Managers: Keep Your Software Out of the Headlines® and Protect Your Career

As the #1 U.S. and worldwide software testing certification, ISTQB certification from ASTQB gives you global standards that make your job easier and protect your career.

“I use the CTFL [ISTQB Foundation Level] syllabus to ensure common vocabulary and skills across multiple disparate teams.” – Director of Business Testing at a Fortune 500 company with more than 40 testers that have ISTQB Certification through ASTQB

Logo of the Official US List of Certified TestersASTQB – the official United States representative of ISTQB software testing certification – helps ensure your team has software testing and communication skills that improve software quality and reduce costs.

How can you protect yourself and your company? Be sure your employees and contractors appear on the Official U.S. List of Certified Software Testers™ before you make your hiring decision. This shows they have registered for and passed the U.S. ISTQB exam using American English. It’s a sign of their commitment to working with your U.S.-based software testing team. The Official U.S. List also lets you compare testers through the Testing Tiers® software tester ranking level found in their profile. If you need to fill software testing jobs, the AT*Work™ list of software testers available for hire makes it easy.

As a test manager, ISTQB software testing certification through ASTQB helps you in 3 important ways. You will:

  1. Get new hires up to speed quickly on the basics of software testing
  2. Give veteran testers advanced skills and motivate them to do their best testing
  3. Retain key employees who are critical to your software quality

Test managers and QA directors tell us that they use ISTQB Certifications from ASTQB as a skills development pathway for their software testing teams. See all 10 reasons companies need testers with ISTQB certification from ASTQB and AT*SQA.

An American Psychological Association study found that without your support for their career development, more than half of your employees aren’t motivated to give you their best at work. And more than half are likely to seek employment outside your organization over the next year! Don’t lose your best software testers. Support them with ISTQB certification through ASTQB.

ASTQB makes it easy for you to support your software QA team’s career development with our free guides for test managers and directors:

Are you hiring a testing services company or test consultant to assist with your software development project? Here are three guidelines to keep in mind when selecting outside software QA servicesProtect yourself and your company by requiring ISTQB Certification in your testing services RFP. Here is useful example software testing services RFP language.

Why choose ISTQB certification through ASTQB for your QA team’s software testing skills development?

  • You get peace of mind knowing you made the right choice: ASTQB – ISTQB in the U.S. – is a non-profit organization led by volunteers whose mission is to promote the profession of software testing.
  • You get credibility for choosing a proven leader: ASTQB offers the world’s #1 software testing certification that has 900,000+ software testing certificates issued across 130 countries.
  • You get testers who are U.S.-ready: The only way testers can get on the Official U.S. List of Certified Software Testers™ is to take the U.S. American English ISTQB exam that is exclusively available from ASTQB and our official ISTQB exam provider AT*SQA.
  • You get protection for your career: When your team has better skills and is more motivated, that leads to better software quality. That keeps your software out of the headlines, reduces your company’s risk, and protects your career.

See the video below on why test managers choose ISTQB software testing certification.

Learn more below how ASTQB and ISTQB software tester certifications can reduce your software defects, lower costs, and shorten schedules.


How to staff a test team

Have a job opening for a software testing position? See how you can post your software tester job opening for free.

Here are the top reasons ISTQB software testing certification can help you as a test manager:

ISTQB certification can make you the hero.

Does your CEO understand how important your testing team is to reducing risk, saving time, and saving money? Show your CEO and CFO this important insight: “A synergistic combination of defect prevention, pre-test defect removal, and formal testing by certified personnel can top 99% in defect removal efficiency while simultaneously lowering costs and shortening schedules.” That same analysis shows that “Untrained amateur personnel such as developers themselves seldom top 35% for any form of testing. Also the ‘bad fix injection’ rate or new bugs added while fixing older bugs tops 7% for repairs by ordinary development personnel.”[1] That’s why your company needs you and your expert team of certified testers.

ISTQB certification provides outstanding return on investment (ROI).

Studies estimate the cost of a post-production software defect in the range of $4,000 – $5,000. If ISTQB Software Tester Certification can help your software tester to eliminate just one post-production defect in his or her career, the ROI for an ISTQB exam is more than 1500%. Learn how software testing certification can cut costs by downloading the free white paper, “Cut Software Development Costs”.

ISTQB certification reduces your risks.

If your team had time to test everything, that would be ideal. But in the real world, deadlines abound. ISTQB Certification helps to address the issue of prioritization and effort allocation. Here is an excerpt from the Advanced Test Manager syllabus: “In risk-based testing, quality risks are identified and assessed during a product quality risk analysis with the stakeholders. The test team then designs, implements, and executes tests to mitigate the quality risks.” See the syllabi to learn more about how ISTQB Certification helps with this important concept of risk-based testing.

ISTQB certification gets your new testers up to speed with clear testing terms and standards.

ISTQB software testing certification brings a common glossary and set of standards so your testers will communicate better across teams and across departments. This is often cited as an immediate, concrete benefit of ISTQB certification: the need to study for certification drives the broad use of the common vocabulary, immediately improving the productivity of communications. ISTQB Software Tester Certification was created by more than 100 global testing experts and is used in 100+ countries, so you can trust it for local and global projects alike.

ISTQB certification retains testers thanks to a clear career path.

The American Psychological Association found that in the absence of supervisor support for career development:

  • Less than half of employees say they are motivated to do their best at work (versus nearly 90% who report having supervisor support).
  • More than half say they intend to seek employment outside the organization within the next year.

Fortunately, for software testers and their supervisors, there is a simple solution: ASTQB and ISTQB Software Tester Certification have career levels (Foundation, Advanced and Expert) and career paths (core options of Test Manager, Test Analyst, Test Manager, plus specialist options such as Agile, Mobile, Security, Test Automation, etc.) that will give your testers the opportunity to prove their knowledge and skills. See the illustrated software testing career path. ISTQB’s career development path and standards will help you retain and develop your best testers because they can see a future within your company. Learn how you can recruit and retain great software testers with our free white paper.

ISTQB certification gives you peace of mind knowing that your team has the knowledge and skills for practical day-to-day testing.

ISTQB certification helps your testers build better software testing processes. From a common testing vocabulary to best in class testing methodologies, ISTQB certification ensures your testers have what it takes to get the job done. Moreover, ISTQB training courses from ASTQB accredited software testing training providers offer a high number of hands-on exercises, providing practical, ready to use knowledge.

Learn how ISTQB software testing certification can help you personally as a manager. Download our free white paper on how to lead the way as a test team leader and apply for our free consultation on tester training and retention.