Pushback on crappy testing interviews.

An interview tip for testers on the most common testing interview task.

If your interviewer asks you to write test cases in a specific format for a product that you’ve never interacted with, it would be a responsible time to push back. First of all, I’d suggest ask questions along these lines:

• Can I interact with the product? Why (why not?)?
• What is the product’s intended purpose? Who is it for?
• Do you always write test cases before you’ve interacted or experienced the product?
• Would you like to see how I would test it rather than the format you’ve given?

Ask these questions with the Socratic spirit of trying to understand why they want you to do this task. Also consider that they do not know what good testing looks like to you.

They may be guilty of premature formalization and used to the culture of doing it. They may also be trying to trick you into doing what they want or they have a script to follow and were never expecting anyone to “flip the script”.

If you’ve questioned the interview and concluded that they see testing in this shallow, scripted way, try and advocate for showing them what you think is better. A few suggestions:

• Build a product coverage outline focusing on testable elements of the system
• Create a mindmap of areas you’re interested in testing in a tool like miro
• I like to include my thoughts on some items such as what tools or oracles I might find useful to have. If it’s an API I might use a mnemonic like BINMEN or VADER to show the areas I’m thinking of testing. Write a list of risks that will form the basis of your testing
• Write up a quick charter of how you would test something for the first time

This may feel very awkward and socially uncomfortable, but the reality is that testing is often socially uncomfortable.

Responsible testing starts with challenging assumptions and crushing delusions.