It's another year for graduation. Have graduates considered the development of the industry prospects and career development direction in the choice of occupation? How many employers are satisfied with the work pressure they involved and assured of their professional life? With these questions, in this issue, we specifically select from the new-born jobs during the past few years, and launched on a career introduction - software testing.
Policy Interpretation
National Policies Highlights the importance of Position
Recently, the Ministry of Education promulgates the new "Guiding Curriculum on Education for Universities or Colleges", it posts additional 41 kinds professions, and software testing is among them. Ministry of Information Industry also list software test engineers as national shortage talents. In the No.124 document - "Views on the implementation of further improving technological innovation capability of China's software enterprises", issued by the Ministry of Information Industry jointly with five other ministries clearly put forward "Speed up the Training of Software Testing Talents."
Person in charge of the Ministry of Education said that, to open additional professions in university, is mainly based on the economic and social development needs. With the deepening development of software industry and international competition intensifies, there's a rising demand for the quality of the software by clients. In order to improve software quality, reduce the cost of software development, decentralized software outsourcing risks; software testing has become the top priority in company development. Although the software testing is so important for industrial development, China's software testing showed talents shortage. It is reported that the proportion for developers and test engineers in foreign software companies is 1:1, Microsoft has reached 1:2, while in China the proportion of 5:1 to 8:1 basically. The survey held by Labour and Social Security shows that, among 1.2 million domestic employees in software industry, software testing persons is not more than 50,000, and persons with 2-3 work experience is not more than 30,000, according to statistics, at present, gap in China's software testing engineers is 300,000 and above, and the trend is also further expanding. One software Enterprise, Evans Innovation reluctantly said: "The 1 billion dollars order by banks such as Morgan, will only be given to large enterprises with more than 50,000 people." Most of China's software enterprises still rely on "small fish shrimp" life, and the fundamental reason for "Hungry" status is the shortage of software testing talents. The scarcity of human resources software testing has affected China's software enterprises to participate in international competition, so the Ministry of Information Industry lists software test engineers in national shortage of qualified personnel.
Market Conditions
Requirements: employ "software testers" is more difficult than employing Doctors
Software testing can create considerable economic value for companies, but software testing engineers are so scarce, therefore, test engineers become "so popular" in the software market. "Today, to employ a software tester is more difficult than employing a Doctor! Our company is in annual recruitment for testers, but it's so difficult to find employer even the monthly salary is 6,000 Yuan." Miss Hu of Sino-US Science and Technology Co., Ltd. said. "We can hear similar complaints almost every day." Zhao Peng-chi, vice president of Zhi Lian Recruitment told reporters, "recruitment in software testing has become a headache general HR issue for software enterprises." In order to solve the problem of supply and demand of software testing professionals, we opened a software testing area in the beginning of the year." Relevant persons in Zhi Lian Recruitment said, the area is divided into several regions including industry information, job-seekers Raiders, market maps, etc. It is learnt that it is the first time for Zhi Lian to open particular job creation zones in the recruitment field. Relevant responsible persons have not revealed the specific page views of this specified area, but they said that "daily page views has amounted to about 70 percent of the total ¡®IT / Internet' pages'," and is very prominent among pages with the same level. "We hope that it's not only to attract concerns of companies and talents, but can also lead attention in the education field to promote software testing personnel, so as to promote the development of the supply and demand of talents."
Payment: Easy employment, high payment
"I can easily find a job mainly because the position is popular." said by a graduate from Beida Jade Bird software training college in East China. He also pointed out, "Before, I thought the major of communications was very popular, but after the training, I find out that it is no what I imaged, I have encountered many difficulties when I am finding a job. But I have learned a lesson that choosing occupation cannot only see whether it is popular or not, we should inspect its career development prospects and our own development directions. Choosing software testing is because in one hand, my qualification is not high; I would like to learn a skill as the complement; in the other hand, to learn a skill as a complement to my major is for my long-term development. The salary of software testing is started from 2,000 to 3,000, but after a few months, I will be promoted, and my salary can be more than 4,000."
Interpretation of Experts
Career development should consider about long-term development
According to experts, the development of software testers has shown the diversity. In the course of testing, the testers can be in touch with many industries, it can effectively enhance project management, communication and coordination, market requirement analysis and other capacities, many industries, such as management, technology, marketing, education and training and etc., have paid great attention on these capacities. Therefore, since the testers are interested in these industries, they can successfully transit. In addition, software testing is focusing on accumulated experience, along with the continuous growth of project experience and the deep understanding of industrial background, software testers must assume more duties, and their importance will be increased. In a word, software testing is the career which doesn't need "youth" to ensure and continue one's career in IT industry.
The career consultants pointed out that the fierce employment situation is a grim circumstance, no matter graduates or workers; they should plan for their careers as early as possible. The key is to choose the right direction for the employment, and combine the personal interest and capacity with the employment direction which has low competitively low external pressure.
Software testers are in short as "crude"
What is the most valuable thing in 21st century? Crude! Along with the fast development of industrialization in the world, the demand of crude is also increasing. However, crude is a non-renewable resource, the contradiction of unlimited demand and limited storage will inevitably lead the increase of oil price. It is expected that in 2008, because of the unstable situation in Nigeria which is the number one oil-producing country, the continuous dropping of crude oil in U.S., the U.S. dollars depreciation and other factors, the international price of crude oil will continue to rise, under the affection, the price of refined oil, ethylene, fertilizers, textiles, and other products will also go up.
While the price of crude oil is increasing, the situation of computer software talents is also similar. At present, in Beijing, Shanghai and other developed areas, the average income of Internet technology and IT talents has increased about 9% to 11%, which is far ahead of other industries, and the salary increase of system analyst, system architect and software testers is about 60% to 70%. This is because of the lack of IT talents. Nowadays, almost none of Chinese universities has set up an independent software testing course. As the person who is in charge of the quality assurance in software industry - the scarcity and influence of software testers can be compared with "crude", this has also come as no surprise.
