We invite students to create a short video that defines or teaches any of the words in our Word of the Day collection. Contest dates: Feb. 15-March 15, 2023.
The College Application Process
Are you applying to college right now? What has your experience been like? What matters most in choosing the right college, in your opinion?
Word of the Day: covet
This word has appeared in 61 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
Dirt Roads, Dogs and the Year of the Rabbit: Recent Teen Creative and Personal Writing
Some favorite student responses to three of our Picture Prompts.
3rd Trend – Performance
Do you have your time travel gear? Shoes? Old-timey dress wear? British accent, or can you fake one? Ability to enjoy open-air travel without a headache? Then if yes, enter the time travel machine. We are going on a journey. Set the time back to the ’70s or ’80s or ’60s, maybe the 50s, just for kicks. What? Too afraid? Okay, okay. Take the 90’s or perhaps yesterday for some companies (many). For those going back to the 70s, 80’s, and partially ’90s, be aware that you will need to know how to type to blend in (using a gadget known as a typewriter), and smartphones are unavailable. Yes, listening and talking to others face-to-face is required.
Depending on your vernacular, Performance can be seen in some twist with talent management or as a standalone as performance management. If you are in L&D or have a background in OD (Org. Development), which most folks in L&D have anyway, OR if you are T&D (Talent Development, which most vendors are not using as a term, even though it exists) OR HR if you are doing some Performance, then performance management is part of your domain. Again, HR, is dependent on the business, etc.
I wouldn’t slide Training as part of this scene, although there may be companies where internally Training oversees performance. At the places I worked, it wasn’t.
The term “performance management” conjures up a lot of perspectives for some folks. Negative including, although from a company standpoint, it is all “positive”. Perhaps at your company, where 360 feedback is supposed to include “negative feedback” in a dog-eat-dog angle (business-wise), you see this as pure positivity for the person receiving it. Yeah, I guess you can see it as all happiness, even if the employee cries.
From an online standpoint, performance management has always been an outlier, err outside the domain of learning systems. After all, it never focused or keyed in on learning, it keyed in on other areas. If you wanted performance management, you purchased a PM system (I will use PM going forward to mean performance management). Perhaps you purchase an HCM with performance as a module or cornerstone. Regardless, you did not buy an LMS, learning platform, LXP (in the last few years, oh, so long LXP – RIP), or training platform. You didn’t run out and get your Sales Enablement Platform either.
Recent, if you would likely still purchase a PM or TM, or HCM with PM or an employee experience platform or employee engagement platform – both terms I detest, but being added to the space since learning slides in there somewhere – not as a key mind you, then performance can play a crucial role – in many it does.
Yet, we are not there – well, not with our time machine, because for those folks who fully believed in ILT (and yes, many still do), or in the way of performance management within their company as the cornerstone of “all” tied around employees, tapping into uh ILT among other items. Online? Egads!
I bring all of this together because the latest trend in the learning system space is “Performance” and it scares the bejeezus out of me, due to being a very slippery slope if a vendor isn’t paying enough attention.
For those systems adding PM capabilities it is either seen as an add-on (in this case, an add-on is the way to go) or adding components within their learning environment to intertwine to a slight degree with learning (I’ll cover how shortly). Some offer it as a module – staying with the way of the legacy systems, such as Saba, SumTotal who offered PM or TM as a module.
In this modern performance aspect, the vendor is screaming from the rooftops – we are employee-focused. We are all about employees. Or, we can be if you want us to. I bring this up because of the number of combo learning systems – going after employees and customers. If you offer performance components in your system and say you are a combo, you are fooling yourselves. And if you are a buyer wanting a system for your customers or association, for that matter, you are fooling yourselves into thinking that the system that is pitching it is great for customers, and will continue pressing on key future features for that segment.
If your learning system is offering performance as an add-on and says they are an excellent system for customers, again, in giant BOLD letters, they are showing they are not – you don’t add performance and seriously believe that customer education is in the wheelhouse for growth.
There are LMS and learning platform vendors who offer performance as a separate module and go combo, and here is where it gets tricky. Because if you decide not to purchase performance, and want the system for customer ed, then sure, it could work, depending on the functionality of the LMS or LP.
With the push of performance into various learning systems either as an add-on for future interest or right there, they are undoubtedly focused on employees, which is fine. Some are now spinning it as workforce development. Great, more spin!
