Well, it really depends on what sort of testing position you are going for. Maybe you’re a confident and experienced manual tester using tools and bug trackers such as Jira, Bugzilla or Quality Center, or perhaps you’re focusing more on the automation side of testing, using Selenium RC/IDE or perhaps Cucumber. You could be focused heavily on Performance/stress testing with a reliance on JMeter or LoadRunner.
Whatever you have been doing and whatever you are looking to do in your next testing role, it is imperative that you highlight your strengths in your CV. Now, I’m not asking that you list every technology/test tool that you’ve ever used, this is a huge mistake and will generally dramatically decrease your chances of your CV even being looked at in detail and taken seriously by any self-respecting technical recruiter or hiring manager.
Musts :
- List what tools you’ve been using with the most recent first. It’s also a good idea to ‘grade’ your knowledge/usage of these tools, giving yourself a mark out of 10 for each.
- You may also like to make a clear note of how many years/months you’ve been using these tools
- The top paragraph of your CV needs to state what you’re currently doing, what you’re looking to do and what you are like as a person. Personal traits are becoming more crucial than ever and the necessity to be a ‘good cultural fit’ for your target company is becoming increasingly crucial. So, explain briefly what you’re like as a person.
- Specify what the split between manual and automation testing is. Is it 70/30 in favour of manual? – This will answer an inevitable question before you’re even spoken to by recruiters/hiring managers
- Make it clear what your role is. Are you a Test Lead/Senior Tester? How many people are part of your team and how senior are you in that team?
- Too many candidates rush through their CVs and fail to proof read it. Make sure that there are no spelling mistakes , punctuation errors etc … Get someone else to read it for you if possible.
Conclusive Test CV Tips:
- List your tool exposure and grade yourself/note how long you’ve used them
- Make it clear what the split has been in respect to Manual/Automation testing
- Check the grammar, punctuation, spelling on your CV – check this 10 times if needs be
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