Vinktank

Recently I have been doing a lot of interviewing at Thoughtworks and have found one particular question to be very useful as we struggle to find decent testers in Australia (if you think you are one then have a look here ). The question is not related to testing but gives understanding how motivated and passionate a perspective employee is. Most candidates will say they want to keep their skills up to date and training is something they are looking for in a company. So the question I ask is “You are allocated a training budget, what is the first course, conference or workshop you would attend?”. For people who are motivated and passionate they can answer this question straight away, others will say “I don’t know” or “it depends on the project work I would be doing”. Although the last answer is ok, it doesn’t indicate that the person is aware of what is happening in the industry and what they need to do to keep up.

With my 2008 training budget I currently plan on taking a Rapid Software Testing course, attend CITCON and STANZ conferences and I am looking into a course on writing for the web.