Everyone into this backroom
As it relates to a learning system and PM capabilities, we must think of our time machine; because it is as though all those L&D or T&D folks got together in one room and one place and said, “let’s add these pieces as the core,” and everyone nodded in agreement. After all, it has been that way for such a long time, and it works, so therefore, it will work here.
Similar to the whole ILT aspect, of well it works, because we get a lot of attendance (ignoring it is required for the majority of people) or a lot of usages (because, uh it is required for the majority of people) or that people complete it and retain the knowledge (let’s see that statement come true in six and 12 months, no looking at your notes! The completion angle? Uh, it’s required); the performance management angle of try and true is stuck in the mud or your mouth, like that piece of peanut butter you can’t remove.
I digress (and yes, you know).
The People in The Back Room
Here is a list of commonalities with the folks in the back room and what is appearing with performance either as part of a learning system or an add-on:
- Leadership Development
- Succession Planning
- 360 Feedback
- One-on-One Feedback
- Task management
- Performance Improvement (Performance Review)
- Performance Assessment
- Goal measurement
- Goal setting
- Company goals and rollups
If you take a few seconds and look this list over, what will you see? Beyond everything that has been around before online learning (as in online via first a modem) was in existence, not just corporate by education too (known as edtech).
Leadership Development could be done as early as 2000 online, heck that is what some folks used their courses/content in an LMS for. And yes, you could assign tasks too, although that really started to appear with a lot of systems by later 2017s or so. They didn’t always call it tasks.
Really though take a look. All stuff that has been around, and you can question whether they all truly work for “all” or not, but I am looking at where is something new here.
From a learning standpoint, more specific content you can tie a few of them into it, such as
- Objectives – under goal setting, thru rollups (personal, team, division, etc)
- Performance improvement, thru courses/content – and tie that into an assessment or add an assessment to performance improvement to see over time how their performance has improved or not
- Task management – Courses/Content tied to the task (which is often noted as a way for comprehension, which I believe is highly debatable)
- Possibly succession planning, if the plan is based upon courses/content completed tied to whatever other variables – a stretch granted
- Leadership Development – Obvious
- One on One feedback could slide within coaching – which could be tied to courses/content – but most folks think 1 to 1 with the manager which again, the manager can recommend courses/content.
- Viewing metrics on the back end could be tapped with numerous items here, including goal management (the goal pieces), performance improvement, assessment, and even leadership dev.
I’ve seen task delegation, which has promise but I’ve seen it slide under performance, which okay, works far better than say somewhere else.
I’ve also seen some job opportunities within the company slide under performance, as though recruiting is no longer a piece of uh, recruiting and instead can be in performance, since the courses/content needed to attain or be considered for that opportunity, including the skills (which is learning), should be here.
It reminds me of the early days of the LXP space, where it seemed everyone got together and said, “Okay, let’s not allow for multiple roles for administrators, or approvals; and let’s not have this, or this” and everyone said okay, that makes sense.
The Slippery
I believe for some vendors this will be just the first step into adding features that breach the HR line if you will. Sure performance goes into L&D and T&D, but is all of performance a part of learning or just some? I’d argue the latter, and only for specific pieces at that. Anything can be spinned in such a way to fit for learning, but learning in a way is training right? You are training someone to learn a new skill. You are training someone to acquire knowledge to improve their learning on a specific subject. You shouldn’t think of training someone as a way to improve their performance as a key indicator for learning. Either you support the idea around performance and learning being intertwined at the hip or you don’t. Of course, there will be vendors who take pieces (as you will see) of performance tie them in with learning and mash it all together so it works in harmony.
But where does it stop? Opportunities as noted above, is making an appearance under performance in some learning systems (those that have it are, skew more around skills and employee dev/exp platform, and learning platform, not so much LMS), and it isn’t too far of a stretch to start to think of other HCM pieces sneaking in under the guise of performance. If I can do opportunities within the company, tied to learning and roles, why not add recruiting externally as well? If I can tie downsizing to my learning, why not look at it thru the eyes of performance reviews which are tied to performance improvement or lack thereof from the courses/content.
If I need to shave off some resources (i..e layoffs), let’s take a look at performance assessments tied to learning tied to improvement or lack thereof, tied to the rollups which are tied to the learning, and then decide who stays and who goes.
