Aspiring to work with Selenium?
Curious to know all about Selenium interview questions?
Selenium, not the chemical element that gives off the red hue, but a revolutionary tool that automates the browser at a super speed. It is one of the fastest-growing tools in the IT Industry. Due to the booming of the IT industry, seeking a job in Selenium is a dream for most IT professionals.
If you are looking to build a career with Selenium, the obvious thought running through your mind right now must be what questions interviewers might ask. Fret not! We are here to help you out with the most common Selenium interview questions.
Read on to know the most common questions related to the Selenium interview.
- What is Selenium?
- What are the basic interview questions in Selenium?
- What are the important topics in Selenium?
- Selenium interview questions for freshers
What is Selenium?
Imagine if you are a mad scientist in the lab determined to make an immortality pill. You work day in and out and finally manage to create something on those grounds. What would you do next?
Test it, right?
Similarly, Selenium is an open-source software tool that tests applications and software. In the digital era, testing a tool has become a necessity than a requirement. Selenium helps to carry out automated tests on different web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari among others.
Selenium has a lot of advantages due to which it is highly used by various companies, such as:
- Language and Framework Support: It offers language and framework support. Whether it is C#, Java, Python, or any programming language to write your scripts, Selenium has got your back.
- Compatibility: The fact that it offers compatibility with all popular browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera makes it the best choice.
- Easy-to-use: Using Selenium is a child’s play. No kidding, it is a very easy-to-use tool.
- Flexibility: It allows flexibility in changing the codes for testing and who doesn’t change the mind (read codes) once a while?
- Fast and Reliable: As an automated testing tool, it has to be fast. Selenium beats its competitors with its high speed and accuracy.
Now that you have a fair knowledge of Selenium, let us look at some basic Selenium interview questions.
What Are the Basic Interview Questions in Selenium?
Time to address the elephant in the room. Drumroll, please.
What can an interviewer ask you while examining your knowledge about Selenium? Don’t think hard. Keep reading.
What Is Automation Testing?
Automation testing is a method of testing software with special testing tools to reduce human intervention.
What Are Some Popular Tools Used for Automation Testing?
- Selenium
- Rational Robot
- Unified Functional Testing
- Ranorex
- Eggplant
What Is the Difference Between Selenium 2.0 and Selenium 3.0?
Selenium 2.0 is the merger of the original Selenium project and the WebDriver project. Selenium 3.0 is the extension of 2.0 which does not involve Selenium RC. It has more stability and fewer bugs.
What Are Selenium Components and Their Roles?
There are four major components of Selenium:
- IDE serves as a record and playback tool.
- RC offers free will to create a script in any desired language.
- WebDriver communicates directly with the web browser.
- Grid allows running test cases across many platforms.
What Are the Test Types Supported by Selenium?
Functional and regression tests are the two types of tests supported by selenium.
- Functional testing tests all the functionalities of the test expected from a software.
- Regression testing tests the existing functionality after the release of the software.
What Are the Limitations of Selenium?
- Supports only web-based browsers, not Windows applications
- Lacks inbuilt reporting feature
- Finds it difficult to handle pop-ups and frames
- Does not support mobile automation on its own
- Does not support parallel tests from one computer
What Are the Different Parameters in Selenium?
There are majorly four parameters in Selenium.
- Browser
- Host
- URL
- Port Number
What Is the Difference Between Selenium and QTP?
Selenium and QTP both are software testing tools used by software testers. However, there are certain differences between them.
| Parameters | QTP | Selenium |
| License | It is licensed and the cost is too high for every version. The user has to pay the amount before using it | It is open source. Hence, user does not have to pay. |
| Flexibility | Not much flexible | Flexible |
| Testing Range | It supports Windows, web, mobile, desktop applications | It can only test web applications, not mobile or desktop applications. |
| Programming Language | The scripts are written only in VBScript developed by Microsoft. | The scripts can be written in Java, Python, C#, Scala, and Ruby. |
| IDE Support | It works only in QTP developed environments. | It runs on different IDEs such as NetBeans, .Net, Eclipse, and so on. |
| Repository | It has an inbuilt repository for storage. | It does not have an inbuilt repository for storage. |
What Are the Advantages of Using Selenium?
- Open source and free to use
- Supports different languages such as Java, Perl, Python, C#, JS, Groovy, PHP
- Supports different types of OS including Windows, Linux, Unix, and macOS
- Supports various browsers such as Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera
- Can be integrated with other open-source tools for supporting other features
- Takes very little space in the CPU for executing the script
What Is Selenium Grid? Why Is It Used?
