Interview with Nadine Henderson

Nadine is responsible for Assurity’s HR, recruitment and graduate recruitment. She plays a key role in helping to drive the company into its next stage of growth. Her strong background in IT recruitment - she worked as HR Manager at Intergen for three years - gives her the knowledge and know-how to recruit the best people in New Zealand

What do you like about working in IT?

While I don’t officially work in IT, I do work in the IT industry and I really like enjoy that I get to work with people that have passion that oozes for what they do! The people tend to be very clever, and like minded in that they have a natural tendency to what to know more, do better, get their hands dirty (so to speak!). The IT professionals I work with are different to other professionals, and not in the stereotypical way!

What do you look for in a software tester?

The things mentioned above! I love seeing people that love what they do, they almost have a spark in their eye when you ask about a particular tool/project/methodology - so having that enthusiasm and passion for testing is great to see.

Communication and client facing skills are extremely important in any consultancy. Our employees are representing the company out on client site, so its essential that they do it well and to a high standard.

We also want people that have ambitions to develop their careers, training and development is something we encourage, so having people that naturally want to do this means we can work alongside them to reach their goals.

Culture fit is a biggie at our work - to have this means people should tick all the boxes mentioned above for starters. They should get along well with others in the workplace and want to get involved in our many extra activities offers (e.g Toastmasters, Social engagements, Learning groups etc).

When you were at university, did you see yourself working as the People and Culture Advisor at a Software Testing Consultancy?

Not in my wildest dreams! I had no idea what I wanted my career to be when going through Uni, and I kind of fell into IT recruitment before also moving into the HR/People and Culture side of things. Very happy with how things have panned out though!

Where do you see software testing heading in 5 years?

Probably somewhere we haven’t even thought of yet! But in the shorter term, say the next 2 - 3 years, I think Agile/Lean will start becoming a lot more common practise in Testing.

What’s the coolest thing you’ve learnt since you started at Assurity?

That I work for a company that isn’t just awesome at what it does, but a company that delivers on what it promises and that caring for its staff isn’t just a ‘catch phase’ they throw around, its something they live and breathe.

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