Bottom Line
The crossover is now official. Performance Mgt capabilities are starting to appear in the learning system space. If you are in the performance add (then it is all the above and then some, or all the above – they may use different terms) or add-on/module. The latter is fine, and sticking it into your system, okay, well that is the next step – but only if your system is for employees. Not customers. Not associations.
And only if you can handle what comes next.
Because once performance features start coming in, how can you make sure
You can stop the flow?
If at all?
E-Learning 24/7
2nd Trend – Price Wars 2023
Before diving into this week’s post, many of you saw on my LinkedIn thread that I suffered another concussion. One minute I was thinking about my recent trip to Mexico, and the next, I heard/felt the back of my head hitting my cement driveway (and yes, I had a CT scan – all good). The repercussions of a Traumatic Brain Injury are not overnight. It takes time. Texting, no. Watch TV. No. Digital experience – no. Just imagine, no digital anything, nothing to tax your brain. I write this because, in the next few weeks, the posts on the blog will likely be “every other week”. If I can do a week – by week they will be much shorter than usual, at least thru Feb.
Now onto Price Wars.
When I calculate the pricing aspect, you often will notice my range of 2,000 to 2,500 active users. This is because many vendors behind the scenes use “range pricing,” and the ranges often end at 2,500, before moving up to the following range. This is not universal, and there are vendors who will get a better deal if you swing up to 3,000 – and your actual user base is 2,600 or 2,200, for example. It all comes down to numbers. Equally, some vendors offer overage fees – if you go above your stated user base, not a worry; you still get the users at a discounted price point. Some it truly is a discount, others not so much. Always inquire is the X$ per user, per year, or X$ per user, per month.
One vendor once told me that the ‘overage” is not a good deal and that it is better to move up to the next tier, than go overage. The overage seemed like a deal, but once you run the numbers for a year, yeah, tier is better.
When going tiers, find it what that number is – is it a bucket of 50 seats or 500 seats or something in between? If the bucket is 500 seats, and you use only 250, you still pay for 500. A few vendors package their pricing using “X” followed by buckets of seats in the 500 range.
Price Comparison
I’m always surprised on how many vendors require you to sign an NDA, before they provide you, their pricing. Think about that. You are considering their system, and their trust factor is so high of you, that you must sign an NDA, before they provide you the numbers, because you are in the business of posting them online, via your Instagram account. This NDA thing isn’t new to the industry, but even years ago, I wrote how awful an idea this is.
Let’s go with a real-world example. You are looking to buy a car. Can you imagine the salesperson saying, “oh before you can receive the “actual price”, you need to sign this NDA, because we can’t have you sharing the pricing with anyone who isn’t in your immediate household”. How many of you would balk, and walk?
A learning system is a budget item, and can be more expensive then buying a car., depending on the car. People will compare. If I am looking at system Y, system B, and system D, I’m not just comparing the systems, but also the pricing. Again, the people who provide the pricing of their system, in some hush-hush manner, that you would rather go to the dentist for a root canal, are the same ones, who price compare on whatever items. Everyone does. So, why make comparing the pricing of system A to B, assuming it aligns with what you need, any different?
The Numbers
It’s bad out there. There is a recession. It’s here. Regardless if you say micro or macro, it will impact spending for a learning system or any system for that matter. If it is between saving my job, or buying a learning system, try to guess which is my main focus? If my boss says, you have to slash your budget, and go lower for your purchase, what do you think I will do? Say no? If I have to stay in the “pipe” (pipeline) longer, because I can’t greenlight the buy, should the vendor continue to press me, on a weekly or daily basis? Or should they recognize what is taking place, realize that at some point, you might move forward (assuming you are still at the company), but that it will take a bit longer?
What I see, are way too many vendors who just are not getting it. They think due to their verticals or target markets, the recession isn’t going to impact them. They have no plan B – backup plan nor strategy.
I think of the mid 2010’s, after the depression, as sort of the roaring twenties, where every vendor started to boost their pricing, because the good times were here, and lots of buying! Then COVID hit. There were vendors who took a big hit, and have yet to recover, then there were others who broke sales records. One true point seemed universal, as a whole, lower pricing. More deals, better options. Flexibility. Did some price gouge, err, ignore what was happening, and just charged whatever they wanted? Absolutely.
So long, Roaring Twenties, hello Recession Impact
My gut says that in 2023, you will see more vendors who still think the roaring twenties are around, because they are landing a lot of very large enterprises. Or they target more in the 5,000, 10,000 and higher range, and those folks have money (in theory).
