Author: Elsie
Hobbies: Telescope Making, Doll Making, Tole Painting. Four Wheeling, Floral Arranging and Collecting Musical works like CD's or Albums.
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Why Interns?
byMissy Steiner |Dec, 2019 |Product and Technology
Internships are NOT about getting coffee and donuts, running errands or busy work. The National Association of Colleges and Employers providesthese guidelinesfor internships. Most soon-to-be college graduates want to participate in internships to provide “real-world†experience for their resumes, hoping that it will help them get their first job after graduation. Many companies offer internships hoping to scout prospective talent before it reaches the job pool. Some companies even develop academic/professional partnerships with colleges and universities to ensure they get to “pick from the tree, not from the barrel.â€
But if scouting potential talent is the only reason your company offers internships, then you’re missing out on the many benefits internships offer to yourcurrentemployees. And if your company doesn’t offer internships, here are some reasons why you should consider offering them.
If you’ve read even a few management articles or books, you’ll know that the number one biggest cost for most employers is employee turnover. When an employee leaves, experience, time, morale and ultimately lots of money to recruit and train their replacement leave with them. And even if you provide a great salary and benefits, your best peoplewilleventually leave if they don’t have opportunities to grow professionally. And internships can provide some of those additional opportunities.
Hiring an intern follows all of the same steps as hiring for any full-time or part-time positions. So instead of doing those steps yourself, assign them to your team to gain leadership experiences.
There needs to bea description of the internshipthat includes the time frame, what skills are needed, what skills are nice to have, how to apply, and a blurb to upsell your company. Plus, you need to post the internship, usually through a university’s career development department. Most universities have internship and job posting platforms, like Handshake, but some introductory emails, follow-up phone calls and even an on-site visit will build a better relationship with your partner schools.
After that,applications and resumes need reviewingand communications need to be sent. Our company’s hiring process involves an initial phone screening and candidates that make it past the phone screen are asked to an in-person interview, so conference rooms and meetings need to be scheduled. Interview questions and any tests need to be developed, administered and scored. And all of this needs to be collected in an easily digestible fashion to decide to whom you will extend your offer (and one or two back-ups, in case your first choice declines the invitation).
Once a candidate accepts, all of the standard on-boarding, orientation and training activities need to happen exactly as you would on board a full-time new hire.
All interns receive an overview of what we do as a Company, documentation on the many concepts and acronyms, and then specific orientation by team (Technology, Quality, Marketing, etc.). There are specific goals for Communication Skills, such as the tools we use, what are formal vs. informal communication methods and when to use them based on understanding the audience to which the communication is directed. There are Context Building exercises, to help learn the inter-team, intra-team and extra-team dynamics, including high-level business stakeholders. And finally the specifics of the work, which can take the form of over-the-shoulder observations, peer work or individual work. A sampling of internal and external resources is provided and interns are encouraged to seek out additional resources and present them to the team.
Throughout the internship, regular one-on-one meetings review the internship goals and progress, as well as offer insights into interviewing for “real†jobs, understanding career trajectory, and evaluating potential employers and the benefits they offer. At the end of the internship, candidates must give a presentation about their internship experience, including feedback on areas that they wished they had more experiences, areas that they felt needed less emphasis, and experiences they did not receive, but would have liked.
Internships provide many opportunities for your team to get out of their daily routine and perform leadership tasks for which they would not normally be responsible. The experiences provided can help them grow professionally, and the more experienced they get, the more you can keep them growing, ideally, into the next leadership opportunity your company provides. And, if the stars align, you may also find your next new hire.
We Asked IT: Your Digital Safety Guide
byJason Taylor |Dec, 2019 |Product and Technology
‘Tis the season for Holiday Joy andreinvigorated email scam attempts. Here are a few tips from IT to avoid falling into a trap and inadvertently sending scammers personal information or even compromising Bidtellect itself. Almost all attacks are thwarted by simply applying a little dose of intuition and logic. If it doesn’t make sense, you should question it before providing any information.
