Skills needed for software testing

Software testing a career was not so bright few years back as now .Back then developers held the
center stage for website. They were the code builders as well as testers for quality of a website ,
this bought many errors in the application as developers used to check for coding perspective but
missed out on how it would be used by customers. Times have changed since then there is tough
competition in every field and this brought into picture Quality. Now every company has specific
team for quality testing .Testing has been given importance for getting a quality product
approved by a group of testers from the perspective of users or customers of the site .Numerous
courses are available now in market to enhance your skills in software testing. However the
foundation skills required for being a quality tester are very simple. When taking up software
testing as a career you need to have below mindset and skills for achieving success in this field.
1. Analytical skills
2. Technical skills
3. Good verbal and written communication
4. Attitude towards test to break
5. Passion for quality
6. Being passionate
1.Analytical skills- Will help to apply logical thinking, visualize, articulate and make decisions
that are sensible based on available information. To improvise this skill you can ask right
questions, realize what you dont know and turn those information into knowledge.
2.Technical skills -Will help understanding testing concepts, knowledge of testing types,
programming language familiarity, database concepts, testing tools like QTP, defects tools and
ability to analyze requirements are few to name.
3.Good verbal and written communication -Verbal communication like customer or client
,communication with the developers for understanding how a defect reproduces is most
important and likewise written communication is needed for creation of testing artifacts like bug
reports, test cases , test plans and documentation .
4.Attitude towards test to break -Your attitude should reflect independence where you take
ownership of the task allocated and complete it. Working with an end user mind set and linking
that with technical skills will make you find the most valuable bugs before the bugs reaches end
users hand.

5.Passion for quality -Seek answers from the information provided and if information is missing
ask questions .Ensure the level of quality in detailing the description of the defect , summary and
even screen shots have everything developer needs to analyze the defect.
6.Being passionate -Learn new tools, attend seminars, join different testing groups to be updated
about new technology and methods.
These days apart from knowing the concept of manual testing ,automation testing, stress, load
testing .Testing is considered to be divided into several domains like BFSI, Mobile application
testing,E-commerce,Retail,Healthcare,Insurance,Telecom etc. .Domain knowledge improves
ability to understand the end user better .When testing an E-commerce site you would need the
knowledge of how product catalog should look ,how user can add products in the shopping cart,
what is the maximum limit for addition of products, how to make billing and shipping address
different, payment mode and discount calculation . Similarly if you need to test Banking site you
need knowledge on flow of payments, interest calculation, types of payments etc.These domain
knowledge although will be gained from experience to know a few will help you gain a upper
hand on getting quality testing done .