Twelve years ago, a route into testing could look like this: turn up at a conference, listen to a talk, walk up to the speaker afterwards and ask one good question. An offer arrives the following week.
That is not nostalgia talking. It was ordinary. There were more openings than people, the industry was growing faster than anyone could train for, and companies hired for the ability to think and planned to teach the rest on the job.
Today the same position asks for test design techniques, an understanding of HTTP, the ability to write a SQL query with a join, some idea of what XSS and SQL injection are, experience with Postman, and increasingly "automation is a plus".
The first reaction to that list is usually: is this reasonable? Let us be honest about it — some of those requirements are earned, some are not, and the difference is worth knowing.
Why the bar went up
