Blogs On Job Interview Questions

Are you still creating your resume by copying the format from seniors/friends and changing the details? It’s high time you stop. In today’s highly-competitive job market, every online (and offline too) job posting receives thousands of applications every day. Naturally, most of the resumes end up in the trash can, and only a very limited number of selected candidates get called for the face-to-face interview process. In the previous blog, we looked at the ways one can search for a job and the popular platforms used by job seekers in 2022. Today we’ll tell you how to build the most impressive resume that significantly increases your chances of getting an interview call. But first thing first, let’s take a look into a few Frequently Asked Questions to better understand the process. 1. CV or Resume: Which one to choose? In many countries like Australia, South Africa, Parts of Europe, and India, the terms CV and Resume are used interchangeably. However, in North America (USA and Canada), these two terms denote two different documents. CV: A CV is a long, detailed description of the course of your academic and professional life. A CV can be as long as it requires to be, and records every important detail of a person’s career. In the USA and Canada, a CV is generally used for academic jobs, or when specifically asked for a CV. Resume: A Resume is a short and precise documentation of your career records and includes only specific and relevant information needed to apply for a particular job. A Resume is ideally only one-page long, however, two-page Resumes are also acceptable. In the USA and Canada, a Resume is generally used for non-academic, regular jobs. NOTE: Unlike CV, which stays put in its original form, and is only updated with added information over time, a Resume is highly customizable, and needs to be updated every time you apply for a different job role, or even when you apply for the same job titles in different companies. 2. What is ATS and why should my resume be ATS-Compliant? An ATS or Applicant Tracking System is software that helps recruiters and hiring authorities in the recruitment process. ATS is like a digital hiring assistant that helps in sorting and parsing resumes, updating and maintaining the database of applicants, scheduling interviews, and even onboarding the selected candidates. The primary function of ATS is sorting and parsing resumes. When a recruiter posts a job online, she might receive thousands of applications. Reading through all of them and short-listing the top candidates is next to impossible for a single person. But an ATS can perform this task easily by comparing the candidate’s data against the recruiter’s pre-set criteria. The comparison mostly happens based on the presence or absence of relevant keywords in the applicant’s resume/application. That’s why your resume needs to be ATS-compliant. Otherwise, no matter how qualified you are, the absence of the right keywords can lead to ATS considering your application irrelevant, and therefore get you rejected even before it reaches the hands of the recruiter. 3. How to make my resume ATS-compliant? As mentioned earlier, ATS programs use many algorithms to rank resumes in order of their quality. With ATS, one of the primary parameters of such tests is the presence or absence of certain keywords. These keywords heavily depend on the job description. So, one of the best ways to find these keywords is to study the job description carefully, point out the keywords, and include them strategically all over your resume. Another easy way to find such keywords is using an online resume optimization program. You need to copy-paste the job description and your resume data in relevant boxes and run the program. The software will automatically produce a list of missing keywords that you need to include in your resume. Some advanced programs also provide additional information to further improve your resume. 4. Is passing the ATS test enough? The primary purpose of building an ATS-Compliant resume is to get past the ATS screening. But this is not the end of the recruitment process; rather, it is the beginning. What happens when your application does get approved by ATS and hiring managers take a look at it? Surveys and studies suggest, your resume has only 8 seconds to impress the recruiter. And that’s why it’s so important to choose the right format, the right points, and the right language to build your resume. Below we’ve discussed everything there is to know about creating the ideal resume for any job. An ideal resume will look like this. You can use this template to build your own.   Resume Format: In terms of the order of resume elements, there are three formats accepted worldwide. Each of them serves a special purpose, and according to your career history, you should choose the correct one suitable for you. 1. Functional Resume Format: This is the most common and most widely-used resume format in the US and Canada. In this resume format, work experience is given preference and is therefore included in the beginning. 2. Chronological Resume Format: As the name suggests, this resume format documents your career graph in a chronological (or more commonly, reverse-chronological) order, by including academic details in the beginning. 3. Combination Format: This format is also called a freestyle resume format where the candidate places the points that he thinks are the most relevant and important in the beginning. Resume Summary: A resume summary is, without a doubt, the most important part of a resume. Amidst the pool of hundreds of resumes, hiring managers and recruiters often don’t read beyond the resume summary unless she finds the summary grasping and relevant. An ideal resume summary should not be longer than 3-5 sentences. Only the most important and relevant points should be included in this section. From academic records, to special achievements, to skills and experiences, anything can be included in a summary. You can use bullet points to make it easier to read. Example:   In the above example, the “Bad Resume Summary” fails to include the most important information about the candidate, and include less-important things like:  ‘The candidate is looking for a job in the publishing industry’, Or, ‘The candidate worked at XYZ organization previously’ This information is less important for the hiring manager. Rather, knowing the following things will be more important for the recruiter:  ‘The candidate has working experience of Digital Marketing’ Or, ‘The candidate successfully boosted the SEO performance and lead generation in an organic way through Content in her last organization’. Resume Objective: Resume objective is becoming increasingly