How to Build Credibility as a Tester
One of the worst things you can feel in your workplace is underappreciated. If people within your team don’t understand what you do, or even worse, think that your job is borderline unnecessary, it can be near impossible to want to give 100 percent on a day-to-day basis.
Respect is a major player when it comes to creating and maintaining a cohesive, high-functioning team, and plenty of testers today feel like they’re lacking the respect of their peers. With test automation sometimes being seen as some magical, routine solution to fixing bugs, the usefulness of manual testers has come into question by those who don’t have a clear understanding of the field.
And that’s something that Selena Delesie, a visionary speaker, coach, and trainer, has encountered throughout her many discussions with testers struggling to find credibility within a team setting.
“Testers are saying, ‘People just don't like us. We are always in the way. We can't do all the testing they want to do,’” she explained in an interview with StickyMinds. “You are there to be of a service. Your job is to help to find the important problems so that they can make the right decisions about releasing a product or not. If you framed it as, ‘I am here to be of service, to help to make those right decisions rather than just do everything that I want to do,’ you are going to build credibility in your organization.
“You are going to build something for yourself where you are seen as more credible, more successful, and someone that people want to pair with in other projects.”
Beyond showing others your value, it’s even more critical to understand in your own head how important your work is. If you’re a passionate tester who’s good at the job, know that you are of great value to your team, organization, and industry.
By better understanding your worth, it becomes easier to communicate with those around you who might not understand each step of the testing process.
“When I talk about these principles, it's all about you and how you become the best version of you so that you can really become competitive in the work that you are doing,” Delesie continues.
The whole “be the best you” mantra might go in one ear and out the other—it’s well-worn territory. However, it’s difficult to gain credibility within your team if you yourself don’t value what you do. Understand your worth and how to communicate it, and from there, the respect from your team will follow.