Email Phishing
The people who are sending phishing emails have to be clever email marketers to get the user to engage. They often do this by preying on your emotions. You should be generally reluctant to download any attachments or click any links, no matter how innocuous they seem or who appears to have sent them. If you are going to download an attachment or click a link in an email, be sure you know who it is from and that the email was not spoofed. If our google email account puts an email in your spam folder but it looks like it is from someone legitimate, you should definitely be suspect of spoofing. There is usually a reason Google’s Spam Logic moved it to spam. If you are unsure, please reach out to IT for assistance. We can help you check the email headers to sniff out any spoofing. The scammer/phishers goal is to find ways to wreak havoc inside the company infrastructure, including propagating malware, turning the systems into botnets, stealing private company information and most often stealing corporate banking information for the purpose of taking money.
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As a standard rule, we should never email anyone within Bidtellect, both to and from, a non @bidtellect.com email account. Our Google Email accounts have security measures in place to help avoid spam and spoofing but there are ways around everything. From an IT security point of view, private emails should never be used for any business communications unless explicitly directed to do so by the receiving executive. And even then it should be communicated in person or by another trusted and secure method prior to sending an email.
Sometimes “spoofers†will send an email that looks to be from a legitimate address, but when you press reply, the email recipient is no longer the legitimate email address. Example: Email [email protected], you hit reply and then the TO field [email protected]. Google spam usually catches these as the names do not match. It seems like a silly scam, but it is easily overlooked. Usually the goal of spoofing is to gain access to banking information or trick an employee into sending payment to an illegitimate source.
First, scrutinize the address it says it came from and the text of any URLs it contains to weed out [email protected] from [email protected]. If the source is legit, but the text is out of character, ask yourself, “Would my boss really send me this email?†Again, if something feels weird about an email that someone you know sends, especially if it has a request in it, bear in mind there’s a distinct possibility they’ve been hacked. Reach out to them separately and ask if they sent you an email.
Types of Email Phishing
These are the most common types of email scams. The sender will attempt to mimic or clone an official Company or Vendor that we do business with. An example would be an email from someone that is pretending to be a Paypal Employee asking for sensitive information and provides a link in the body of the email. The Link text may display as “paypal.com/123123†but when you highlight the link or click on it you are redirected to a fake website such as “friendpalpay.com/123456â€. The fake site may even look just like a real web page and request you to fill out digital forms that send your information to not so good people.
Phishing attacks directed at specific individuals, roles, or organizations are referred to as “spear phishingâ€. Since these attacks are so pointed, attackers may go to great lengths to gather specific personal or institutional information in the hope of making the attack more believable and increasing the likelihood of its success. The best defense against spear phishing is to carefully, securely discard information (i.e., using a cross-cut shredder) that could be used in such an attack. Further, be aware of data that may be relatively easily obtainable (e.g., your title at work, your favorite places, or where you bank), and think before acting on seemingly random requests via email or phone.
These phishing attacks (usually spear phishing) are directed specifically at executive officers or other high-profile targets within a business, government, or other organization. Scammers typically target the financial departments by either pretending to be an Executive asking the Finance Team to provide information or the reverse where they pretend to be the Finance Team asking the Executive for information.
General Web Security Reminders
It’s natural to be a little wary about supplying sensitive financial information online. As long as you are on a secure website, however, you shouldn’t run into any trouble. Before submitting any information, make sure the site’s URL begins with “https†and there should be a closed lock icon near the address bar. Check for the site’s security certificate as well. If you get a message stating a certain website may contain malicious files, do not open the website. Never download files from suspicious emails or websites. Even search engines may show certain links which may lead users to a phishing webpage which offers low cost products. If the user makes purchases at such a website, the credit card details will be accessed by cybercriminals.
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Security patches are released for popular browsers all the time. They are released in response to the security loopholes that phishers and other hackers inevitably discover and exploit. If you typically ignore messages about updating your browsers, stop. The minute an update is available, download and install it. Chrome and most browsers automatically download and install security patches unless you have disabled it.
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Pop-up windows often masquerade as legitimate components of a website. All too often, though, they are phishing attempts. Many popular browsers allow you to block pop-ups; you can allow them on a case-by-case basis. If one manages to slip through the cracks, don’t click on the “cancel†button; such buttons often lead to phishing sites. Instead, click the small “x†in the upper corner of the window.