obsolete these days. Unless you have something really important to add, it’s better to skip resume objective altogether, because faulty resume objectives do more harm than good. Contact Information: Including your contact details in a neat way is necessary. Mentioning your contact number/s and email address is enough and adding home address is unnecessary. Optionally, you can add your LinkedIn profile link, your personal website/blog page link, or your social media handles in this section. Work Experience: Mention your work experience in a reverse-chronological order, starting from the most recent experience. Mention your job title and include a brief detail about your responsibilities, and special achievements (if any) under this section, but keep it precise. In the above example, the first instance is considered an incorrect way to include work experience because: It completely omits the time-frame of the employment. It doesn’t include a brief summary of the job description. Alternatively, the second instance is considered the correct way because: It includes the time-frame of the employment (in case of employment gap, only mention 2017-2019, instead of January 2017- December 2019). It includes a brief summary of the job description. Academic Records: Unless explicitly asked for, there’s no need to include your school records in this section. Mentioning details of your higher studies professional courses that you’ve completed/currently attending are generally enough. In case of GPAs or marks/percentage too, unless you have a high-achieving record throughout, it’s better to leave them out (again, unless explicitly asked for). Extra-Curricular Activities: Since a resume has limited space, including extra-curricular activities are a bit tricky. You can always include achievements in sports and physical activities in this field, since these skills are almost always impressive. However, if you are applying for a graphic designing job, it’s better to leave out the information that you won a state-level singing competition because it’s irrelevant. But if you’re applying for a Content Writer role, your debating skills might be relevant enough to be included in your resume. Hard and Soft Skills: Hard Skills denote job-specific skills that are needed for the particular designation. For example, for the Accounting Assistant post, knowledge of Accounts, Book-Keeping, Business Economics etc, falls under the category of Hard Skills. Soft Skills denote general skills that are needed to excel at any job. For example, communication skills, critical thinking abilities, organizational skills, computer skills, etc. are not specific to any particular job but are necessary to become a good employee in general. It is important to list both your hard skills and soft skills in your resume. You can either make two separate lists for two types of skills, or mention all of them in bullet points under a single section. This section is a good place to include as many relevant keywords as possible to make your resume ATS compliant. In the example above, the first instance is considered to be the incorrect way to include skills, not only because it hasn’t distinguished between the hard and soft skills, but also because writing the skills in a paragraph looks more cluttered and the recruiters lose interest in them. Meanwhile, the second instance is considered to be the correct way, not only because it shows a clear distinction between Hard and Soft skills, but it also lists the skills in a clear and organized way that makes the resume more presentable and easy to read. The better the presentation of your resume, the more a recruiter takes interest in your writing. Languages: Include all the languages that you know and also mention the level of expertise in your resume (i.e. beginner, proficient, expert, etc.) Hobbies & Interests: Just like the extra-curricular activities section, limit this part only to those interests that are directly or indirectly related to the job in question. Cover Letter: Some candidates add the line “Cover letter available upon request”. This is completely unnecessary. If you’re asked for a cover letter, include it in your application. Otherwise, just leave it. 5. How should the resume be tailored before sending out job applications? When it comes to resumes, there isn’t any ‘one-size-fits-all’ formula that you can apply. To get the best possible result with both the applicant tracking systems and the hiring authorities of an organization, you need to modify your existing resume for each individual application. How does it help to beat the ATS? As discussed before, ATS ranks all of the candidates’ resumes in order of quality and relevance, and the prime factor in the decision-making process is the presence of relevant keywords. Now, keywords can be tricky to deal with. Sometimes, even for similar job roles, these keywords vary from one job post to another. For example: ‘Junior Accountant’ and ‘Accounting Assistant’ might denote similar positions in two different organizations, but ATS will identify them as different keywords. So, when you are tailoring your resume for a particular job posting, go with the keywords that they have used in their Job Description and replace your existing ones. This is true for all the aspects of a resume, be it the necessary skills, qualification, or experiences. When you fill your resume with significant keywords for a specific job at a specific organization, the ATS will easily recognize the relevance factor and rank your application higher, thus improving your chances of getting an interview call. How does it impress the hiring authorities? Custom-made resumes will also impress the hiring managers more than a stock resume. Different hiring authorities prioritize different aspects of a job in their organization. Understanding their priorities and highlighting those aspects in your resume will impress the recruiters more. The tailoring process: Modifying your resume every time you apply for a job seems to be a tedious task. But actually, it’s very easy. You don’t have to write your whole resume from scratch again and again, a few tweaks here and there will do. Here’s how: Select the ideal resume format: As described before, you need to choose from 3 resume formats, i.e. Reverse Chronological, Functional, and Combination format. These different formats highlight different aspects of your resume by placing them at the top. So, you need to choose a format depending on what you want to highlight. As a fresher doesn’t have work experiences yet, the reverse-chronological format is ideal for him because it begins with his educational and professional qualifications, and then proceeds to include the internship/part-time experiences (if