It’s a bad premise.
For me – my job is to land more customers and doing what has to be done to make it happen.
Let my competitors charge higher. Let them do this and that. You can counter that will lots of effective marketing, tap into options, and do far better. If I am in the “camp” of ignorance, I will be able to get away with it for so long, but I am going to start noticing that pipe getting extended. Never assume that vendor A, who normally charges high, won’t drop to score the deal, compared to another vendor whose rep is to go lower. The days of this have disappeared.
Speaking of which, I can’t tell you the number of vendors who on the ignorance level, do not realize that if the L&D department they are dealing with, is cut, nobody is going to contact them, and tell them. If RockPaper who runs Talent Development, gets laid-off, you think they will contact the vendor, before they walk out the door? Again, a secondary strategy is needed.
Speaking of Premises
It is around this proposal. Here is what I see and hear
- Way too many vendors charge higher in the proposal because they believe that procurement will negotiate a lower price. They forget that I am looking at the pp first, and if it is higher than my budget, why would I even think about moving you to the next level? OR, I am the C-level person, and I am buying this system, so procurement isn’t going to stop in my way; OR I have full authoring and the backing of the CEO/COO, so even if procurement wants to get involved, they can’t because that authority coming from the CEO/COO always wins.
- Too many vendors have never heard or understood what a formal proposal looks like. The time to shine and show off, is that formal proposal. It is sharp looking. Has some screens of your system, and add-ons, testimonials, the pricing – itemized, so there is no ambiguity – including that discount is seen. I’ve seen Excel spreadsheets. A word document. Pricing in an e-mail. Equally readers have sent me proposals, that they say they got a discount, but it isn’t officially there – when asked where is it? The reader says, oh, the vendor says it is there.
A few vendors support the higher fee, and then say, we need to sit down and get a better idea around your use cases (which the buyer has already send them), and the buyer already has seen a demo. Why, then, can’t you provide a number or numbers?
I hate TBD. The only time I should see this, is if Professional Services is involved OR it is being outsourced to a partner, and the vendor doesn’t have any idea on costs OR it is a total configuration revamp.
Otherwise, the vendor has an idea or knows the numbers. They have seem more than enough folks to know. I remember a vendor telling me they had to charge for support because it costs them. Tough. It is called Cost of Doing Business. Since support is the #1 reason people leave their system or hate it, you would think support would be free, and stronger.
Another vendor once told me, they couldn’t give X for free, because it cost them dollars to build it. Big deal. That is cost of doing business. If you can’t go that route – as a vendor – then look at deep integration with another provider OR get out of the industry.
I am seeing vendors charge for training (which is for administrators and whoever else in running the dept). If the admin needs more training at some point – it is a fee. Here’s the kicker – if you are a vendor want to reduce your costs for support, giving someone more training, is worth it. That is logical. Not doing it? Illogical.
Plenty of vendors think the person who receives the proposal or offer will negotiate. Hello? A lot of people hate to negotiate, and will just take the number. I see this a lot. On the other hand, there are people who will eat you for breakfast, at the negotiation table. I know many vendors who will attest to this, when dealing with me. Can I be a jerk? Absolutely. But my job – just like yours as the buyer, is to get the best deal as possible. And when the pushback becomes intolerable, you, won’t forget it. If a vendor wants my business, they need do so things they normally wouldn’t do.
Where are we at 2,500 these days?
Be ready to be stunned. On average, the price point is $36 per seat (active user) per year. Some vendors are higher, some are really higher, and plenty is lower – heck a couple of bucks per seat/per year, but this is the avg pp. That is what is called the “list” price, think retail before negotiating. Maybe the vendor gives you a deal, and says, “okay, we will go at $34” – yeah, that is about a great of a deal, of me getting a power cord for my desktop (remember those days, GenX and older folks?)
If I am going with the recession model
The price point at 2,500 users, should be $28 to $30, per active user/per year. Unlimited access to content, blah blah. $32 is often where vendors are sliding in, with your special deal. The pp remember is just one fee here. Then you have setup fee (which some vendors don’t charge), support fees, setting up the system fee, which apparently is different than a setup fee (it’s not), and whatever else can be tossed in.
