recommend reading the articles below for some tips and support.
- Testing is Not Dead: The Future of the Software Testing Role
- Where has the Test Manager Gone?
- The Dynamics of Outsource Testing
- The Testers Career Path
- How to Get Into Software Testing
We also just released a Software Testing Careers E-Book, so go check it out here: The Hiring Testers E-Book.
In the meantime, whatever 2018 holds for you, your family and colleagues in the Software Testing community, all of us here at TestRail Towers would like to wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year!
Post by Simon Knight, Gurock Product and Community Manager. Follow him on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Cross-Technology | Cross-Device | Cross-Platform