any). On the contrary, if you happen to have significant and relevant experiences in the field you’re applying for, the Functional resume format will be ideal for you because it begins with the list of your work experiences, and then includes academic and other details. The combination format is suitable for freelancers/career-changers/people in creative fields because it doesn’t follow a strict rule of order, and can be used to highlight any aspect of the candidate’s resume (work portfolio/skills/special achievements etc.) Resume Summary vs. Resume Objective: Modern resume building techniques place high importance on resume summary. No matter which format you choose, a resume summary must be there. On the contrary, the resume objective is not considered to be important nowadays and is recommended only for career-changers. The resume objective gives career-changers the opportunity to explain why they changed their career path and what they are looking for in their future employments. Work Experience: This part will remain mostly unchanged. However, you might need to change some of the job details to match the criteria better. Example 1:  In your old resume as a Java Developer, you included the following details as your top 3 responsibilities: Develop and test new application software Design and implement Java application phases Maintain and improve existing Java application processes Albeit the job roles are similar, you find that your target job has included these points in their job description: Conduct software analysis, programming and debugging Contribute in software development activities Developing well-designed codes, etc. You can then just rephrase a few of your existing points to match the new job description in a better way. Example 2: In your old job, you required expertise in all 3 languages viz. Java, C++, and Python, so your old resume included all 3 of them. However, if your new job requires only knowledge of Java, your resume should reflect that too. In such cases, you should only include Java (and related work experience) in this field, and the extra information (knowledge of C++ and Python) in the “Skills” section as an addendum (by just adding them at the bottom of the list). Alternatively, if the opposite thing happens, i.e. your old job required only Java and the new job requires all three, although you cannot include the two languages in your work experience, you must include them in your Profile Summary or Skills section and highlight them by putting them on top. Academic records: Remains unchanged. Extra-curricular activities/Hobbies & Interests: Select only the ones relevant to your present role. Hard and Soft Skills: Rephrasing might be needed based on the criteria for the new job. Languages: Unless you speak more than 3 languages, and your job is directly related to your language skills, including the “Languages” section is best left for freshers only. As you gain experience and have much more important details to share, including the languages section becomes unnecessary. The journey from applying to a job to getting a job is a long process, and the toughest hurdle in this journey is getting called for an interview. And to cross this hurdle, a well-built resume is your only tool. Now you know how to build the perfect resume, and how to tailor them for individual applications. A perfect resume will not help you with both the AI systems and the human recruiters, and finally, you will receive the much-awaited call for the interview round. Team Vibrant Publishers wishes you all the best! Next up in this series: Understanding the Interview Process: Stages and Challenges Previous blog in this series: Job search in 2022- A Complete Guide for Freshers Books you might find useful: Leadership Interview Questions You’ll Most Likely Be Asked Innovative Interview Questions You’ll Most Likely Be Asked HR Interview Questions You’ll Most Likely Be Asked

Welcome! If you are an aspiring job seeker looking for your dream job, this guide is for you. It is presented in the form of a series of blogs that contain all you need to know about searching for a job in 2022. In these blogs, we’ll cover what it means to write an ATS-compliant resume, understanding the challenges of the interview process, what you can do before an interview, tips for clearing job interviews, how you can perform well in your technical interviews, and whether mock interviews help. The job application process isn’t the same as it was a few years ago. In the present decade, the recruitment process largely starts online, and thanks to the emergence of numerous popular job portals and job boards, you can be pretty self-sufficient in your job hunt process if you know how to find and apply to the job(s) you want. Here’s all you need to know about how to find your dream job and apply for it. 1. Through recommendations: Getting recommended by a present employee of an organization improves your chances of getting called for the interview round simply because of the ‘trust factor’ involved in it. If you happen to have an acquaintance in a company you aspire to work for, don’t shy away from requesting them to write you a recommendation letter. 2. Through Placement Agencies/Staffing Agencies: Placement agencies can be a significant help while finding a suitable job, especially when you are a fresher or you have an employment gap. A good placement agency helps you in the following ways: They provide you with career counseling, advice on how to acquire the missing skills and qualifications for your target job, and also provide professional help to improve your supporting documents like resume and cover letter. They train and prepare you for your impending job interviews. As a part of their jobs, an interview coach from a job consultancy knows exactly what to expect in a job interview from different companies and different job roles. This inside knowledge can give you an edge over others in the interview round. Placement companies skillfully place the right candidate in the right position. As a result, you thrive and grow in the right environment. But the big question is- how to select a good placement agency/staffing agency? As discussed in the previous point, before registering with a placement agency, you should find out whether they are providing such benefits like interview training, resume optimization, and career counseling. Also, do your research about the company’s background. Has it ever been in the news for the wrong reasons? What are the previous clients saying? How was the experience of the past jobseekers? What kind of additional benefits do they provide? Apart from these, two other major things to look for are: Whether you’ll be under the direct payroll of the company you’re working