Software Testing Qualifications

[NotAGolf]

Anyone have any of these? If you do, any chance of letting me know the following:

- What qualification do you have? Board/syllabus/level etc
- How did you get it? Through work, off you own back...
- How much did you pay? Was any of it/all of it subsidised through work?
- Did it help you or was it a bit of a waste of time?
- Would you recommend doing it?

I've got my review coming up at work and one of the things I would like to do is to get some form of qualifications behind me, both to improve my knowledge and to put on the CV to hopefully open up more prospects. So I'm going to try sort something out through work so I can get on one of the courses available.

From what I can see the 2 major ones or ISEB and ISTQB, being based here in England and with no intention of going any where else ISEB seems to be a more logical choice. I've had a skim through the foundation syllabus and it all seems fairly straightforward. Vast majority of it I looked at uni so I'm fairly confident with what I've seen so far. Not looked at any of the more advanced levels so not sure what the step up would be and how much time that would take etc. But I would have to do the foundation first anyway so I'll look at that for now.

Thanks for any help.

 

[s-man]

Hi - I've been a tester for 15 years now....

I got my ISEB Foundation back in 2002 - it was an absolute skoosh. I had been testing for a fair while prior to sitting the course and if you're the same then you shouldn't find it too much of a stretch. Having said that it has got tougher over the years so it would be sensible to put the necessary time in.

My company (large UK financial institution) paid for it in its entirety and put(s) all test team members through it as a matter of course. As you say it opens some doors in the testing world and is considered an absolute pre-requisite by some employers these days.

I would say it's worth doing if you want to take your testing career further - it won't revolutionise the way you work but it will reinforce your current understanding assuming you have some experience of testing. Obviously preferable to get your employer to pay but if they won't then it is probably something that would pay dividends in the future if you can afford to put yourself through it.

Many places now also put STAs and TLs through the intermediate and advanced courses but they are considerably more involved and probably some way down the line if you are just considering the Foundation course.

If memory serves ISQTB is more a European 'standard' so if you fancy some time working abroad perhaps that is worth considering also?

Give me a shout if you want to know anything else

Good luck!

 

[scorza]

- What qualification do you have? Board/syllabus/level etc

Just got my ISEB Foundation in Software Testing

- How did you get it? Through work, off you own back...

Work paid.

- How much did you pay? Was any of it/all of it subsidised through work?

Think the cost of the course was £600. That was for a 2 day course but it's supposed to be a 3 day course iirc. The exam cost £150 I think, but again work paid for that.

- Did it help you or was it a bit of a waste of time?
- Would you recommend doing it?

Yeah, in all honesty it was probably the most useful course I've been on in 12 years of my IT career. A lot of it I already knew as I'd been doing it for years, but it's always good to know how it fits together in a framework. I'm certainly looking to do the intermediate level course.

The exam is not trivial, you certainly have to revise quite a lot - and tbh it caught me out a bit not having revised for anything since Uni. I recommend buying the BCS book which basically explains the syllabus and has some useful exercises. If your work won't pay for the course then you might get away with just getting the book and self-studying, though that's not what I did.

From what I can see the 2 major ones or ISEB and ISTQB, being based here in England and with no intention of going any where else ISEB seems to be a more logical choice. I've had a skim through the foundation syllabus and it all seems fairly straightforward. Vast majority of it I looked at uni so I'm fairly confident with what I've seen so far. Not looked at any of the more advanced levels so not sure what the step up would be and how much time that would take etc. But I would have to do the foundation first anyway so I'll look at that for now.

I think that these days, ISEB and ISTQB are the same thing i.e. ISEB is just the British branch of the ISTQB. I certainly have both logos on my certificate.

 

[NotAGolf]

Thank you both very much. Very useful info. Sounds like it's definitely worth going for. I only work for a small company so getting it all paid for might be a bit more tricky, especially as I havn't been there long, but it's worth a go.

I did see it's possible to just take the exam and do the study in your own time, but by the sound of it the course sounds like it's worth going for. Different way of learning as well than just reading from a textbook so that should help improve understanding.

Thanks again.

 

[Smit]

- What qualification do you have? Board/syllabus/level etc
- How did you get it? Through work, off you own back...
- How much did you pay? Was any of it/all of it subsidised through work?
- Did it help you or was it a bit of a waste of time?
- Would you recommend doing it?

First off, the ISEB Foundation is based/aligned with the ISTQB Foundation so there isn't much difference any more. There used to be a big difference but hasn't been for a few years now.

- I have the ISEB Foundation Certification which I did a few years back (2007 if I recall)
- Work paid for it and put us on a training course for 3 days. It was a walk in the park to be honest, got 38/40 within 20 minutes
- It doesn't really help at all in terms of practical use since it's all about ideal situations which as we all know just don't happen in the real world but there are some useful parts to learn/know for when process improvements come up in work
- I would recommend it but purely just for career progress since any future jobs may need it.

I'm currently awaiting my exams for the ISTQB Advanced Level Test Analyst and ISTQB Advanced Level Test Management courses. I have done all the prep-work, just need to do the exams.