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In our company, we think that some of the key skills for a tester are the attention to detail and observation skills, these are some of the major things we are looking for in the interviews.

What kind of questions can be asked in an interview to detect if a candidate possesses this kind of skills? What are some of the "red flags" that might indicate a lack or weakness in this area?

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  • Why do you claim that attention to details is a key skill ? In my experience people that exhibit attention disorder qualities, not necessarily diagnosed as ADD or ADHD but somewhat messy or having difficulty to concentrate for a long time, will be more productive and creative for the long run.
    – Rsf
    Nov 28, 2017 at 9:06
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    @Rsf yeah, I was thinking I might hit a controversial topic :) I'll edit to make it "our opinion only" thing. But, you have a good point there, interesting thinking - I remember that podcast I've listened long ago about whether kids need to clean up their rooms or not - mess may trigger creative and original ideas - a messy desk may be a sign of a brilliant mind. Thanks.
    – alecxe
    Nov 28, 2017 at 12:47

3 Answers 3

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Great Question

As per my experience, it's very difficult to get a right employee who has very good judgment, sharp focus, attention & great observation skills.

Earlier it was very difficult to filter right candidate but our team come with some solution for that We made some minor changes in our interview process as follows:-

Now before conducting F2F interview We give some Android/iOS application's & instruction sheet to the candidate and ask to perform any type of testing(functional, GUI, Usability, Security....etc ) & find any kind of the bug based on this instruction. We give around 1 hour time to the candidate to find bugs as much as He/she can find. If the candidate is able to find even a single bug then we go for next round F2F interview otherwise we don't proceed with the candidate.

This small change saves a lot of time of our working employee & it helps us to figure out these basic qualities of the candidate like.

  • Judgement Capability
  • Decision making capability (Bug or not)
  • Attention to details (Instruction sheet)
  • Efficiency of the candidate
  • Focus on random application (Layman approach)
  • Flexibility with the situation & work
  • Time management
  • Observation of the random application....& much more

Then in the F2F interview, we start to ask the question-related to AUT we ask about his experience about that hour and Other skill sets (In resume) And try to judge the above properties in a good candidate.

I can't say that it is a standard procedure but its help us a lot to filter out a very good candidate from crowed, for our work.

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I think most important part of interview to check whether a tester have skills of attention to detail and observation should be his/her way of approach to any tricky question rather not emphasizing on correct answers only!

Questions may be technical or non-technical but if he takes time to think and tries to approach in a systematic way, then this is an indication of his/her patience and judgement. But if she/he panics out after hearing the question and tries to answer ASAP, then this is not a good skill for him even though he managed to give correct answer lately.

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'Attention to detail', I strongly think is one of the most important traits in an effective tester in general.

I usually ask the person, the (little) things which caught his/her's attention after entering the company premises. If I don't get much, then I start discussing their opinion on one of my favorite paintings hanging on the company reception to see how much they have observed it.

This always gives me a true indicator of somebody's natural instincts to 'attention to detail' instead of something imposed.

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