for, or will it be under the placement agency. Are there any hidden charges involved? To avoid any undesirable situation, read the contract papers thoroughly before signing. When you are satisfied with all the answers to these questions, you can proceed with the registration. While applying for jobs through job portals, these are the things that you should keep in mind: Complete your profile: Fill out all the details that the portal asks for, including your education history, work experience, internship experience, workshops and training you attended, certificates you earned, publications, awards and recognition, and all other details. Be especially careful while filling out your contact details. If the recruiter can’t reach you because of a faulty digit in your contact number, it’s all for naught. A completed profile attracts more attention to the recruiter and also improves your credibility. Upload supporting documents: Upload your most updated resume on the portal. If the portal asks for other supporting documents like copies of your degrees/diplomas, experience certificates, or published copies of your work (where applicable), you should upload them. These documents support your claims and that in turn makes the recruiters more interested in your profile. Refrain from posting false claims: This goes without saying, filling up your resume and online job profile with imaginary details may seem tempting unless you end up getting caught, which might even attract legal prosecution. Be consistent and regular: Creating an account and only logging in once a month to shoot out some applications is not the way to successfully use these platforms. Logging in frequently (at least 3 times a week), updating your profile often, and keep applying to suitable jobs will help your account stay ‘Active’. Active accounts get more views and are recommended to the recruiters more by AI algorithms of these portals. Here’s a list of the most popular online job portals in the USA right now: LinkedIn is the number one and most popular job portal in the world. We will talk about it in detail later. There are several alternative job portals like: Indeed CareerBuilder Glassdoor Google for jobs ZipRecruiter Monster And the most popular online job portals in India are as follows: Naukri Monster India TimesJobs Indeed Glassdoor Job-Searching the smart way: New and Emerging Trends for 2022 20-year old Ankita Chawla (Instagram: @hireankitachawla) from Mumbai, India turned her Instagram profile into a digital portfolio by posting a series of snaps. She turned her Instagram gallery into a collage of visual content, thus showing the recruiters what she can do and not merely claiming it! She got hired within weeks by Deloitte India and is now working with them as a visual content creator.             For all the job seekers out there, this is an exceptionally good time to apply out-of-the-box thinking and leverage your creative potential to achieve professional success. Grabbing the recruiters’ attention through social media is becoming an increasingly popular trend since the last couple of years. Top recruiters all over the world are also embracing these trends with an open heart. Facebook currently allows recruiters to post job openings. Instagram is primarily popular for small businesses, startups, and freelancers to gain clients, but approaching recruiters for traditional jobs is also gaining momentum in this platform. LinkedIn for Jobseekers While talking about using social media, nothing can and will beat LinkedIn, the no.1 social media platform for professionals. Let’s look at some numbers before proceeding: Total LinkedIn users across the world (2022): 740 million Total active users: 310 million Total users from the US: 180 million Total users from India: 82 million Why should you have a LinkedIn profile? LinkedIn is one of the largest and best job boards in the world. You can be assured that almost every position that opens up in an organization gets posted on LinkedIn first. This is true across the world. You get access to a pool of jobs that’s impossible to find anywhere else. Business leaders, influencers, recruiters, everybody uses LinkedIn to connect and communicate with their network. By following the right people, you get to be among the first ones to know about an opening in your favorite company, or about some changed criteria for a job you are targeting. LinkedIn is the favorite place for industry leaders to convey their thoughts and ideas- ideas that often determine the current trends and patterns of the industry. By being on LinkedIn, you stay up-to-date with your areas of interest which pays off really well in the interviews. LinkedIn not only helps leaders and influencers to express their views, but also does the same for you. You can also put out relevant content on LinkedIn and showcase your knowledge and expertise to the world, and build your own brand. Before hiring someone, recruiters often check the candidate’s LinkedIn profile to know more about him. This gives you a chance to impress them even before you enter the interview room. In fact, you can also do the same and find out about the person interviewing you. Knowing about your interviewer’s professional background helps you in the interview process as you can then have more meaningful interactions with him, and connect to him in a better and more effective way. How should you use LinkedIn for job search? To get the most out of LinkedIn, you should do the following things: Let recruiters know you’re open: Make sure you keep your ‘Career Interest’ status as “Open” so recruiters know that you are available for hire. You can also use your LinkedIn profile headline to write about the same. Let recruiters know you’re open: Like your profile on job portals, your LinkedIn profile also needs to be up-to-date and completely filled up all the time. Include all your professional history, add a professional photograph and a suitable header image, and most importantly, write your profile summary wisely. Be active: Use ‘LinkedIn insights’ to connect with recruiters and people from your own industry. But don’t just stop there. Post your thoughts, experiences, ideas, and creations regularly. Don’t just put a Like on other people’s posts, rather, put out your thoughts and comment something meaningful. Being consistently active on LinkedIn increases your visibility. Again, increased visibility means better exposure, and a better chance to get noticed by recruiters. So, no matter what platform you are primarily using for your job search, having a well-built LinkedIn profile is desirable. In recent years, renowned companies have become increasingly accommodating to new and innovative ideas to recruit employees. Calling upon video portfolios, using virtual reality and AI assistance in the recruitment process, contacting candidates via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, picking up candidates based on Quora answers, the recruitment world has seen some real out-of-the-box approaches recently, and surely, these trends will continue well into the future years. So, make the best use of your internet connection and build up your brand in the best innovative way that you can think of. Soon, you’ll be the one to be approached by companies and recruiters, instead of the other way round! Team Vibrant Publishers wishes you all the best! Next up in this series: The Ultimate Guide to Writing an Impressive, ATS-Compliant Resume Books you might find useful: Leadership Interview Questions You’ll Most Likely Be Asked Innovative Interview Questions You’ll Most Likely Be Asked HR Interview Questions You’ll Most Likely Be Asked

