How to learn Selenium on my own?

We all know selecting a career path is difficult but what’s equally important is how to prepare for that. For those of you who have made up your mind and decided to build your career as a Selenium Professional, then you are just a few steps away to find the right resources to become one. So here, we have collated best available study guide and learning resources to become a Certified Selenium Professional. Lets put end to your confusion, in this blog we will cover all essential information about Selenium and the best methods to help you learn Selenium.

But first, let’s get some brief information about selenium so that it becomes easier to understand and learn selenium.

Overview of Selenium

Everyone nowadays is well aware of the growing adaptability to automation and its implementation. This has set a benchmark by showing tremendous growth and what gives it more push is Selenium. That is to say, Selenium is an open-source Web UI automation testing tool that is supporting the automation of websites across various browsers, platforms, and programming languages. With this, it is easy to automate the functional tests and for integrating them as well using tools. 

But the one things that makes selenium more effective, are the components of Selenium. So, lets learn more about them.

Components of Selenium Suite

There are basically for major component of Selenium Suite: 

Selenium IDE

The first one is Selenium IDE, this provides an Integrated Development Environment and is the major tool in the Selenium. This is implemented as a Firefox Add-On and as a Chrome Extension. Moreover, it allows recording, editing, and debugging of functional tests. Since it works on the record and playback principle, it is the first choice automation tool for people.

Selenium RC 

Selenium Remote Control (RC) refers to a server written in Java language. This accepts commands for the browser via HTTP and allows for better integration of Selenium in existing unit test frameworks. Further, it is used for injecting the javascript code in the browser for automation.

Selenium WebDriver

Selenium WebDriver is the third component that is the successor to Selenium RC. It accepts commands and then sends them to a browser. Moreover, it provides different drivers for different browsers and also supports multiple programming languages. And, it is purely object-oriented and supports all the major browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari, etc.

Selenium Grid

Selenium Grid refers to a server that allows tests for using web browser instances running on remote machines.Using this, can make one server act as the hub. In which, the tests contact the hub for obtaining access to browser instances. Moreover, it also helps in the distributed running of Selenium tests in parallel across multiple remote machines.

Those who are new in the Selenium must have doubts about why to learn about Selenium. So, to clear your doubts let’s take a look at its advantages and its rising demand.

Why is Selenium better?

• Firstly, Selenium is an open-source automation testing tool in which there is no licensing cost for its usage.
• Secondly, in Selenium the scripting can be done in most of the widely used programming languages that include Java, C#, Ruby, Python, etc.
• Thirdly, it supports all the top browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari.
• Lastly, the Selenium IDE component of the Selenium suite provides record and playback features. Using these features non-programmers can also write automation scripts. 

Above we have understood the basic details about Selenium. In the next section, we will learn about the basic knowledge required for Selenium.

Basic Knowledge Required

For those of you preparing to get the Selenium Professional tag need to understand the basic knowledge criteria. That is to say:

• You should have familiarity with automation testing with Selenium WebDrive. Moreover, they must have a good understanding of at least one programming language like
• Java, C#, Ruby, Python, Javascript, etc.
• Secondly, they should have an understanding of the Selenium Webdriver API and Apache POI API which is for reading and writing data to excel.
• Thirdly, as a tester you should know about IDE and version controls like GIT or SVN.
• Fourthly, they should have an understanding of the testing framework that can be TestNG or JUnit.
• Lastly, they must have knowledge of CI Tool(Jenkins) and Frameworks(KeywordDriven, DataDriven, and Hybrid).

Top Certification to Learn Selenium

There are various certifications for Selenium that you can apply for. Now, some of the basic and advanced level certifications include:

Certification Providers

After knowing about the various Selenium certification, the next thing that comes to mind is to get the best certification provider and available venues to help learn better. This will help you a lot during the preparation time as well as enhance your skills. However, there are various certification bodies that can help you in becoming a Certified Selenium Professional. But, in the end, you have to select the certification provider that matches your hopes. The certification providers include,

• Vskills – India’s Largest Certification Body
• Edureka
• Udemy
• Simplilearn
• Coursera

Selenium Testing: Market Value

Selenium is an open-source tool that is the detector tool for both PC browser and mobile browser automation. Moreover, it is considered as a web standard supported by all browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and many more. And talking about the value, Selenium Automation Testing is leading in the marketplace as of now. However, being open-source software, this provides people to learn Selenium in a better way of finding their place in leading organizations. Selenium has a wider scope as well as its future is as sharp as tools. That is to say, qualified test automation engineers will get more advancement in artificial intelligence. 