Add-ins
It is getting worse. I can understand a performance add-on, especially with 360 feedback, or succession planning, and similar; but metrics, that are far better than what the vendor gives you out of the box? An authoring tool – the vendor has built? Mentoring/Coaching? , “Social/Sharing”? These are not one-time costs, they are yearly, based on the number of users you want.
The worst cost you will pay?
If you want 3rd party content (in the vendor’s marketplace). It is shooting thru the roof. I’ve never seen it this bad. Never. There are folks who have to scale back to get the content. 3rd party content is very popular these days, better than ever before, and yet, the cost to get it for your users is unattainable.
One route is to say, okay, I only need 500 seats of X content – maybe a bundle, and 100 for Y content – and they are not the same folks. In other words, you do not have to purchase for everyone.
Still, then it becomes high priced. I’m not talking high fees around an aggregator, I’m talking high fees with 3rd party publishers that are either in a learning system marketplace or stand alone (as a whole).
Bottom Line
As a vendor, you have two choices – think the roaring 20s are still here and do nothing with your pricing and additional fees OR recognize and empathize with your soon-to-be customers.
Offer flexibility on paying – rather than the pay annual upfront. Add some of those add-ons at no fee – I’d recommend the metrics one and the authoring tool. Training when the admin or head of the department – when they need it? Free. Not a recorded video – a real person talking to them (it’s called a walkthrough). Support – Premium is free.
That is what has to be done.
Because the roaring ’20s are gone.
For those vendors who charge a “yearly increase” to cover inflation or whatever garbage they come up with. Yeah, keep doing that.
And watch your buyer go elsewhere.
Then pull out your dancing shoes,
The 24 hr marathon for the Waltz
is just down the street.
E-Learning 24/7
Practice These Hadoop Interview Questions and Ace Your Interview
If you’re interviewing for a position that’ll require you to process and manipulate large volumes of data — from gigabytes to petabytes — it’s very likely that you’ll use Hadoop in some capacity. Professions like Data Engineer, Data Scientist, Big Data Analyst, Big Data Software Engineer, Business Intelligence Specialist, and more all use Hadoop to help companies make data-informed business decisions.
One of the best ways you can prepare for Hadoop interview questions is to set up a mock interview and practice answering as many Hadoop-related questions as you can before your real interview. You could ask a friend or family member to help out and play the role of the interview, or you can simply practice saying your answers out loud in a mirror.
Here are 15 popular Hadoop interview questions to help you get ready for the big day.
1. What is Hadoop, and what are its primary components?
For this question, you can say that Hadoop is an infrastructure that includes tools and services for processing and storing big data. It helps companies analyze their data and make more informed decisions.
The primary components of Hadoop include:
- Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS)
- Hadoop MapReduce
- Hadoop Common
- YARN
- PIG and HIVE — components of data access
- HBase — for storage
- Ambari, Oozie, and ZooKeeper — for managing and monitoring data
- Thrift and Avro — for serializing data
- Apache Flume, Sqoop, Chukwa — for integrating data
- Apache Mahout and Drill — for data intelligence
2. What are the core concepts of the Hadoop framework?
Hadoop is based on two concepts: HDFS and MapReduce. HDFS is a file system for storing data across a distributed network that enables parallel processing and redundancy.
MapReduce is a programming scheme for the processing of large datasets. It consists of two functions or processes: Map segregates datasets into tuples, and Reduce further refines this data to yield a final, culled result.
3. What are the most common input formats in Hadoop?
Hadoop uses three common input formats. The default format is the Text Input Format, which is the base class for all file-based input formats. It specifies the input directory where the data files are located. The Sequence File Input Format is dedicated to storing sequences of binary key-value pairs. And the Key Value Text Input Format treats each input line as a separate record and reads plain text files.
4. What is YARN?
YARN stands for Yet Another Resource Negotiator and is the interface in Hadoop for leveraging the various processing systems (MapReduce, Spark, and others ) on the available data resources.
5. What is Rack Awareness?
Rack Awareness is an algorithm NameNode uses to determine the pattern for blocking: the most efficient way to leverage storage and bandwidth resources based on the topology of the network..
6. What are active and passive NameNodes?
NameNodes are objects that manage the filesystem tree and the file metadata. A Hadoop system with high availability contains both Active and Passive NameNodes to provide redundancy. The Hadoop cluster is run by the Active NameNode, and the standby, or Passive NameNode, stores the data of the Active NameNode.
If the Active NameNode ever crashes, the Passive NameNode takes over. This means that the failure of a NameNode won’t cause the system to fail.