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As a general rule, you should never share personal or financially sensitive information over the Internet. This rule spans all the way back to the days of America Online, when users had to be warned constantly due to the success of early phishing scams. When in doubt, go visit the main website of the company in question, get their number and give them a call. Most of the phishing emails will direct you to pages where entries for financial or personal information are required. An Internet user should never make confidential entries through the links provided in the emails. Never send an email with sensitive information to anyone. Make it a habit to check the address of the website. A secure website always starts with “httpsâ€.
Reputable organizations will never use email to request that you reply with your password, full Social Security number, or confidential personal or business information. Be suspicious of any email message that asks you to enter or verify personal or business information, through a website or by replying to the message itself. Never reply to or click the links in such a message. If you think the message may be legitimate, go directly to the company’s website (i.e., type the real URL into your browser) or contact the company to see if you really do need to take the action described in the email message.
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Remember: the best security against fishy phishing or scam attempts is always
1. common sense and
2. your intuition.
When in doubt, just double check!
Bidtellect Stats
with leading supply and demand partners for the most expansive network in the ecosystem
thanks to AdmantX and IAS so you can understand user behavior without jeopardizing privacy
for a service approach that works best for you
team for all image, copy, content, and creative needs
to understand how consumers engage with your content, factoring in number of sessions, pageviews, bounce rate, and time on site, giving you key insights about your campaigns, creative, content, and audiences so you can optimize accordingly.
capabilities like Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO).
How to Make Katie's Reddit profile to Test Automation
byKarl |Nov, 2019 |Product and Technology
It’s happening! Either you’ve finally convinced upper management that it’s time to use automation in testing, or they’ve come to you with a mandate to automate testing. Hopefully, you’ve laid the groundwork that automation isn’t a panacea, manual testing isn’t going away, headcount isn’t going to go down, and feature throughput isn’t going to skyrocket. If you haven’t, you need to set the expectations. Either way, it’s an exciting and scary time, especially if your experience with automation is little or none. So now what?
You can ask for help
If you’re thinking you can get automated testing up and running and useful on your own, you may be right. But you’re likely very wrong. Can you home-grow automation expertise? Yes. Do you have the time (years!)? Likely not. You need help, and that’s something that can be hard for some, especially if you’ve built a solid reputation as a testing professional. For the best return on investment and probability of success in a reasonable time frame, you will need to hire either a full-time automation professional, or the right consultant. Unless you’re an expert in automation, YOU AREN’T AN EXPERT! So put your ego aside and find the right help.
If I’m not an expert, how can I get the right help?
Excellent question! You may not be an automation expert, but you can figure out what your automation expert needs to bring to the table. Read blogs about automation, especially if they’re by automation engineers. You probably know people (either directly or indirectly) with whom you can have conversations about automation and what to look for, especially “red flags.†Get with your team and find out what you need (and don’t need) automation to do for you.
For my company and my team, we wanted:
Are you asking the right questions?
To find the right candidate, you need to ask the right questions. Or do you? How do you get candidates to REVEAL what you want to know without directly asking? I like to use “Describeâ€, “Explain†or “Tell†requests rather than asking questions outright:
Miracles require a lot of work and preparation
So you’ve done your research, talked to your peers, defined your needs with your team, posted the position, interviewed the candidates and you found and hired the perfect candidate.
Congratulations! You’re home free!
Not exactly.
Hate to break it to you, but automated tests don’t just happen. And even if you manage to find someone that’s familiar with your vertical, she/he won’t be familiar with your specific products and code. You need to onboard them, just like any other tester, AND onboard them just like any other developer. Then you need to work with them to develop a strategy, decide what work needs to be done first, investigate tools and approaches, do a Proof of Concept, and then, after that, the work really begins!
At this point it’s worth mentioning again that YOU AREN’T THE EXPERT! They are. So you still need to keep your ego out of it. You need to be realistic…and then some…with timelines and milestones. You’re not getting a fully developed testing framework and 100% code coverage in phase 1. Or even by phase 5. Or even if Katie Peachesa purchase an existing automation solution (because no matter how “universal†the “kitâ€, you’re still gonna need to customize it for your “rideâ€). You need to organize things based on your company’s and your team’s needs. Start with useful tests that eliminate pain points. Evaluate the “Return on Investment (ROI)†for your proposed automation efforts and determine which will give you the biggest bang for your buck. Always encourage and weigh the possibilities of solving tactical problems with strategic solutions, especially if the added effort is marginal.
