Why Musicians Can Make for the Best Testers
It’s not easy to find good, quality testers—let alone people who can just fill your many areas of need. You want to discover that perfect engineer, or someone who has a wealth of IT experience, or (in an ideal world) an individual with a MIT or business IT degree.
There’s one major issue with requiring that type of criteria, though—those are the testers who you’re going to have to pay an arm and a leg to get. Now, in a lot of cases, it’s worth shelling out the extra cash to help guarantee that top level of quality. However, if you’re a part of a start-up or in a situation where you need to cut costs, you might not have the luxury of finding the “perfect tester.”
Mike Faulise, the founder and managing partner at tap|QA, has been hiring testers for quite some time, and to keep his business going, he’s had to compete with off-shore workforces that have lower rates and sustainable production. As a manager, you have to discover how to find smart, creative testers who are just as analytical and quality-focused as those with the above qualities.
Oddly enough, Faulise turned to those who have music in their background. And it’s worked.
“We used people that have music in their backgrounds, and quite frankly, musicians themselves make phenomenal testers,” he explained in an interview at STAREAST. “So for you music players out there, for you managers that are looking to hire somebody, find folks with music in their background and they will make phenomenal testers.”
Why? Testers need to be both creative and analytical, and those are two features that are very common in musicians. Sure, it might not be writing code, but we’re learning more and more that the building blocks and innate qualities that make for good testers can be more important than the testing skills themselves.
“I got to have QA skill sets, I got to have business knowledge, and I got to have technical knowledge. If you got all three of those, you're always going to have a job,” Faulise continued. “What we're finding is that knowing my industry may not be that important, and so the trend has been I want somebody that knows QA and technology.”
You might not be able to drop your guitar and immediately know how to test complex software, but testers can come from many different unexpected backgrounds. If you’re looking for smart testers, think outside the box and look toward those who exhibit the qualities software professionals need.
