Quality assurance (QA) and manual testers have some of the most vital jobs in an organization: ensuring software truly meets all specifications and requirements. On a day-to-day basis, their jobs involve reviewing and analyzing system specifications, executing test cases, and collaborating with QA engineers on test plans.
If you’re applying for a manual testing job or QA specialist, in other words, you need to prepare for a manual tester interview process that could focus on a variety of skills and tasks.
Co-founder at Learnix Center Larry Poltavtsev says: “A tester plays a crucial role in the software development life cycle and ensures quality. The job of a software tester is to identify defects and report them. They have to do the test case writing creation, writing detailed test cases covering various scenarios, like positive scenarios or boundary scenarios. They have to do test executions, manually, execute tests, and verify software functionality.
“Manual testers have to identify, document, and report bugs using tracking tools such as JIRA or whatever the company is using, such as Microsoft Excel, tables, or spreadsheets. They have to do regression testing in which they retest to fix bugs and ensure that new updates do not affect existing features.
“They have to do usability tests, testing from a user perspective by putting themselves in the user's shoes and testing the user interface, UA UX, UA, UX, and providing feedback. A good tester has to be able to collaborate. You have to communicate with developers, stakeholders, and project managers, to clarify requirements, resolve issues, and many other things. They have to test documentation, report testing activity results and maintain clear records.
“A good tester should do exploratory testing before ad hoc testing to find issues beyond test cases. Exploratory testing is important because you can uncover defects that nobody is foreseeing, report them, and make the product better. It improves quality and this job is all about quality.
“They are responsible for quality assurance, ensuring the software meets business requirements and is ready to be released. Testers test environment set up, configure and manage test environments, and whatever is involved in the test environment on the particular project.
“Finally, they need to do test planning and contribute to planning and estimating manual testing efforts. Successful testers need to have certain skills, such as attention to detail, common sense, great communication, and familiarity with the testing tools.”
Here’s how that extensive list of tasks breaks down; while the particulars of the manual tester job can vary between positions, many of these jobs require that you master a number of these:
Test Case Creation: Manual testers must be able to write clear and comprehensive test cases that cover various scenarios, including positive and negative cases.
- Test Execution: They need to execute test cases manually, verify software functionality, and identify and report defects.
- Defect Tracking: Testers must use tracking tools to document and report bugs, ensuring that they are properly recorded and addressed.
- Regression Testing: They must retest fixed bugs and ensure that new updates do not impact existing features.
- Usability Testing: Testers must evaluate software from a user's perspective, testing the user interface and providing feedback.
- Collaboration: They must effectively communicate with developers, stakeholders, and project managers to clarify requirements, resolve issues, and ensure project success.
- Documentation and Reporting: Testers must maintain clear records of testing activities, including test results and reports.
- Exploratory Testing: They should conduct exploratory testing to uncover unexpected defects and improve overall product quality.
- Quality Assurance: Testers are responsible for ensuring that the software meets business requirements and is ready for release.
- Test Environment Setup: They must configure and manage test environments to support testing activities.
- Test Planning: Testers contribute to planning and estimating manual testing efforts.
- Skills: Successful testers need to have attention to detail, common sense, strong communication skills, and familiarity with testing tools.
Many of these will also come up in the course of the manual tester job interview.
What kinds of questions are asked in a manual tester interview?
Different companies have different needs when it comes to manual testers, so you could face wildly different job interview questions depending on the specific role.
One key goal of your interview is to present yourself as unique vis-à-vis other candidates for the role. You also need to emphasize your capabilities. As Rivermate Founder Lucas Botzen tells Dice: “A successful manual tester needs a combination of technical and soft skills. First, attention to detail is crucial because manual testing requires identifying subtle bugs that can easily be overlooked. Strong analytical skills are necessary to think critically about how the software might break or fail from a user’s perspective. Additionally, communication is key—manual testers need to report their findings clearly and work well with developers and other team members to resolve issues. Finally, adaptability is important, as testing requirements can change based on project needs, and staying flexible ensures that the tester can handle shifting priorities efficiently.”
If you’re applying for an entry-level manual testing position, prepare to face some very broad questions designed to evaluate your true understanding of the role. For example, you might be asked:
- What is QA testing?
- How does manual testing differ from automatic testing?
- What are the potential downsides to manual testing, and how can you overcome them?
- Describe how you would write a test plan.
- Define a test script.
- What’s the difference between black box and white box testing?