There’s a great hype for software developers in today’s digital world. But what happens next when the software is ready? That’s where software testing steals the show. With the world demanding more software upgrades than ever expected, the job for testing them gains all the more importance. 55% companies globally seek software testers in their ranks to create flawless software. It’s by these prodigies that errors from a software are ironed out and then served to the companies for actual usage of the software. Being a test engineer conducting tests or to manage the series of tests, this job has a wide scope with a good salary package complimenting it.     Leading companies such as QA Mentor Inc or Fleek IT solutions and so on seek the services of a smart software tester to bolster their companies manpower and make the software flawless. However between this position and you stands a tough interview to emerge victorious in.     To carve your path towards that interview we have our book ‘Software Testing: Interview Questions You’ll Most Likely Be Asked.’ With 300 questions giving insight to the interview to be asked, this prepares you well enough for your experience across the table with seniors and inches you closer to your job.     Check out some of these questions from the book:       1) What is a Black box testing stage?   This is the second type of traditional methods of testing. Black box testing is also known as Functional and /or Behavioral testing. There are functional requirements and test cases are written based on this specification. This phase is the second stage of SDLC process. It involves checking of the system or product or software according to the Functional requirement specification. It determines if the software does what it is supposed to serve. This method does not touch on internal code checking. That means exploring functionality without internal implementation knowledge. The testing name is such because it treats the software as a black box, meaning unknown system. Usually, the Tester is involved in black box testing and not a developer. A tester does not know how software performs but knows only what the software is supposed to react. Black box testing methods are many: boundary value analysis, equivalence partitioning, state transition tables, all pairs testing, fuzz testing, decision table testing, use case testing, model based testing, specification based testing and exploratory testing.       2) Explain email spoofing and content spoofing.   Email spoofing is to duplicate the email header (like the from id) and let it behave like the one originated from the actual id source. The duplicate ones will land only in the spam folders. With specific commands inserted the message information can be modified andeven message body can be altered too.Content spoofing is another way of creating a fake website and then make-believe the audience that the website exists. Most of the fraud cases happen using the content spoofing, as the hacker can obtain the secured information from the user and use it.       3) What is Shakeout testing?   Shakeout testing is conducted to ensure that a load is successfully implemented without interrupting the actual process and all the other functions are working as expected. Until the installation of a build, encompassed here are a series of tests done on various builds. Shake out includes basic testing of the base desktop functionality, the GUI testing etc. Shake out testing is different from smoke testing and sanity testing.       4) What is forced-Error Testing?   The forced Error Test (FET) as the name signifies contains test cases that force errors to the applications. These test cases determine the errors prior to the executions of the software and are designed to bring out the error conditions. The situations in the test case require specific error messages to be generated. The system must act according to the error-handling schemes. Test cases are to be designed to meet the requirements of finding the error messages and the system must respond the same way. The list of errors is the baseline for developing various test cases.     5) What is Soak testing and Fuzz testing?   Soak testing means checking the performance of a system in depth for a long period to examine any potential discrepancy. The system is run under high loads for 12 or 24 hrs continuously during a heavy traffic. Here load refers to time. There may be performance issues after extending long period communication with the system. Some STLC process may also use soak testing for months with high temperatures or external stresses.Example: A system behaves normally when tested for a couple of hours. But, when it is tested beyond two hours, problems like ‘memory leakage’ may arise and the system will fail or act unexpectedly.Fuzz testing is also a Black box testing technique. Using bad data randomly to attack a code and observing breaks in the system is known as Fuzz testing. Automation is done for effective results of Fuzz testing of large applications. This kind of testing ensures the best practice for the application, is well protected.       6) What test cases are written for a Cookie setting?   