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I am currently a software developer with 2 years of experience but am looking to change careers to QA or Functional Analysis. However, all of the job openings I find require some kind of certification and years of experience. At the moment I don't have the time or money to spend on a proper certification, and even if I did, I lack the experience.
How can I switch career paths when I am not able to meet the job requirements?
Upgrade Your Education
Look for continuing education courses which will allow you to gain knowledge in those fields.
A lot of colleges and universities offer night or online classes regarding computer programming / networking / testing basics. Getting a few of those under your belt might be enough to land you a junior position in the field you're interested in.
Ask For Training
Does your current company have a QA department? Ask your manager for the opportunity to do a little cross training.
If you do not have a a QA department then ask your manager to allow you to perform some QA testing on some company projects before they are rolled out. He might appreciate your initiative, and you could use that bullet point on your resume.
Get Experience
Consider getting involved with an open source project with requires some low-level QA work and getting experience in this way. Then you can pad your resume with relevant experience. This will work best when done in tandem with the above.
(1) Headhunter - may have a desperate company or a company that does not offer as good salary and benefits as others that needs a QA person.
(2) Consulting Company - typically will place people if they can find some way to get you in or will train people that are open to improving themselves - typically they pay for the training and certification. This path may take longer as you may have to continue what you are doing until you get certified.
(3) Pay for the certification yourself and then try one of the above.
(4) Join an Agile team where everyone is cross trained - including doing the QA work. Depending upon who you work for, they may pay for the certification as well.