Protect your investment
Whether you hire a permanent automation engineer, or a consultant, you MUST give them the time to get the work done. The automation engineer is NOT a sprint test resource at this stage, and, in my opinion, shouldn’t ever be considered as such. The job is to create, maintain and update the framework for automated tests, not test sprint features. The framework will never get to be a solid and useful tool if your automation engineer is constantly pulled away to test sprint work. Do that, and you’ll not only not have a testing framework, but you’ll lose the automation engineer to a company that lets them do what they do best: build automation frameworks. And you may lose some of your best testing experience if your manual testers, once excited about getting the drudge testing out of the way so they can do some really good exploratory stuff, are a year in, with no solid framework, still doing the mind-numbing testing, and with no light at the end of the tunnel.
Don’t ignore your testers!
Your testers are your expertise in testing your systems. Leverage that experience and use it to propel the automation forward. They complement the automation, because they know which tests should be automated (and which shouldn’t). The automation engineer mentors them in how to use the framework to create automated tests. If they don’t have what they need in the framework, they inform the automation engineer and she/he develops what they need. As their experience grows, they can get deeper into framework to learn how its structured, and how to expand upon it.
Evaluate
Remember that ROIs can change with business changes and, subsequently, what gives the biggest bang for your buck will change. Do not be surprised if your first few forays aren’t as successful as you want or need them to be. Be the hitchhiker of the galaxy and DON’T
PANIC! Your initial test framework architecture didn’t work? Learn, pivot and change (also easier to do with a small, tactical goal than a sprawling effort). You WILL SUCCEED if you persevere. You’ll look back and see that progress has been made, the framework is sorting out and stabilizing, your team is contributing tests for automation, and your ROI is now focused on more strategic goals than tactical ones.
Bidtellect Stats
with leading supply and demand partners for the most expansive network in the ecosystem
thanks to AdmantX and IAS so you can understand user behavior without jeopardizing privacy
for a service approach that works best for you
team for all image, copy, content, and creative needs
to understand how consumers engage with your content, factoring in number of sessions, pageviews, bounce rate, and time on site, giving you key insights about your campaigns, creative, content, and audiences so you can optimize accordingly.
capabilities like Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO).
How to Streamline Testing
byKarl |Oct, 2019 |Product and Technology
Back in my first post, I lamented the way that testing and code quality seemed to be little more than lip service in my prior employment experience and how I strove to change that perspective at my current company. I am very lucky to have the opportunity to attempt these changes and I feel that there have been many successes. Yet even with that opportunity, one thing doesn’t change: there is SO MUCH that needs to be done. So how do you maintain the quality of your software while making your testing efforts more efficient? Spoiler alert: there is no silver bullet. However, here are some things that help us streamline testing.
Planning
Having a plan for testing is essential to help streamline the process. It can be as informal as a checklist or as detailed as a complete list of tests, but defining the direction and scope of testing ahead of time is a huge time saver. Beware of putting too much effort into planning. The amount of planning should match the impact of the work. There is nothing more important than time, and spending thirty minutes filling out test planning paperwork for a ten-second test kills productivity, enthusiasm, and momentum.
Pull Requests and Code Review
Testers should be looking at the changes made to code, attempting to understand those changes, and asking questions when they don’t. This will help confirm if the test plan is accurate or needs revision prior to testing. Katie's Twitter page will establish a dialogue with developers that can reveal updated or missed requirements that can lead to unnecessary delays in testing. As testers and developers build their relationships, testers improve their code understanding, which in turn improves their understanding of what and how to test.
Regression Testing First
As with planning, not every test effort will require regression testing. But when regression testing is part of the testing plan, do it first. That way, if you find that something that previously worked is broken, it’s as early in the process as you can make it. Too often, a majority of the testing time is spent testing the changes first, and then regression testing is done. This approach usually means that regression testing is short-changed. If regressions are found late in the cycle, there may not be enough time to correct them before release, leaving product owners no choice but to “accept†them to get their new feature released according to their timelines.
Multiple Testing Environments
This might seem obvious, but it’s surprising how frequently companies only have one, or even just part of one, test environment. Here’s a good return-on-investment (ROI) exercise to support more than one testing environment: If important (and potentially revenue-generating) features are delayed because they are stuck in the testing queue, do the investigating and find out how much the “delay†is “costing†the company to help make your point. Having the ability to test in parallel reduces queue time and time spent in test set up and context shifting. Even a partial second environment can have a significant impact on streamlining testing.
