Introduction

So you finally decided on pursuing a career path in QA. That's great!

But...Where should you start?

It can get overwhelming with the tons of resources now available with a single click, especially if you don't know where to look.

You might also be feeling a little on edge if you didn't take an IT-related course before or are not a techie, but not to worry! Here are some tips that could help you start a (hopefully) smoother-sailing journey to your career in QA.

Gain Hands-on Experience

There are several ways to gain hands-on experience in QA:

1. Apply for an internship - this is good practice for fresh graduates who don't have any on-the-job experience yet.

2. Start at an entry-level QA position - it's difficult to transition into a Mid-career to Senior QA role if you're already from a different field unless it's from a related path.
   For example, I was able to transition from Software Development to QA because of my Linux experience and basic QA knowledge. If I was from a non-tech related field, chances of finding a mid-career level job would be a bit more difficult.
   However, remember to never undersell yourself. Only consider applying for an entry-level position if the companies you're applying for require several years of technology experience for mid-career hires, but not so much for entry-level hires.
   A good thing to consider when getting a new job is if the company also provides mentorship support or in-house training for new hires so you can further hone your skills as a QA.

3. Volunteering or contributing to projects - it's important to build your hands-on experience on testing projects as it hones your ability to find bugs faster.
   I tested my friends' projects when I had free time -- personal websites, discord bots, and finance trackers. It helped me gain perspective about how the technology with different tech stacks work, while they also gained perspective of how users are expecting to interact with their users.

4. Be an online UX/UA tester - There are also ways to learn QA by doing part-time User Acceptance/User Experience Tests online from sites like UTest, Playtest Cloud, Appen, UserPeek, UserTesting, UserFeel, TestingTime, and Enroll among others. Some of these platforms also provide guides on how to become a better tester.

Study!

There are lots of free resources available online, but these ones are the best I've encountered so far:

1. Test Automation University by Applitools. There are learning paths available depending on the programming language you want to use or you can just select whatever course you want to learn. Each course has videos with demos and GitHub repositories and reference links available for further readings, as well as quizzes at the end of each chapter.

2. Test University by BrowserStack. This one is relatively newer so there aren't a lot of courses yet. There are no videos (or at least, the ones I've tried so far don't have videos) and everything is written as an article and the knowledge check is only at the end of the lesson.

3. LinkedIn Learning - LinkedIn isn't just a social networking website for connecting with people in your industry; it also provides courses (some free, some paid) that could help you get started with your career. Like this Software Testing Foundations course, for example

4. Guru99 - It's important to learn the Software Testing Fundamentals, and Guru99 is a well-known resource for this.

5. Coursera - Coursera doesn't only have online IT-related courses, but it's also possible to get an online degree as well! There are even courses made by Software Companies, like this Agile with Atlassian course.

6. Udemy - Udemy was one of the first online course sites I found offering Testing courses. There are lots of course offerings for fundamental topics and preparation for test certifications.

Keep up with the trends

I use daily.dev to keep up with trends in tech daily, but there's also TTN and Testing Daily which are specifically for testing.

However, I do find that it's easier to explore more in-depth information from blog posts here on Hashnode or Medium.

If you wish to explore more, here's a list of QA blogs that I've curated.

Contribute to Open-source Projects

You don't have to be a coding genius to contribute to open-source projects! You can contribute by filing bug reports on GitHub repositories and other FOSS projects that are related to your interests or the field you want to pursue.

For example, GNOME Settings, Red Hat, and Ubuntu have bug-reporting pages that allow registered users to report bugs directly to their repositories.

Get Mentored

This might be a bit more difficult option, but if you can, get a mentor who can help guide you and look over your career progress. Reach out to colleagues or meet people through networking events (yes, they're still a thing).

This would depend on your learning style, but for some people, it helps to have a mentor guide them throughout their journey as they transition into QA.

Certifications

Certifications are not mandatory, but it would be helpful to learn about the basics of QA at least.
The most common certification is ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualification Board), with the most basic certification level being CTFL (Certified Tester - Foundation Level)

There are some other variations such as ASTQB (ISTQB Certification in the U.S.) and JSTQB (ISTQB Certification in Japan), but I would recommend focusing on ISTQB instead since it's accredited in more organizations than the latter two.

Conclusion

Of course, taking online classes can be quite expensive, especially getting certifications, so it's understandable if you're having second thoughts. However, most (if not all) of the resources I've shared are free and easy to access.

However, rest assured that even though this is a good way to pad up your resume, the most important thing is that you know your basics and have the passion to pursue a career in QA.