There are many test cases to check cookie functionality and they are: Accepting and Rejecting cookies to control the smooth functionality of a web application: To test for a good functionality of a website, all cookies must not be accepted. The testing should be done by setting browser options, to prompt when an HTML code wants to write a cookie to the disk. Divide the cookie acceptance into half of the size, say 5 accepted randomly and 5 rejected. Then the window prompts for each cookie to be accepted or rejected and can be managed accordingly. Now check the website major functionality to see if data is getting infected or pages are crumbling. A Test to check the deletion of cookies from self web application page: Testing an action tracking on a web portal. A pixel is placed on the web page for tracking any action made by the user or business purchase done; the cookie tracks the action and/or purchase. While other testing is being done, to avoid multiple tracking of the actions logged from the same cookie, the cookie written to disk is deleted. Therefore, the cookie must be successfully deleted for our tests. Test to delete a cookie: Check by allowing a website to insert cookies on browsers and then close it. Next, delete all cookies manually for a website under trial. Now, reopen the browsers of the web pages and check the behavior of the pages. In this case, cookies must be disabled and tracking of data should not happen. Testing for Cookie on Multiple browsers: An important test is to check if one web application page writes the cookies properly on all or different browsers as planned. The site should work properly by using these cookies. Testing is done on major browsers like Internet explorer, Opera, Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape and more. Test for corrupt data in the cookie content: Cookies can be easily corrupted. A cookie is manually edited in a notepad and parameter is changed with some corrupt values for the content or the Name or expiry date. Check the site functionality. Our cookies should not allow reading data of another domain in spite of corrupted cookie.       7) Describe Penetration testing or Pen Test.   Penetration testing is testing the vulnerability of a system or network against hacking or unauthorized user access. Complicated methods are used to perform penetration testing. Unauthorized access is attempted to check the vulnerability of the security system in many ways. Ethical hacking or cracking is the term used for penetration testing. A known person who does not have the user authorities tries to hack into the network or system which discloses the security lapses that were overlooked. These are then worked upon and the process repeats till the cracker is unable to access the system in spite of repeated attempts. Ideally, a good ethical hacker needs to do this if you want 100% security ensured. The process reveals the following issues:     Inadequate or improper system configuration, Known and/or unknown hardware or software flaws, Operational weaknesses in process, Technical surveillance countermeasures.     This analysis is considered from the point of an attacker, and may actively engage misuse of security vulnerabilities. The owner is given an account of the detailed evaluation of whatever security issues are found. The evaluation is based on the impact caused and a proposal given for technical solution or improvement. Penetration testing helps to find out the probability of a security attack over the system and what it will cost the business in terms of data, reputation, money and time. It involves the following processes:     The process is ongoing until the security vendor comes up with a all-inclusive solution that counters all known and unknown vulnerabilities.     Business Risks: Personal information modification, price-list modification, Everyday threat analysis, unauthorized funds transfer, unauthorized logins, breach of customer trust and more. Technical vulnerabilities: Web application risks, SQL injection, URL manipulation, Cross-site scripting, password caching or hard-coding, possibilities of session hijacks, web server configuration, back end authentication, documentation management, buffer overflow, and more.       8) How is database testing done?   Database Testing is entirely based on the requirement specifications. There are a few things to consider related to database:     Default Correctness of data Storage and/or Retrieval of data in database The database is connected across multiple platforms Indexing of database for better performance – Checking if the data insertion from the application into the database enforces restrictions on the data or not. Data in the database is integrated Security of the database     The in depth functionality aspects to look into being:     Checking for data constraints Validation of the field size to see if it is correct. The field size specifications in the application should match with the database field size. Manually typing the query, to check if the table is providing the expected result. Checking in Stored procedures Checking for the insertion of data in two ways: One way is testing database from the backend, while inserting the values in the front end of the application. The second way is testing the front end of the application, while inserting the values in the backend of the database. Database testing should check for performance, functioning, and loading testing. It removes any data redundancy.       9) What is the difference between an Iterative model and the Waterfall model?   Waterfall method is a process in which the testing process occurs in a flow. Every process has to go through the phase in the waterfall at least once. The major disadvantage is that once the process passes through the phase it cannot reenter. Mostly the method is not in much use because of the disadvantage. If there are any changes in the requirement, in the waterfall method, the modifications cannot be done. Iterative model is like a loop structure, wherein the modification to the requirement can be made in any phase and implemented in the SDLC at any time irrespective of whether the process has passed through the phase.       10) What are advantages and disadvantages in V Model?   Below are the V model pros and cons.     Advantages: This model is a very good disciplined model and each phase is completed in a timely manner (one after the other). Requirements are very well understood and therefore works fine with smaller projects. The model is rigid and is easy to manage. Each phase consists of a review process and specific deliverables. Easy to understand and apply and simple to use and manage Most importantly, defects are identified at an early stage – User or Business Requirement analysis stage or System Analysis stage. Hence bugs or defects are fixed early The Cost is less due to early defect repairs.     Disadvantages: This model involves greater risk factors and uncertainty This is not a good model for object oriented projects and complex projects This is not suitable for those projects with fewer -unknown requirements and has a higher risk of changing This model is not suitable for long and ongoing projects Once a system or an application goes to the testing phase, it is difficult to go back and make a requested functionality change and this becomes expensive Complete working software is not produced, until the last stage of testing in the life cycle       11) What is energy and utilities domain testing?   