Nine tips on hiring Quality Coaches (can you make it ten?)

If you're working in a company that is scaling rapidly and using the quality assistance model, at some point, you'll need to hire a quality coach (or two or three...).

It can be tricky hiring a quality coach for several reasons:

• First, if you are working with a talent advisor (TA), they may not fully understand the role and find it difficult to distinguish between the experienced tester and a quality coach.
• Some software testers who call themselves quality coaches don't work with multiple teams. Instead, they sit within a team and occasionally coach people on software testing. While there's nothing wrong with that, it's not a quality assistance model where the team is accountable for all software testing.
• Not all quality coaches have the same level of experience. Therefore, avoid assuming that a quality coach who works at a team level is suitable to drive strategy at a senior level.
• The pool of quality coaches is not huge, so finding the right skillset will be challenging.

The good news is that recently I've been doing a lot of hiring. So I've had an opportunity to learn a few things.

1. Work with your TA to ensure that the role description includes the message that the role works across multiple teams, not within a team. Taking in the adage, repeat and then repeat, have this message repeated numerous times in the hiring process. We include it in the job advertisement, the initial talk track when someone applies, plus we include it as part of our opening statement in an interview.
2. Be clear about what you are expecting the quality coach to be doing. Take the time to write a job description and your desired experience level. For example, are they expected to work with squad leaders to drive strategy? Or are they expected to work closely with teams, tech leads and delivery leads? When we started hiring, I don't think we had this clearly articulated, but now we're clear on that.
3. Coach your interviewers. The quality coach role is not well understood even among quality coaches! I have sometimes found it challenging to articulate what I'm looking for. This lack of clarity makes knowing what good looks like difficult.  Be open about this. Have regular retrospectives to adjust your process as you all learn more about the nature of the role.
4. Hiring is an expensive activity. It's in your interest if your candidates succeed in a job interview. So make it easy for them to demonstrate their best side. For example, if you ask for a case study, be clear about what a good case study looks like and what you are looking for, so the candidate can showcase that.
5. Interviews work two ways; you are being interviewed too!  Be pleasant and welcoming. Look at the camera and try and smile once in a while. I've done a lot of interviewing with Michele Playfair, and she's a great example of how to be welcoming in an interview.
6. Don't hold to a checklist too closely. Our job ad encourages people to apply, even if they don't fill in all the checkboxes. You'll get quite a few resumes from experienced software testers who don't have quality coach experience. In these, a helpful exercise is to identify people who demonstrate quality coach-like abilities. For example, have they handled change management previously? Have they worked closely with developers and collaborated with people outside of testing? Do I see examples of people owning their learning or being able to handle ambiguity and uncertainty? You can always work with people who are motivated to learn and grow.
7. Be inclusive in your hiring process. If you are hiring for a specific team/squad, invite them into the hiring process. Delivery Leads, Tech Leads or Principle Engineers are possible options. I have to confess I haven't done enough of this, but I plan to change that in the future.
8. And, of course, having a bit of reputation helps. My writing and training give me a headstart when it comes to hiring. So if you've worked hard on your reputation and think it might help your hiring, go ahead and use it!
9. Don't be afraid to tweak the hiring process if it's not working for you. Hold regular retros with key participants to explore different approaches and modify the process.

That's it; some tips on hiring quality coaches. There's plenty more; I bet you could add another four or five to this list! What do you think? Do you have some tips on hiring in this space that has helped you?

And yes, we're hiring at CultureAmp. Check out our Staff Quality Coach job post.