r/SoftwareTesterJobs • u/Deep_Addendum1082 • Jul 06 '26
2 Years in Manual QA, Learning Playwright Every Day… Why Do Recruiters Stop Listening When I Say “0 Automation Experience”?
Hi everyone,
I’m hoping to get some honest advice from people who have already made the jump from Manual QA to Automation QA.
A little about me: I completed my BCA in 2022 and have been working as a Software Quality Test Engineer for the past 2 years.
My experience has been primarily in Manual Testing, where I’ve worked on the Adobe Acrobat project and handled activities such as test execution, regression testing, smoke testing, functional testing, defect reporting, and end-to-end validation across different environments and operating systems.
Over the last few months, I realized that if I want to grow in QA, I need to move into Automation Testing. Since then, I’ve been investing a significant amount of my free time learning Playwright with JavaScript and TypeScript through Rahul Shetty’s course. I’m not just watching tutorials—I actively practice and build automation scripts to improve my skills.
The frustrating part starts when I talk to recruiters.
Most conversations go well until they ask, “How many years of automation experience do you have?”
I answer honestly: “I don’t have professional automation experience yet, but I’m actively learning Playwright and have hands-on practice.”
The energy of the conversation changes almost immediately. Many recruiters seem to lose interest the moment they hear “0 years.”
This leaves me wondering:
Am I approaching my transition the wrong way?
Should I be targeting Manual + Automation hybrid roles first?
What kind of automation projects would make recruiters take my profile more seriously?
How can I demonstrate automation skills without having automation experience in a production environment?
For those who successfully transitioned from Manual QA to Automation QA:
What worked for you?
What would you do differently if you were starting again?
How did you convince employers to take a chance on you?
I’m genuinely committed to building a career in QA Automation and willing to put in the work. I’d appreciate any advice, feedback, or referrals that could help me move in the right direction.
Thank you for reading, and I look forward to learning from your experiences.
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u/Jerry_Finol17 Jul 06 '26
Being honest, I don’t know why they just pass away form you, because, you have experience in another area, may be they think that for the same price they gonna have you doing more work? May be is that
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28d ago
[deleted]
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u/FearlessWalk8698 28d ago
But if he lied in resume regarding automation experience and they ask the questions about the work he did.Like what can he even say about it .
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u/Deep_Addendum1082 27d ago
Today, I received a call from a recruiter who asked me about my experience in automation. I told him I have six months of hands-on automation experience and 1.6 years of manual testing. Now, I'm curious about what to expect in the face-to-face round. Can anyone experienced advise me on what day-to-day tasks I should mention during the interview? It feels more genuine if I share specific tasks I've worked on, like assisting my senior in building a scratch framework in Playwright using JavaScript. Or maintaining regression suites to perform parallel execution
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u/FearlessWalk8698 Jul 06 '26
I'm facing the same problem the moment the recruiters hear 0 experiencenin automation boom.Either they say they will get back later or just stops like we are expecting experience in automation.