QA Engineer Assessment: Situational Learning and Real Time Application

Accurately assess situational learning to find the best quality assurance engineer

Quality assurance engineers test the integrity of the software and system. This process requires a thorough understanding and adaptability to situational learning. The best way to guarantee that your QA engineer assessment is comprehensive and you are receiving the best candidate for the position is to test for this skillset. Learn to thoroughly evaluate your candidates through writing the hiring process questions and utilizing the correct tools. 

What is Situational Learning, and Why is it Important?

Situational learning, also known as situated learning, is the ability to adapt to situations quickly based on being emerged in the learning process. Quality assurance engineers build around this process of learning. By immersing themselves in the system, they can fully understand and determine where there needs to be fixes and improvements in a series of systems. Learning the system's ins and outs can help them create performance and integration tests. 

Situational learning is essential to QA engineers because their daily tasks involve situational learning. Each day they review and analyze systems to write tests to fix bugs and errors. With the results of the tests, they log the data and work with design engineers to fix the products and programs. 

Quality assurance engineers perform numerous tests in which situational learning and analysis are necessary. 

  • Unit Testing. A way of testing a unit.
  • Performance Testing. Test the responsiveness of the design.
  • Component Testing. Testing each part of the software separately.
  • Sanity and Smoke Testing. Test that the critical functionality of the software is working.
  • Regression Testing. Testing previous software to ensure nothing has broken or changed.
  • Integration Testing. Modules are put together and tested as a group.
  • System Testing. Test how parts of the system interact with each other.
  • Browser Compatibility. Testing basic features on multiple browsers.
  • Localization Testing. Verify the accuracy of the software in different regions and locations.
  • Security Testing. Testing the security of the system or software.
  • Load Testing. Test the software under real-life load conditions.
  • Exploratory Testing. Tests uncover defects with an individual tester and create different testing avenues.

With the number of test cases that need implementation, a quality assurance engineer must learn and adapt quickly. 

Software and systems are constantly changing and will forever need QA engineers to maintain a quality standard. The best way for engineers to do this is to build the skill sets necessary for adjustment periods. 

Evaluate Situational Learning in a QA Engineer Assessment 

As mentioned above, situational learning is one of the most important skills needed in a QA engineer. Therefore, this skill must be accurately assessed in the hiring process to determine the best fit candidate for your position. While hard technical skills are also vital, the ability to learn in different environments while immersed in a system project with a hard deadline is of utmost importance. 

The ideal candidates will have the strongest understanding of how to apply themselves to the learning process. Applicants may be unaware of the special terminology of situated and situational learning but most likely understand its concepts. The best way to assess this skill is to test their real-time application of different scenarios. 

Giving the candidates a set of tasks to complete in a short time can assess the candidate of their application of situational learning. Suppose the candidate can complete most of the tasks accurately and efficiently in the required time period. In that case, you can assume they can immerse themselves into learning the system. This example would be best implemented in the final version of the hiring process, where the hiring team gives the candidate a scenario to work out.

Situational learning is a tricky skill to assess because the real-time application of it takes time. It can still be assessed from the beginning of the hiring process but might be less creative. On a take-home test, this skill assessment would require a short answer. The best way to do this on a take-home test would be to record the answer. Use hiring technology, such as Filtered, to record answers and guarantee the authenticity of the answers given. 

While giving a QA engineer assessment, it’s important to evaluate situational learning. Without an automated and streamlined end-to-end technical evaluation process using purpose-built technology, this can be a difficult task. Implement Filtered to help you focus on finding the perfect candidate for your position(s). 

Filtered is a leader in skills-based hiring. Our end-to-end technical hiring platform enables you to spend time reviewing only the most qualified candidates, putting skills and aptitude at the forefront of your decisions. We’ll help you automate hiring while applying objective, data-driven techniques to consistently and confidently select the right candidates. To get started, contact our team today or register for a FREE demo.