How to start working as a QA being a non-IT person?

Question

How can I start working as a Fresher QA in IT Field being an Electronics and Communications Engineer (from Non-IT Field)?

What are the IT concepts which I need to learn before learning QA concepts?

From where I can learn those concepts?

Answer 1

Probably you should not learn IT concepts BEFORE learning QA concepts. QA concepts are applicable to all the areas which produce products or services. So you may start learning QA concepts and start learning IT after you have clear understanding of what QA is and if it is really interesting for you.

After you have understood what QA is you can start learning IT. In a very basic level the IT concept might look like:

1. Each application works with some input data (processes the data)
2. Each application has some interface that is used for interaction
3. Each application produces some valuable output data

So here you can get deeper into each of those three points (most of the IT knowledge you will get would be the knowledge about languages, formats, protocols and tools). Learn what are the formats and protocols to store and transfer the data (SQL, HTTP, FTP, XML, etc.), what are the tools to work with all those technologies, learn what are the formats, protocols and tools to interact with applications like HTML, SOAP, RMI.

These are the very basic IT knowledge areas which are most likely will be applicable to the regular QA job in IT.

You should also consider that there are a lot of different framework which implement the same concepts so you will have to learn those frameworks depending on the organization you will work in.

Google can be the effective place where you can find all the required information about the particular protocol, technology or tool.

Answer 2

First you need to understand the concepts of QA. What is a Quality assurance, What is the roles and responsibilities of a Quality assurance professional, How QA should work and When QA can start their work.

You can find the link from where you can learn the manual concepts. If you want in a more advanced level you can learn the ISTQB foundation level syllabus. That will give a more detailed explanation about the testing concepts and how to start testing.

Even if you are a Non-IT profession you can do a exploratory testing i.e. running the application without any knowledge or as a user you are accessing the application. When you are accessing you will have an idea on:

 - What is the input we need to give
 - Where the application will redirect on user actions
 - What will be the desired/expected output
 - Application loads correctly or not when hitting on the respected url
 - Forms, Alignment, look and feel of an application

These will give an idea about the application workflow.To get an idea about how it should actually work you have to read the Requirements Specifications, Wireframes and Mockups

Initially prefer to start with manual testing and with the help of requirements create a checklist and make sure everything is working fine. When you are fine with the manual concepts then start to automate your application by using any tool available in the market. Keep in mind automation can be done only in stable application.

Answer 3

Being a NonIT field Guy would not be a major concern in starting your career in QA as a Fresher. Still you need to learn few basic things before entering into this.

1. What is a defect?
2. What is software testing like cycle?
3. What is a Test Case?
4. What is Test Plan and Test Strategy?
5. What is Positive and Negative testing?
6. What is Build and release?
7. What are different types of testing techniques?

You can easily get the answers for these online. Moreover you can prepare and can try in top software testing companies.

Answer 4

What worked for me was actually reversing the process. I first started doing testing and then I slowly started building up my knowledge of concepts and technologies. I don't think this works universally (what you test makes a difference, e.g. testing an airplane system vs. testing an ecommerce platform are two very different products and you need different skills with different level of theory/concepts), but it worked for me because:

• if I already know how to do something, it's easier to remember the theory behind it
• people I worked with/companies I worked for didn't really care if I knew some concepts, they wanted me to test the product; I'm not saying knowing some concepts won't help you test better etc. but very few people will ask you in advance, so if your goal is to get a job in QA/testing, you don't really need to study much theory in advance
• systems I started testing were not any critical systems where a serious bug could cost lives etc.

So, to answer your questions:

How can I start working as a Fresher QA in IT Field being an Electronics and Communications Engineer (from Non-IT Field)?

Apply to some companies and find your first QA job. Many might reject you, but I don't think it's undoable with little to no experience (otherwise no one would ever find their first job).

And if you really need to prove in advance you know how to test some software, why not find a project on github and help them out by reporting a few bugs? Then you can share your reported issues with those companies you're applying to, thus showing some of your skills and interest. (you'd be surprised about how something like this works, very little (almost no one) actually does anything like this, people just send their CVs, being so passive during the hiring process).

What are the IT concepts which I need to learn before learning QA concepts?

As I already said, I don't think you need to study that much in advance. And since you're coming from a technical university, you probably already have analytical thinking, which is required for testers/QA/IT people in general.

From where I can learn those concepts?

I think that testing is a combination of many areas: technical, business, people etc. Those technical concepts might be easily learnt from the online world (unless you work on some highly proprietary/secret/... technology that's not available to the public), your company should provide you with enough opportunities to learn their business to the level you need to understand the product and its context, and people skills are sort of built in everyday life (or you can attend various trainings, workshops etc.).