The domain knowledge is an important baseline requirement for testing. The energy and utility domain refers to any industry that indulges in the sale and production of energy in any form. The industry is very crucial. Electrical power industry, petroleum industry, including oil companies, coal industry, the nuclear power industry, traditional energy industry based on the collection and distribution of firewood etc. are the part of the utility domain. The industry overall deals with energy and supply related queries.       12) What are the challenges involved in Mobile web application testing?   A Mobile Web application is viewed by users all round the world. Whether single country users or single network, mobile web applications help to understand the dynamic global.     There are several challenges offered by the mobile web global nature. By understanding the nature of each challenge, diverse technology options can be explored to manage problems and diminish risk. Some ways to achieve this can be,     Coming up with the right solutions with an evaluation of the Pros and Cons Determining the technology that best suits the testing requirements Testing naturally in each of the options available. The mobile web application testing challenges include scripting, network, platforms and devices. Scripting – The array of devices challenges executing the test script (Scripting). Every Device differs in input methods, display properties, keystrokes, and menu structure. Every device does not support the function of single script. Devices: Devices have different hardware capabilities and differ in screen resolution (sizes) and input methods (touch, QWERTY, normal). Diverse Platforms (OS): There are different Operating Systems for the mobiles in the market with its own limitations. Foremost ones are IOS, Symbian, Android, BREWMP, BREW, BlackBerry and Windows Phone. Testing is a challenge for single application operating on the same OS or platform across several devices. Network: There are hundreds of network operators. A few major operators are CDMA, GSM. Others use less common network standards like TD SCDMA and FOMA. A different network infrastructure kind is used by each network operator limiting the flow of information.       13) Explain Protocol testing.   Protocol testing is a generic term and is used by communication industries for testing of diverse protocols in the domains of Switching, Routing, VoIP, Wireless, Telecom, Security and more. Companies of products like Nortel, Cisco, Alcatel, Huawei, Juniper and others have devices for networking like routers, modems, switches, firewalls and wireless access points. Different protocols are used to communicate with these devices. For instance, Cisco routers use OSPF, EIGRP and more to switch over routing information. Here testing of the protocol means checking whether an OSPF protocol and EIGRP protocol are working fine as outlined in the respective standards.     Communication protocols are called as Datacom protocols are terms used for the protocol working in networking domain. These are mentioned in IP stack or TCP and its chief purpose is for routing and exchanging information.     Usually protocol testing is done by connecting a ‘device under test (DUT)’ to other devices like switches or routers and configuring the protocol within. Later, checking of the packet structure of the packets sent by the devices, checking protocol algorithm, scalability, performance and more is done by using tools like Spirent, IxNetworks, Wireshark, and many more.       14) Explain Cloud computing and its testing.   Cloud computing is an expression used to describe an array of computing concepts that involve a large number of computers in computer networking. These are connected through a real time communication network such as the Internet. Cloud computing is a synonym for distributed computing over a network, meaning the ability to run an application or a program at a given point of time on many connected computers. Testing approach to software causes high cost in simulating user activity from various geographical locations. Thus, testing of load balancers and firewalls brings expenditure on software, hardware and their maintenance. Cloud testing becomes effective when there is disparity in client requirement of the deployment environment. It can also be opted in case of increase in the number of users involved in the application. Cloud testing is a type of software testing in which cloud computing environments are used in web applications to simulate user traffic in the real world.     Load testing and performance testing is conducted on the applications. It also ensures scalability and stress testing under a broad variety of conditions. This testing generally involves supervising and reporting on conditions of practical (real world) user traffic and load balance for a range of simulated usage conditions. Companies like Trigent and IBM serve cloud testing. Companies practising testing are challenged by several struggles like meeting deadlines and limited test budget. In detail, there are a large number of test cases, no re-use or little use of tests and users’ geographical distribution add to the challenges. Testing needs to ensure inside or outside or both sides of the data centre to provide good quality service and delivery. This problem is taken care by Cloud Testing.       15) How does the Bugzilla tool function?   When new bugs are noticed, they are created in the Bugzilla tool and then they proceed through a series of conditions, based on the call for actions made by the clients or developer. Each change of state can be documented within bug record for the data that can be reported or reviewed at a later stage. This history will make sure that issues are not forgotten. Below are the steps involved in the functioning of the Bugzilla tool.     New bugs are entered. Then they are set to the status as ‘Assigned or Resolved’. Bugs ‘Assigned’ are either ‘Resolved’ and closed or changed with the ownership. Resolved’ bugs can be Verified, Closed, or Reopened. The developer takes control of a ‘Reopened’ bug, checks for confirmation and fixes it again as ‘Resolved’. ‘Verified’ bugs can also be ‘Reopened’, ‘Unconfirmed’, or ‘Closed’. ‘Closed’ bugs can be ‘Reopened’ or ‘Unconfirmed’. ‘Unconfirmed’ bugs may be confirmed as a ‘New bug or Assigned or Resolved’.     A ‘Reopened’ bug may mean that it is not fixed; ‘Unconfirmed’ means bug is irregular or hard to trigger the case; and ‘Closed’ means bug is fixed. Answering accurately in an interview helps you acquire your dream job. This book will exactly help you do that.     Good Luck!