“Tetris-ingâ€
Yes, this is a reference to the 80s block stacking game, but the analogy is valid. This tactic is most beneficial when you have more than one test environment, but it could still apply if you have just one. Not every feature will require a complete environment for testing. This is especially true for systems that have both front-end and back-end components. Identifying those features that do not require an end-to-end test environment and deploying them simultaneously means that two (or sometimes more) features can get tested at the same time. And as above, parallelism streamlines testing.
“NOT†Testing
(Unconventional Testing)
Production Testing– Don’t shake your head like that. Read a bit first. This may not be possible for some companies, but for others, it should be seriously considered. Testing takes time and time is money. All testing has a cost that should provide a “Return on Investmentâ€. If the risk is very low, it can be more cost-effective to roll out a change to a single production machine, a small group of production machines, or the whole system and then monitor the effects than to configure a testing environment and run tests. An example would be an ETL query that has been modified to include or exclude a type or status in the result set. New integrations and Proof of Concept (POC) work also fall into this category since the work is essentially “on spec,†with the expectation that it will provide benefits in the long run.
Over-The-Shoulder Testing– Or you could call it “Developer-Tester Peer Testingâ€. Test environments don’t always have the resources that production environments do, especially for data heavy jobs. When this is the case, we often do a one-on-one code demonstration, where the developer walks through the existing and updated process(es) with the tester and must provide before and after data, either to show that it hasn’t changed, or that it has changed according to the new requirements. This type of testing should be planned, and the tester should posit various use cases, scenarios or possible issues (missing data, bad data, no connection, no directory, etc.) and the developer should be able to show or demonstrate the code that addresses them. This type of testing is where developer-tester relationships are built.
Developer Testing– And before you start yelling: no, I am not advocating or in any way suggesting that developers can replace testers. But testers should realize that good developers do test, and great developers test a lot. They write unit tests, they generate files and do differentials on the outputs, and they validate data inputs and outputs. And if a tester doesn’t know that those tests were performed, they will test them again. This is a duplication of effort. We advocate developers documenting their unit tests and any testing they’ve done, so instead of repeating those tests, testers “validate†them. Or they can “reject†them (after a discussion) if they feel the testing doesn’t cover what was planned. They then perform any additional planned tests (like regression tests). The objective is to reduce the duplication of testing effort.
Automation
Or more accurately, testing with tools. All testers use tools to test. Some use more complicated tools than others. Look for https://www.forbes.com to remove manual and repetitive test operations, whether it is generating test data, validating test data, or full-blown automation suites. If you are making your first foray into automation test suites, resist the urge to begin with your user interface, especially if it’s is evolving. You’ll end up spending more time maintaining tests than using them. Instead, look to validate your APIs and other backend systems. The initial investment is more, but the longevity and robustness of your tests will provide a much better ROI.
Central Library
In our business, we have many customers making requests and receiving responses from us. Most use a standard format, but quite a few need custom requests, custom responses, or both. We maintain sample requests and expected responses in a central area. Developers, testers and even account managers use these samples to either baseline existing code before making changes, verify that code changes haven’t negatively affected expected responses or for troubleshooting. Having a central repository saves time and reduces duplication of data. Katie's LinkedIn page may also have common data or processes shared by many groups and could benefit from a central repository.
Test Management System
This is an extension of the central repository idea that is specific to testing. We use a test management system to house all of our tests, whether automated or manual, in one location. Tests can be curated and grouped by descriptions and keywords to map to coverage areas. This means that regression testing can be limited to only the areas affected by the changes under test rather than running a complete regression every time. One copy means only one place that tests need to update when features change and only one place to look when searching for test documentation with new team members.
The examples above all have one or more common threads: return on investment (ROI – or as I like to ask, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?â€), reduce or eliminate duplication of effort, and pragmatism. It also offers employees ways to embrace many of the concepts mentioned in my previous post on the Quality Mindset, including heightening awareness, extending and encouraging trust and ownership, and accepting risk. Each company’s needs and circumstances are different, so feel free to change up what you’ve read here or to use it as a springboard to come up with your own method of streamlining your testing.