However, the market trends of test automation are continuously changing with Selenium having a rapid growth over shorter time periods. As Selenium makes it convenient for clients for receiving ROI much faster by reducing the number of cycles involved in testing. 

Job Roles

There are various job roles out there that you can apply for after getting Certified as Selenium Professional. One of the top roles includes the role of Selenium Automation tester. They are responsible for understanding the business requirements, application and its components. And, review the test Reports and prepare test scenarios/cases/execution and test results. 

Salary Structure

Moreover, it is important to have an estimate of the salary structure for the Selenium Tester role. According to a survey, the average salary of a selenium automation tester in the US is around $97,500 per annum. However, the minimum and maximum limits of selenium salary in the US range as $16,500 per annum and $160,875 per annum.

Steps to Prepare and Learn Selenium

It is very important to have the right set of resources and learning map to build the skills to become a proficient Selenium Professional. In this, we will learn about the ways that can be used for having better preparation. Moreover, this will also help in learning and understanding everything in a sequential manner.

Get all the Basic Knowledge Covered

You need to get familiar with the basic concepts related to Selenium. This is done for getting a better understanding during the time preparation. To better understand this, check the below points that will describe how to start preparing in a stepwise manner.

• Firstly, you should target a programming language area starting with Java. In this, they must learn about the concepts and basics of Java. 
• Then, after getting an understanding of java, let’s move to the second point.
• Now, it’s time to get familiar with Selenium Webdriver commands. Here, you should practice the implementation of what they have learned. This will cover concepts like installing Selenium Webdriver, locators(Id, Class Name, Name, Link Text, Partial Link Text, Xpath, etc), and Webdriver Commands.
• Moving on to the third point.
• At this point, start learning and understanding about TestNg. Where TestNg refers to a unit testing framework used with Programming languages for controlling the execution flows.
• Lastly, at the final point, you must focus on Automation Frameworks. These are used for increasing the reusability of code and reducing maintenance costs and effort. 

Online Resources and Groups

There are various resources and online tutorials available for Selenium Professional online that can help to get started. However, you all should know that nothing comes by itself as you need to work for it. So, here also you have to research for resources and then select the best out of it. Coming onto the online groups, you can join various groups that include selenium professionals as well as beginners preparing for the exam. These groups can provide benefits during the preparation to solve the query as well as getting up to date with the concepts and topics related to Selenium.

Reference Books

Books are the first resource that arises in our mind when we think about preparing for any exam. Together with, the available learning resources and official study material you can refer to multiple books from libraries or book stores. You can also find the e-books available on internet and that too free of cost. Make sure you are comfortable with the textbook and it has quality content which is quite understandable.

• Learn Selenium: Build data-driven test frameworks for mobile and web applications with Selenium Web Driver 3 by Unmesh Gundecha (Author), Carl Cocchiaro (Author)
• Selenium WebDriver Quick Start Guide: Write clear, readable, and reliable tests with Selenium WebDriver 3 by Pinakin Chaubal

Take Practice tests

While preparing for the certification, you can start assessing yourself by using the practice tests. This can provide you with an advantage to validate your skills and knowledge as well as to find out the weak areas. Moreover, this will also increase your level of answering and provide confidence during the exam. For Automation, it is important to write tests and provide the output.

Expert Corner

The demand level for Selenium professionals has increased in past few years. As a result, this has given rise to many new opportunities to explore in the automation world. And, as an Automation tester, you need to work on their skills to get advanced in this so that they can move in the right direction. Moreover, for many top companies, Selenium has become the first choice of automation testers as well as for automating the web-based application testing role. This increases the value of Selenium Certification. So, collect as much knowledge as you can and get yourself prepared to become Certified Selenium Professional.

Learn Selenium and enhance your skills using the expert tutorial on Selenium Now!