For more advanced roles, you’ll face harder (and more industry-specific) questions, including:
- Describe your experience with unit testing.
- What’s your approach to security testing?
- How do you identify the correct scope of testing?
- How would you design a test case?
- Describe your experience with regression testing.
- Walk us through how you’d handle a mission-critical bug.
- Tell us about your approach to integration testing.
- Describe a particularly difficult manual testing challenge that you successfully solved.
Many interviews will spend the bulk of their time digging into your technical skills, so it will always pay to brush up on the principles of manual testing beforehand. If you have experience with manual testing, make sure to rehearse some stories that show your problem-solving and teamwork skills in the best possible light; recruiters and hiring managers appreciate it when you can describe how you’ve helped a previous employer overcome particularly vexing issues.
But don’t neglect those soft skills, such as communication and teamwork; much of the manual testing job involves working effectively with stakeholders throughout the organization, from software developers to senior management. Emphasize how well you’ve worked together with other people, even those from other teams or outside an organization.
Fortunately, there are also lots of websites that break down hundreds of sample answers to various manual tester interview questions, including hackr.io and Indeed. If you want to brush up on your programming skills, it’s also worth checking out Leetcode, which provides coding questions and answers (added bonus: many hiring managers rely on Leetcode to generate the questions for the technical aspects of the interview.)
What are some key ways that manual testers can prepare for an interview?
Dice Insights spoke with Nir Tzur, vice president of engineering at SolarWinds, who has more than 15 years of experience in various senior R&D management roles. As Tzur explained, there are three key factors to being a successful tester: collaboration, persistence and out-of-the-box thinking.
“To prepare for an interview, try to find past experience to share that shows how you have collaborated with developers for the overall good of your product,” he says. “Show how your persistency and ability to repeat the same tests indefinitely saved aggravation from customers.”
It is extremely important to be able to show how you have analyzed a problem to create tests for unorthodox scenarios. During a manual tester interview, this helps demonstrate that your creative thinking processes have led to concrete results.
In a similar vein, it’s critical to showcase your manual testing project experience. CEO of PranshTech Solutions Dhaval Gajjar tells Dice: “Start your project explanation by defining its objectives & specifications. For example, you say, “In my previous role, I worked on testing an e-commerce platform. It was my responsibility to offer an easy checkout process. I created test cases for different scenarios, executed them, & found a major bug in the payment gateway integration. I communicated the problem with the development team, tracked down a solution, and then checked again.”
If you succeed, you’ll help the recruiter and/or hiring manager envision how you’ll slot into your potential employer’s current team workflow. “A manual tester should have strong analytical ability, extreme attention to detail, & problem-solving capabilities communicating with development teams & reporting defects requires effective communication skills, “Gajjar notes. “Knowledge of testing tools and methodology is critical.”
What are some of the challenges faced by manual testers?
“The responsibility of being the ‘gatekeeper,’ validating the quality of a feature before releasing to customers, is the heaviest burden,” Tzur says. “When things don't work well, you will be the first to answer: ‘Why haven't you found this issue before its release?’”
A manual tester’s key success factor is finding bugs for developers. That means collaboration is critical; in the end, you’re all working towards a common goal of providing customers with good service. As we’ve mentioned before: during a manual tester interview, you’ll also be asked about challenges or problems that arose during your previous positions, and how you successfully tackled them.
What are some of the most important questions interviewees can ask their potential employer?
Every interview is a two-way street: the interviewer will ask crucial questions about your skills and background, and they’ll expect you to ask questions about the company’s workflow, tools, and culture. It’s important to come to every job interview armed with questions about the company, as that’ll show you’re engaged and interested in the position.
Tzur explains that it’s key for candidates to inquire about the work atmosphere, and whether it’s the type of place that is fostering collaboration. Alternatively, it might be a more siloed environment. “You should also be trying to find out if there is already a process in place for analyzing and learning from customer issues,” he says.
During a manual tester interview, a candidate can show interest by asking about the company's struggle areas and how the company is trying to address them. “Candidates can also ask about the skills the company is searching for to help with that process,” Tzur points out.
As you ask questions about company culture, do a “gut check.” Do you like the interviewer’s responses? Does the company seem to have a solid grasp on its workflow, goals, and employees’ needs? The answers to those questions can give you a solid sense of whether you’d be truly happy to work there.
What are the most important technical skill sets to know, and what are the critical non-technical skills?
