Arun Rao, Vice President, Global Human Resources, AppLabs

A Testing professional needs to understand the technicalities of databases, languages, GUI frameworks and OSes. He also needs to have analytical sense of mind and the ability to break open applications that seem to be perfect, and that how he can find loopholes in the applications. Today, organizations don't just want testers to have knowledge of testing but also require to have business domain knowledge, as well.

Mukesh Sharma, Founder & CEO, QA InfoTech

The demand for niche skills like SOA testers are on the rise. Also, there are lot of avenues in test automation areas - scripting skills in the tools languages like VB, Java and other scripting languages like Perl, Shell, Python etc. Technical resources with capabilities to evaluate automation tools, create automation framework and reusable components are on demand. There is always a demand for good performance testers who can analyze performance test results, identify the bottlenecks and recommend tuning techniques.

Ramanan R V, Head of Global Delivery and Chief Software Architect, Hexaware Technologies

Software defects are so prevalent and detrimental that they cost the U.S. economy an estimated $59.5 billion annually -about 0.6% of the GDP, according to a study commissioned by the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2002.

So Quality assurance is a very decisive stage as testers should guarantee that all functional needs are met even when there's higher load.

Ananda rao Ladi, Vice President, MindTree

Specializations like security testing, SWOT testing, performance testing are the ones one can pursue in addition to create a lane for himself in the industry. There is a lot of need for testers to have industry domain specialization. For example, if you have been testing in the insurance world, you will be valued very high. Specializations with respect to type of testing or specialization with respect of the industry domain can be a good thing to pursue.

Unlike developers, testers are expected to know everything about the product and application. Therefore, testers can even become a domain specialist, or a business analyst or even a product manager.

Shreyas Merchant, PMP Associate Practice Director - Applications & Integration Services, Fujitsu Consulting India

Today clients are very cognizant of the cost implications of poorly tested products or solutions and strive to avoid this situation under all circumstances, since these directly result into financial as well as opportunity loss. Comprehensive and effective testing is the only “knight in shining armor” that could help businesses to plug these holes successfully. The only challenge is the current gap between demand-supply of Professional Testers which is widening across all geographies.

Manish Rathi, Head – Delivery Management, Version 1.0/ New Venture Services, GlobalLogic

In software testing area any knowledge which is gained as part of courses can just act as a starting point; however the major evolution happens on the job. Testing pros should look for opportunities to get hands-on experience which will help them sharpen their software testing skills. Software testing is more about being applied and pragmatic rather than just following academic experience. My organization while assuming that pros have a good academic back ground looks for a good attitude & ability to work in fast-paced environment.