Selenium is an open-source framework that is widely used for testing and automating web browsers. It is a famous tool for automation testing that comes with a lot of benefits. It is popularly in use by testers to automate tests and validations of web applications.
If you are preparing for a Selenium Interview and looking to enter the QA field, I have prepared a small guide to help you crack the interview with ease. I have listed all the necessary skills you need to have to fit the criteria.
Technical Skills you must have before going for the Selenium Interview:
- Any programming language like Java, Python, C#, etc.
- Basics of Software testing and all about the STLC (Software Testing Life Cycle)
- Knowledge of databases and database language SQL.
- Learn about the test automation tools like Selenium.
- Learn all about test management.
Some more additional tips:
- Gain soft skills like good communication, time management, logical and analytical thinking, etc.
- Indulge yourself into internships related to your profile to gain more practical experience and enhance your skills as well as your resume.
- Include certifications in the same field.
- Use online resources to continuously update yourself about the recent technologies in the field.
Apart from the above-mentioned tips, you must be well-prepared for the interview. To help you prepare. I have picked some of the most commonly asked selenium Interview questions to help you prepare for the interview and boost your confidence.
Selenium Interview Questions
Q 1. Explain Selenium and what it is.
Ans. Selenium is an open-source framework. It is widely used for automated testing and validation of web applications. It supports various browsers and platforms. The selenium scripts can be written in a variety of programming languages like Python, Java, C#, etc.
Q 2. What are the various tools available in Selenium?
Ans. Selenium has a collection of tools that are responsible for separate requirements. The tools are:
- Selenium Integrated Development Environment (IDE) – It is an open-source test automation plugin that works on record and playback principles. It is used for creating test scripts in any of the supported languages.
- Selenium Remote Control (RC) – It was used to work using javascript to automate web applications. It has now been deprecated by Selenium.
- Selenium WebDriver – It is used to interact with the web browser programmatically. It helps to create and run test cases by directly communicating with the browser.
- Selenium Grid – It allows multiple tests to run in parallel on multiple machines.
Q 3. What are the major advantages of using Selenium?
Ans. The advantages of using Selenium for automation testing are:
- It is an open-source tool and hence free to use.
- It supports multiple browsers, frameworks, and programming languages.
- It supports parallel multi-browser testing at the same time.
- It is user-friendly and convenient to use.
- It has vast resources and a support community that allows frequent updates and upgrades.
Q 4. What are the drawbacks of using Selenium?
Ans. The major disadvantages/drawbacks of using Selenium are:
- Only web-based applications can be tested using Selenium.
- Third-party applications are needed to generate test reports.
- A good programming language knowledge is required to create robust testing scripts.
- A lot of external libraries and tools need to be used for tasks like logging and testing frameworks.
- There is an unavailability of tech support to solve user issues.
Q 5. What is the latest version of Selenium and what are its features?
Ans. Selenium 4 is the latest version of Selenium. It is World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) compliant. This version does not require JSON wire protocol for communication between browsers and test scripts. It is more stable and reduces compatibility issues across different web browsers.
Q 6. What is automation testing? What are some of its advantages?
Ans. Automation testing is the type of testing where automation tools are used for testing the software application. It is a type of testing that involves automated test case execution using an automation tool. It includes using tools like Selenium, Katalon, etc.
The advantages of automation testing are:
- It supports both performance and function testing of the product.
- It facilitates the execution of test cases repeatedly.
- It reduces human effort.
- It facilitates parallel test case execution.
- It is more accurate and efficient.
Q 7. Can we use Selenium Webdriver to test APIs or Web services?
Ans. No, Selenium Webdriver cannot be used to test APIs or Web Services. This is because Selenium Webdriver is used to automate web applications using the browser’s own native methods.
Q 8. What are locators in Selenium? Name some types of locators present in Selenium.
Ans. A Locator in Selenium is an address for identifying various web elements within a web page uniquely. Some of the locators in present in Selenium are:
- ID
- ClassName
- Name
- TagName
- LinkText
- CSS Selector
- PartialLinkText
- Xpath
Q 9. What is an XPath?