“Prior knowledge with testing tools and any coding languages will definitely help, but the specific skills required will vary with every hiring company, so candidates should always refer to the job description as a good starting point,” Tzur explains.
Manual testers must also have the ability to look at a system, app, or service from a customer’s point of view, understanding how they'd use it to solve their day-to-day problems. That can help identify potential areas of vulnerability to test.
“Be able to think outside the box and come up with new ways to break functionality,” Tzur adds. “Look for ways to improve processes. Teamwork is definitely also crucial for being successful in this position.”
Other Frequently Asked Manual Testing Interview Questions and Answers
Q: What is the difference between manual and automated testing?
A: Manual testing is performed by humans, while automated testing is done by software tools. Manual testing is best for usability testing or when testing unique situations, while automated testing is suitable for repetitive or performance tests.
Q: Describe how you create a test case.
A: First, I define what I want to test. Then I specify the test conditions (input data, conditions, and expected outputs). From there, I design each step of the test, prepare any necessary data to run the test, and execute. When the test case is done, I review myself and ask for others to review findings as needed.
Q: What are the different types of software testing strategies?
A: Here’s how these break down:
- Unit testing: Testing individual components or modules of software in isolation to verify their correct functionality.
- Integrated testing: Testing multiple components or modules together to ensure they interact as expected and achieve the desired system behavior.
- System testing: Testing the entire system as a whole to verify that it meets the specified requirements and functions correctly.
- Acceptance testing: Testing performed by end-users or customers to determine if the software meets their needs and is ready for release.
- Regression testing: Retesting previously tested areas of the software to ensure that changes or bug fixes have not introduced new defects.
- Performance testing: Evaluating the software's performance under various conditions, such as load, stress, and response time.
- Security testing: Identifying and assessing vulnerabilities in the software to ensure it is resistant to security threats.
Whenever possible, be sure to include any real-world experience you have with testing.
Q: Describe the importance of test coverage, validation, and prioritizing test scenarios. Describe techniques such as boundary value analysis and equivalence partitioning:
Manual testing plays a vital role in the quality and reliability of software. There are several techniques you’ll use as a manual tester.
Test Coverage ensures software is thoroughly tested. It involves creating test cases that cover different scenarios, input values, and functionalities. As the name suggests, it covers all conceptual bases for testing software.
Validation is the practice of verifying that software meets requirements and expectations.
Prioritizing test case scenarios is important for manual testing scenarios. This technique allows you to focus your time testing to the areas where there is greater risk or the most noted issues.
Boundary Value Analysis involves testing at the boundaries of input ranges. This technique focuses on the minimum, maximum, and inside/outside values, identifying errors that may occur at the edges.
Equivalence Partitioning divides input data into equivalent classes, allowing testers to focus on representative values from each class and reduce the number of test cases. It also ensures adequate coverage of different input scenarios, and helps identify potential defects and errors in each class.
Q: What is a test plan?
A: A test plan is a written document that describes the methods, materials, timetable, & tasks needed to guarantee that the program matches the requirements. it acts as a roadmap for the testing process, helps to ensure complete coverage, & analyzes progress.
Q: Break down the utility of dynamic vs. static testing, API vs. UI testing. Explain how you’ll employ tools and methodologies to optimize the testing process.
A: Dynamic testing takes input data ahead of execution on software to observe its behavior. Static testing is a simple examination of code without executing anything. Dynamic testing helps testers understand how software performs for users, while static testing is best for identifying syntax errors, flaws in logic, and security issues that may arise.
API testing focuses on any APIs used within the code and how those interfaces work when software is running. UI testing is an examination of the user interface and user experience to ensure everything is performing as expected.
Q: When should you recommend automation testing over manual testing?
A: Gajjar says: “Manual testing is preferred for exploratory testing, usability testing, & situations where the application is under development or updates regularly. It works well for one-time tests as well as situations in which automation techniques are impractical.” Keep that in mind while formulating your potential answer to this question.
Q: Explain the relationship between testing activities, quality control, and user acceptance.
A: “Quality control focuses on identifying errors in the final product & making sure it matches all requirements, Gajjar adds. “Quality assurance is an expanded process that includes developing & improving methods to stop errors before they start.”
Remember: Engage with Your Interviewer
The company you’re interviewing with probably has its own unique workflow for testing software, and may manage its development lifecycle and DevOps in ways you’re unfamiliar with. Inquire about those topics when interviewing; asking detailed questions not only demonstrates your interest in the company and role, it shows that you’re interested in continuous learning.
