QA Interview Questions & Answers – Part 7
1. What are you expecting from our company?
Answer: My expectation from you company would be I will have more challenges and new things to learn and whatever the skills I have to contribute, hopefully, I will be able to contribute if they are in any way helpful to enhance productivity of the company.
2. What did you learn from your previous companies?
Answer: I learned a lot from the previous companies wherever I have worked. Wherever I have worked, I found out the there is always something to learn. Different companies have different ways of working. The environment and technology always differ from one company to another company. I have never found one company’s environment matching with another company. For example, if one company is using documents called requirement documents, then the other company might be using Use Cases and some companies might be using Design Document and so on. Therefore, in my experience, there are always new things to learn in every company and we can always contribute these thing in the next company if they help to be more productive.
3. What do you want to be in next 2 years?
Answer: I want to be QA Lead in another two years.
4. Why QA Lead? Why not something else?
Answer: QA is the only thing I love doing it. I love this job and want to progress in this sector. I want to know how to manage QA process, how to handle different jobs and so on. Since the next step is the QA Lead, that would preferably be one I will targeting for.
5. Why do you want to work for this company?
Answer: (This is a tricky question. They want to know what really interests you and you have to be careful when you answer this question. You must admire the line of that company. For example, if you are being interviewed by a pharmaceutical company, then tell them that you are always interested in the medical applications and the better part of your company is that it has exciting products that I am really curious to learn. That’s why I would feel really great if I am given the opportunity to work in your company)
6. Did you get any compliments from your previous employers? What were those situations?
Answer: Yes. I did. There were many occasions where I had compliments. For example, I was testing an application going a little bit off my test cases. After I finished executing my test cases, I always think in a way what a real user would possibly click in various parts of the application. So I was just clicking back and forth and at one specific scenario, the application simply broke and displayed an error message. That scenario was not in the test cases. The manager really appreciated me and thanked for finding this kind of critical defect. Answer: Yes. I did. There were many occasions where I had compliments. For example, I was testing an application going a little bit off my test cases. After I finished executing my test cases, I always think in a way what a real user would possibly click in various parts of the application. So I was just clicking back and forth and at one specific scenario, the application simply broke and displayed an error message. That scenario was not in the test cases. The manager really appreciated me and thanked for finding this kind of critical defect.
7. What are your strengths?
Answer: I am a very detailed oriented person. I have the sense of urgency. I can prioritize my job according to the deadline. I am very much dedicated towards my job. I am honest. I have the skills and expertise in QA process. These are some of my strengths.
8. What is your weakness?
Answer: I think my weakness is that whenever I am given some responsibilities and there is a deadline for it, I work day and night, 7 days a week. This is probably bad for my family life, but I can’t sleep unless I am done with my assignments.
(Note: You should think of your weakness where because of your weakness (like the one above), still the employer benefits. DON’T SAY anything negative thing, like “I cannot work long hours, it is hard for me pick up things, it is difficult for me to understand requirement documents etc)
9. What is your salary requirement?
Answer: $70k (negotiable), or ($35 per hour)
10. Please provide information (an example) of your experience testing Linux and UNIX environments (including type of system tested, how tested, actual commands and steps used for test) Testing applications using Linux and UNIX.
Answer: I have tested applications using UNIX. For every backend testing I have done in the past, I have used UNIX platform while performing backend testing. For example, when the data is fed into the system in the front end, that data goes to the database after the batch processing. From the database, the data is now sent to the ETL system (in XML format) for data manipulation as per our need (ETL is a software tool of Ab Initio company which is used to manipulate data in the data warehouse). In the ETL system, we manipulate those data according to our need), for example, it could be income statement of the company, balance sheet, monthly reports, and so on. In order to produce income statement, we need to run a job in ETL. To run this job, we use UNIX. In the same way, different types of jobs are created for each need (creating balance sheet is another job, creating reports is next job etc) then I had to run different jobs in the ETL system. Once we run the job, the running job finally creates an output file which is now validated by us tester. This output file can be in text format or GUI format. Thus, this is the scenario where I had to use UNIX. (I have used Linux much, however, since UNIX and Linux are the same thing, I should have no problem in using Linux)
Some of the commands I used while testing using UNIX are;
Ls –l ———>to check the file list
Pwd———-> to see which directory I am in
Cd ———–>change the directory
Cd .. ———>change the directory one level up
Mkdir ———>make a directory
Rmdir ———>Delete the directory
setenv name v ——>Set environment
kill% ——–>Kill the running job
vi ———>editor Used to write scripts
more——-> to see the contents page by page
cat —–>list contents of the file
chmod ——–>change permission
cp ——–>copy
rm —–>delete a file
11. How do you do risk assessment? (This question was asked to Mona in her interview)
Answer: (This is what Mona answered): The risks by understanding the infrastructure of the application, hard drive and system capabilities etc. Also added “Risk and Mitigation Strategy” column within the test plan. The major risk for the company was system getting crashed upon receiving several hits by the users . Company did not set any metrics at the development phase as to what it can handle. I told him that i noted mitigation strategy to deal with each known risk within the test plan.
12. What is SQL and how is it used?
Answer: The following are the some of the things that a tester has to know (but may not be asked in the interview)What is a cookie? (You must know how to clean cookies)
A small text file of information that certain Web sites attach to a user’s hard drive while the user is browsing the Web site. A Cookie can contain information such as user ID, user preferences, archive shopping cart information, etc. Cookies can contain Personally Identifiable Information.
13. Does a tester have to know about cookie?
Answer: Yes. A tester has to know HOW TO CLEAN cookies (Does not have to know the definition).
14. Why do we need to clean cookies?
Answer: A tester can clean cookies by opening Internet Explorer browser and Firefox browser (whatever you are using). We need to clean cookies BECAUSE:
When we get a new build, we must clean cookies. (Remember, once the developers fix the defects, the configuration team makes a build and this process continues until the product (application) is ready to handover to the customer). If we don’t clean cookies, then there is a possibility that we may get the same error which was already fixed by the developer. Why? Because the error is sitting inyour computer hard drive and the computer feels easy to get the same information from the hard drive rather than going to the server and pulling new thing for the same thing. For example, let us say, when you were testing a page, there was a button called “OK”. The client decided that “OK” is NOT the right button here, therefore, that button name was changed from “OK” to “Continue”. Accordingly, you wrote a defect saying that “OK” button should be changed to “Continue” button. Now, this defect is fixed (the developer changed the “OK” button to “Continue”). Now, you started testing, there is a possibility that you might see “OK” button again. Why? Because you DID NOT clean your cookies.
Therefore, you must clean your cookies before you starting testing a new build.
15. How to clean cookies?
Answer: Cookies are cleaned in the browsers like IE (Internet Explorer), Firefox, Safari (for MAC and windows both), Netscape and so on.
However, the mostly used (90%) browser is IE (Internet Explorer)
Here is how you clean cookies in IE (Internet Explorer):
1. Open IE (Internet Explorer)
2. On the menu, click Tools–>Internet Options–>Click Delete button (It is in General Tab)
(You will see different buttons now, for example, Delete Files, Delete Cookies, Delete History, Delete Forms, Delete Passwords,
Delete All).
3. Click Delete All button.
Now the cookies are cleaned in IE.
Here is how you can clean cookies in Fire Fox:
1. Open Firefox Brower.
2. Click Tools.
3. Click Error Console.
4. Click Clear.
Now the cookies are cleaned in Firefox.