Interviewer: You have 50 minutes to design Google Maps.You: I just realized I should head back home right now.Most projects that you worked on in college and at work already had an established team in place and you were involved in writing features for a very specific component.So, how do you perform this seemingly absurd task single handedly under an hour?Understand what the interviewer is asking for.Draw a box on the (on the white board/laptop screen provided for the interview) that represents the system. Add 5 – 6 major components within this box. Briefly discuss each component to give the interviewer an idea of your thinking process.So even though your interviewer is not really expecting you to design Google Maps from scratch when you meet him, he wants to understand if you will be a good fit for his team which is working on a similar project. This exercise will give him a good idea of your technical skills.Don’t pretend to be an expert in an area which is not yours and don’t rush to give an answer. Keeping these small things in mind will help you for your technology interviews.You can also brush up on your domain knowledge on various IT technologies with the Job Interview Questions Series books by Vibrant Publishers.

I have always dreaded being told, “ We’ll get back to you.”   Did they not like me?   How many more people are they going to meet for this profile?   Why did they even conduct the interview if they already have someone in mind for this profile?   All these questions ran through my mind whenever an interview ended on this note. On the other hand, when I am told that I will have to attend another round on a particular day or asked to wait back, I know that something positive is coming my way.   Everyone needs help in acing a job interview. The uncertain economic conditions, downsizing due to automation and the need to move up the job ladder make the interview even more crucial. A good prep before the interview will help to avoid the interview day nightmares. Most successful people prepare for a job interview even before they get an actual call.       So how does one prepare for an interview? The first and the most important thing that you should do is go through the company website and understand the job description that you are applying for.   Interviews generally have two types of questions – behavioral and technical, especially if you are applying for jobs in the technology industry.   For the behavioral questions, keep a list of your past work experiences and skills handy. You can talk about how you worked with your team to deliver on a project which had deadlines that looked impossible to begin with. These questions help the company understand your work style and abilities. It is okay to ask questions during the interview if you have genuine queries about the organization or the profile. It shows that you have taken time out to prepare for the interview.   The next important part that you have to tackle are the technical questions. You may be applying for a senior manager or a team leader profile in an area where you are already working like SAS or Android. Or you may want to shift to a newer technology platform. The interviewer here wants to assess your knowledge, ability to think laterally, problem-solving strategies and get a sense of your industry knowledge.   You have studied these subjects in college as well as worked in the area for a couple of years but there will be a lot of new trends which may be out of your purview of work.     How do you quickly brush up the entire subject in a short time? There is a lot of material available online. But how much of it is relevant, written by subject matter experts or reviewed by industry professionals? Also how easily can you get access to all of it in one go without wasting much time?   The Job Interview Questions series by Vibrant Publishers provides accurate and authoritative information on the questions that you will be asked in an interview. A quick reading of these books will help you crack your interview.   Rather than going through big fat college reference books, the Job Interview Questions Series gives you all the information that you need in a question-answer format for the specific technology area that you are applying e.g. Oracle, Python, SAP, SAS, SQL, UNIX or Software Testing.   General HR questions are also covered in the books so all aspects of your interview are taken care of. Real-Life scenario-based examples will give a case study touch to your conceptual base. These books are concise and well written and will give you a great idea about your strengths as well as the level of preparation.   These can be ordered online here or you can pick them up at your nearest bookstore. Try and relate specific work examples to what you are reading in the book. It will help you grasp the topic quickly.   During the technical interview, make sure you clear your doubts and assumptions with the interviewer. It is okay to think aloud when you are trying to arrive at a solution. It gives the interviewer an insight in the way you think. It is important to remember that the interviewer may be more interested in your approach and thought process rather than the actual answer.   At the end of it all, make sure that the questions don’t get to you and keep in mind that making eye contact and a firm handshake with the interviewers is the last impression that you make before exiting the room.