7. What are the schedulers in the Hadoop framework?
The Hadoop framework contains three schedulers: the Capacity, Fair, and FIFO systems. The FIFO scheduler simply orders jobs in a queue based on their arrival time and processes them one at a time. The Capacity scheduler has a secondary queue that will run smaller jobs as they arrive. Fair Sharing dynamically allocates resources to jobs as needed.
8. What is Speculative Execution?
It’s a frequent occurrence for some nodes to run slower than others in the Hadoop framework, and this constrains the entire application. Hadoop overcomes this by detecting or speculating when a task is running slower than usual and launching an equivalent backup. The task that completes first is accepted, while the other is killed. This is known as Speculative Execution.
9. What are the main components of Apache HBase?
Three components make up Apache HBase. They are:
- Region Server, which forwards clusters of regions to the client using the Region Server. This occurs after a table divides into multiple regions.
- HMaster, which is a tool that helps manage and coordinate the Region Server.
- ZooKeeper, which is a coordinator in the HBase distributed environment that provides fault tolerance by monitoring the transaction state of servers.
10. What is Checkpointing?
Checkpointing is a procedure of producing intermediate backups to guard against data loss and maintain efficiency. In Hadoop, the fsimage file contains the entire filesystem metadata. In the checkpointing process, a secondary NameNode creates a new merged fsimage file based on the existing fsimage file in memory and edits received from transactions on the primary NameNode.
11. What are some best practices for debugging Hadoop code?
The effort of isolating a problem can often be streamlined by implementing several practices to make data and processes of the system more transparent. These can include:
- Capturing logs specific to input and output processes
- Carefully consider instances in which exceptions are raised or not and how they might be useful in adding context to a situation
- Use counters to monitor task execution and other status and summary information to provide direction in error finding
12. What does RecordReader do?
A RecordReader is simply an iterator that provides a Map function with the records it needs for creating key-value pairs that then get passed to the Reduce phase of a MapReduce job.
13. In what modes can Hadoop run?
- Standalone mode, a default mode for the purpose of debugging and development
- Pseudo-distributed mode, a mode for simulating a cluster on a local machine at a smaller scale
- Fully-distributed mode, Hadoop’s production stage where data is distributed across different nodes on a Hadoop cluster
14. What are some practical applications of Hadoop?
Companies use Hadoop for a variety of tasks where big data is used. Some real-life examples of this include detecting and preventing fraud, managing street traffic, analyzing customer data in real-time to improve business processes, and accessing unstructured medical data in hospitals and doctor offices.
15. Which Hadoop tools enhance big data performance?
Several Hadoop tools significantly boost the performance of big data. You could mention any of these tools in your answer to this question: Hive, HDFS, HBase, Oozie, Avro, Flume, and ZooKeeper.
More interview support
Looking for more interview prep? Check out our guide to acing the technical interview, tips for answering behavioral interview questions, and our advice for the whiteboard interview. We also have a guide to interviewing on Zoom.
Our Career Center offers additional resources to help you get ready for your interview, as well as job-hunting advice for everything from resumes to cover letters to portfolios.And if you’re looking for classes to take to learn new skills, visit our catalog for a list of available courses.
Word of the Day: fugue
This word has appeared in 33 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Practice These Selenium Interview Questions to Prepare For Your Technical Interview
If you’re looking for a job as a QA Engineer, Test Automation Engineer, QA Analyst, or User Acceptance Tester, part of the interview process will likely include some questions on Selenium, one of the most popular and powerful test automation tools for web applications.
The best way to prepare for Selenium interview questions is by reviewing potential questions you might be asked and practicing answering them in a mock interview setting. You can do a mock interview on your own or ask someone to play the role of the interviewer and read off questions to you. If you practice on your own, you might want to consider filming yourself so you can play back the recording and see how you did.
To help you get ready for your technical interview, here are 15 Selenium interview questions you can review, along with tips on how to answer them.
1. What are the components of Selenium Suite?
Selenium Suite consists of four components, including:
- Selenium IDE, a set of tools that include a Firefox, Chrome, and Edge plugin for building tests in the browser and exporting them.
- Selenium Remote Control, a server that controls the embedded Selenium browser. You can write tests in various programming languages to interact with it.