Ans. XPath, also known as XML Path, is a language that is used to query nodes and elements from an XML document. It stored data in a key-value pair format similar to HTML tags.
Q 10. What are absolute XPath and relative XPath?
Ans. Absolute XPath locates an element starting from the root node which is the HTML node in the case of web pages. It uses a single slash ( / ) for creating the path. Eg. html/body/div/div/div[1]/input
Relative XPath locates the element starting anywhere in the document and not necessarily the HTML root node. It uses a double slash ( // ) for creating the path. Eg. //input[@id=’username’]
Q 11. How to find an element by class using a CSS selector?
Ans. To find an element using a CSS selector we use the .className. Using this we can select all the elements belonging to a particular class. Eg. ‘.employee’ will select all the elements that belong to the ‘employee’ class.
Q 12. How to find an element by id using a CSS selector?
Ans. We use the #idValue in the CSS selector to select all the elements that belong to a particular id. Eg. ‘#employeeID’ will select the elements that belong to ‘employeeID’.
Q 13. How to select an element by its attribute value using a CSS selector?
Ans. To select an element using its attribute value we use the [attribute = value] locator. Eg. ‘[ type = small ] will select all the elements having attribute value ‘small’.
Q 14. How to move to the nth-child element using a CSS selector?
Ans. We use ‘ :nth-child(n) ‘ in the CSS locator to move to the nth child element. Eg. ‘div:nth-child(2) will move to the 2nd div element of its parent.
Q 15. What is the difference between XPath and CSS selectors?
Ans. XPath is used to traverse the document only up to the parent element. Whereas, using CSS selector we can only move downwards in the document.
Q 16. How can we type text in a textbox element using Selenium?
Ans. With the help of the sendKeys() method, we can type text in a textbox-
WebElement searchTextBox = driver.findElement(http://By.id(‘srch’));
searchTextBox.sendKeys(“searchTerm”);
Q 17. How can we clear a text written in a textbox?
Ans. We use the clear() method to delete the text written in a textbox.
driver.findElement(http://By.id(“elementLocator”)).clear();
Q 18. Explain the difference between close and quit commands.
Ans. driver.close() – it is used to close the current browser having a focus.
driver.quit() – it is used to close all the browser instances.
Q 19. What are the programming languages supported by Selenium WebDriver support?
Ans. The various programming languages that are supported by Selenium WebDriver are Java, C#, Python, PHP, Ruby, Perl, etc.
Q 20. Explain the open-source frameworks supported by Selenium WebDriver.
Ans. Selenium WebDriver supports the following two open-source frameworks:
- TestNG: It is a testing framework for Java Programming Language that was influenced by JUnit and NUnit.
- JUnit: It is used for Unit Testing of various types of applications.
Q 21. What are the different ways to refresh a browser?
Ans. Some ways to refresh a page in Selenium are-
- Using driver.navigate().refresh() command.
- Using sendKeys(Keys.F5) on any textbox on the webpage.
- By using a driver.get(“URL”) on the current URL or using driver.getCurrentUrl().
Q 22. What can be used in place of driver.get() to open an URL?
Ans. In place of driver.get(), we can use driver.navigate() to open any URL.
Q 23. What are the different keyboard operations that can be performed in Selenium?
Ans. The keyboard functions that can be performed in Selenium are:
- .sendKeys(“sequence of characters”)
- .pressKey(“non-text keys”)
- .releaseKey(“non-text keys”)
Q 24. How can we find all the links on a web page?
Ans. All the links on a web page are in the anchor tag ‘a’. So by using a locator element of tagName ‘a’ we can find all the links on a webpage.
List<WebElement> links = driver.findElements(By.tagName(“a”));
Q 25. What are DesiredCapabilities in Selenium WebDriver?
Ans. DesiredCapabilities are a set of key-value pairs used for configuring or storing browser-specific properties like the browser’s version, platform, etc.
CONCLUSION
This guide will surely help you to excel in your next interview and land your dream job! The tips are some of the prerequisites that interviewers look for while screening your resume and during the interview rounds. These questions are aimed at brushing up on your concepts and clearing the fundamentals in those rush hours before the interview. They will help you revise your concepts and feel more confident in the topic. Hope they were useful!
