Bruce not only managed to find a job, but also moved up the career ladder a little. Be inspired by Bruce’ unusual story with a twist that took his life to a completely different level.
Tell us a little bit about yourself, please…
I was in New York City in October 2020, I had no tech background, no degree or anything like that, and I decided to start my training with Careerist.
I finished the course right before the holidays, so I took a one-month break, and then in January I started thinking about applying for jobs.
I started to actively apply for jobs in February.
I got a job offer in April, but it was a paid internship. 20 hrs/week for $20 per hour. I went through the necessary background checks, and I worked there for two months but I kept applying for other jobs.
Eventually, I got a job offer for a role in New York (the main office of the organization is based in Florida). The office offered me a salary that was more than I expected, and they gave me a pretty big sign up offer as a bonus. The bonus was $20,000.
I asked for a yearly salary of $90,000, but in the end they gave me a salary of $95,000 a year which is excellent. I’m gonna get a pay increase in 6 months. I started my job four weeks ago and it’s at an e-commerce business.
The office is in the city, and at the moment we are working remotely, but we’re not sure how long that will last for.
It’s an incredible feeling when your first paycheck hits your bank account!!
Do you remember the job description for your role? Does it match your job responsibilities now?
It mentioned SQL but no API. It seemed more complicated and honestly, I hesitated before applying. But everything is actually pretty straightforward, I don’t even use SQL.
The first job I had was easy, I just had to go through test cases. The second job was to write test plans, which literally meant writing test cases. They were exactly the same as the cases I received during my internship.
It’s been pretty cool, so far. I’ve been responsible for what they call a squad too, so there was a product manager, three engineers, a designer and me working together. I was the only QA person for that project. It’s really interesting, but I’ve got to say, everything I learned during the course prepared me pretty well for this job.
Can you remember some frequently asked questions from your interviews?
All of the questions are pretty much the same. If you go over the document you get from the tutors you’ll be fine. I didn’t have SQL questions, nor questions about API.
You’ll get example cases to look over and they can be very interesting. Once, I had a QA manager share a screen with me, and on the screen they put up some errors and asked me about them. The knowledge I had obtained on the course enabled me to respond to the manager very well.
There’s nothing to freak out about, just sit and listen to the classes carefully over and over again. Questions are usually super basic in interviews.
Other popular questions were “How would you test a toaster?” and “How would you test a website?” all of which were easy.
What are your plans for the future?
I’m definitely ready to do the automation course. I’m ready for that challenge! And why not? If you feel like it’s your thing why not try it out!
I’ve also been contacted by the HR department at Sony three times to have an interview. It's really wild.
Thanks for sharing your story with us, I’ve no doubt that you’ll go on to inspire lots of people.