- Selenium Web Driver, a programming interface for Selenium. You can write tests with it in various programming languages, and it interacts natively with the web browser. Selenium Web Driver isn’t a server like Selenium Remote Control.
- Selenium Grid, a tool that allows tests to be run simultaneously on multiple devices or web browsers in parallel.
2. What is an exception test in Selenium?
You write an exception test in Selenium when you expect something to fail and throw an exception. Exception tests pass when the code throws the specific exception targeted by the test.
3. What is Selenese?
Selenese is the language used for writing test scripts in Selenium. It consists of commands that instruct the Selenium engine to perform certain tasks. There are three categories of these commands:
- Actions. These commands interact directly with the browser.
- Accessors. These commands retrieve data from the application and store them in variables.
- Assertions. These commands compare the state of an application with the expected state.
4. What is a locator in Selenium?
A locator is a command in Selenium that allows you to select, interact with, and retrieve data from elements on a web page. Selenium has many types of locators to choose from, including ID, class, Name, XPath, LinkText, and DOM.
5. What is an assertion in Selenium?
Assertions verify that the state of an application matches the intended design outcome.
For example, when a user clicks a button, you expect a modal to be visible. Types of assertions include assert, verify, and waitFor.
6. What type of tests does Selenium support?
Selenium can be used for these types of tests:
- Functional testing. All the following testing types are categories of functional testing, which test that an application functions according to the business requirements.
- Regression testing. This tests that there are no side effects or bugs when new code is introduced into the application.
- Smoke testing. This tests that the critical parts of the app function correctly.
- Sanity testing. This tests that specific parts of the app function correctly in detail after a code change.
- UI testing. This tests that the graphical elements of the application are displayed properly.
- Database testing. This tests that the data displayed in the app is in sync with the data in the database.
- Cross-browser testing. This tests that the application functions correctly and looks the same across different browsers.
7. What is a data-driven test in Selenium?
Sometimes it’s necessary to test multiple sets of input data within a field of an application. Instead of writing a custom test for each set of data, this data can be stored separately and use the same test for each set. You can store this data in Excel files, CSV files, XML files, or database tables.
8. What’s the difference between assert and verify in Selenium?
While both commands check if a condition is true or false, assert will stop the test if a condition is false and verify continues through the rest of the test case whether the condition is true or false.
9. How do you handle keyboard and mouse interactions in Selenium?
You do this with the Actions API. This API contains classes for executing keyboard and mouse events, as well as pen and scroll wheel actions.
10. What are some of the technical challenges with Selenium?
When discussing technical challenges associated with Selenium, you may want to work in some examples from your past work. You can also highlight how you dealt with these challenges, which gives the hiring team a glimpse into your critical thinking process. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Selenium testing only works with web-based applications and requires third-party tools to test desktop and mobile apps.
- Selenium supports capturing images or screenshots but requires third-party tools for comparing images.
- Selenium doesn’t have built-in reporting tools or test management. For these, you have to use third-party tools.
- While some tests can be written without programming knowledge using Selenium IDE, most will require you to know a programming language to customize them.
11. What types of exceptions can you expect in Selenium?
This is a question that would best be answered by referencing specific examples, a few exceptions that could be addressed include:
- TimeoutException. This is thrown when a command doesn’t complete in a specific amount of time.
- NoSuchElementException. This is thrown when an element is not found on the web page.
- ElementNotVisibleException. This is thrown when an element is not visible on the web page.
- StaleElementException. This is thrown when an element has been deleted or is no longer attached to the DOM.
- JavascriptException. This is thrown when executing JavaScript supplied by the user.
12. What is XPath?
XPath is a language used to query XML documents. Since HTML is based on XML, it’s one of the languages that can locate elements on a web page with Selenium.
13. What’s the difference between driver.close() and driver.quit() in Selenium?
In Selenium, driver.close() closes the currently active window in the browser, and driver.quit() closes all browser windows and should be used carefully.
14. What navigation commands are supported by Selenium?
There are four navigation commands supported by Selenium. They are:
- navigate().back(). This command navigates to the last visited page in the browser history.
- navigate().forward(). This command navigates to the next page in the browser history.
- navigate().refresh(). This command reloads the current page.
- navigate().to(). This command navigates to a specific URL.
15. What is pause used for in Selenium IDE?
This feature is especially useful when creating new tests or debugging tests. It’ll stop the test when an exception occurs so you can examine the statement that caused the exception, correct it, and continue the test.
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