Russ Pratt Lands Contract QA Testing position! Read his insights on how he did it!

Landed: Software QA SilkTest Automation - 5 mo contract

Posted by: "russpratt@aol.com"
russpratt@aol.com

Fri Oct 2, 2009 11:44 am (PDT)

Yesterday I landed a 5 month QA contract at PHT in Charlestown starting

Tuesday. The job requires SilkTest automation which is my specialty. It

started out as a perm job but switched to contract 2 days ago. I bought donuts

and gave my landed speech at AN today.



Background... I had 5 first in-person QA interviews in late August thru

September and none before that. Of the 5, the recruiter for PHT found my

resume on Monster.com, 2 were due to networking, 1 found me on LinkedIn, and 1

was based on an earlier resume submission to an agency.



What I found useful...

1. 
   I reviewed my own job history and found every permanent job I've had since college and most contracts were because of someone I knew. That helped motivate me to do more networking.


2. 
   Using keywords on LinkedIn and job site resumes helped get me 2 of the 5 in-person interviews.


3. 
   Add everyone who knows your work to LinkedIn and find people far back in time, then [if you're out of work] use the Twitter-like message on LinkedIn once and meaningfully. Some of my old contacts saw it and contacted me with opportunities. My message was "Russ is looking for QA automation work in Mass. (last company went out of business)."


4. 
   Always speak positively of your previous experiences.


5. 
   Help people without expecting anything in return.


6. 
   Don't stop looking until you've accepted an offer.

Russ Pratt

Software QA - SilkTest/QTP/Watir/Test::Unit automation and manual testing

(http://www.linkedin.com/in/russpratt)