Selenium Grid is a tool that is used along with Selenium RC to run tests on different machines. It allows running test cases in parallel by supporting multiple browsers, thereby saving time.
What Are the Important Topics in Selenium?
Every candidate who prepares for an entrance exam looks for the syllabus first. Wouldn’t it have been good if you had the major topics mentioned for the Selenium interview too?
The major interview topics from which questions can be asked in a Selenium interview are mentioned below:
- Selenium Basics
- Advantages/Limitations of Selenium
- Automation Testing
- Features of Selenium
- Incorporating Excel sheet in Selenium
- Selenium Suite and its components
- Framework and IDE
- Difference between absolute and relative pathways in Selenium
- XPath
- Programming languages supported by Selenium
- Creating codes in Selenium
- Synchronization and its types used in Selenium
- Selenium Tools and their usage
- Navigational Command in Selenium
- Webdriver handling in Selenium
- Object Repository
- Different commands in Selenium {type, typeAndWait, driver.get(), driver.navigate.to(“url”)}
- Page Object Model
- Selenium Webdriver
Selenium Interview Questions for Freshers
In an interview room table where on one side of the table is probably an expert sitting that has years of experience while on the other is you- a young mind with lots of enthusiasm but not much experience, a feeling where your intestines are pulled from the inside is quite common.
Trust us, we got you covered. We have stepped secretly into the brain of interviewers and jot down some important questions that they might ask freshers other than the basic ones that we discussed before.
What Are the Advantages of Automation Testing?
Since we have already been discussing Selenium, every basic advantage of Selenium will automatically be an advantage of automation testing. A response to this question can be framed using these points:
- Automation Testing is cost-effective and saves a lot of time
- Reduces the dependability of engineers
- Less consumption of resources
- Enhances accuracy and reduced the possibility of human error
- Allows detecting bugs in the initial phases of testing
What Are Some Common Exceptions Used in Selenium Webdriver?
An exception is an error that happens during the execution of a program. In the case of Selenium, some exceptions can be found, such as:
- NoSuchElementException: When an element is not found
- StaleElementReferenceException: When web element is deleted from the current DOM
- WebDriverException: When the web driver is still active after you close the browser
- ErrorInResponseException: When interacting with Firefox or remote driver server
What Is POM? State Its Benefits.
POM stands for Page Object Model, which is a design pattern used in automation testing to create an object repository of different web elements.
- Allows code reusability
- Keeps the code clean as test objects and functions are separated from each other
- Easy to update objects
- Objects are independent of test scripts
What Do You Understand by Framework?
Framework, in general also means a support structure. In automation, the framework would refer to best practices to achieve the best results. Some examples of the framework are keyword-driven testing framework, behavioral-driven framework, hybrid testing framework and data-driven testing framework, and so on.
What Is an Accessor in Selenium?
An accessor is used to store some data value in a variable. For example, storeText is used to store the text value of the targeted element in the variable while storeBodyText gets the entire value of the text.
It also evaluates the result and in the case of storeTextPresent, it verifies the specified text pattern.
Why Is Python Favored Over Java in Selenium?
Python is favored over Java in Selenium due to its ease of use. It is simple, dynamic and makes using Selenium an easy task. On the contrary, Java runs slowly and is relatively complex to use.
That is not it. Some other expected questions that an interviewer may ask are:
- Name some of the Selenium commands. State their roles
- How do you locate elements with Xpath text?
- What is Selenese? State its types
- What are different WebDrivers?
- What is Object Repository?
- How would you switch between frames in Selenium?
- What is Selenium RC?
- Explain flash testing
- What is TestNG?
- Difference between find element() and find elements()?
Key Takeaways
- Selenium is an open-source software tool that automates web browsers.
- It has numerous advantages that include offering language and framework support, compatibility, flexibility, speed, and reliability.
- The basic questions that can be expected in the Selenium interview could be on automation testing, popular tools of Selenium, the difference between the versions of Selenium and its components.
- Knowledge of the difference between Selenium and QTP must be considered before appearing in front of an interviewer.
- The important topics for a Selenium interview can be its advantage-disadvantages, features, pathways, framework, and components.
- Creation of codes, WebDriver knowledge, executing commands should be brushed up to ace the interview.
- For freshers, the knowledge of basic concepts of Selenium can come in handy, such as object repository, flash testing, Selenese, its types, and switching between frames.
Now that you know about Selenium interview questions, use the ideas, formulate your responses, and slay the interview questions.
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