30 Selenium Interview Questions Every
QA Should Know
Doc By Aston Cook
These questions cover the most practical Selenium topics for UI automation interviews.
1. What is Selenium?
Answer: Selenium is an open-source suite of tools used for automating web browsers. It
supports multiple languages (Java, Python, C#, etc.) and provides browser compatibility across
Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and more.
2. What are the main components of Selenium?
Answer:
● Selenium WebDriver
● Selenium IDE
● Selenium Grid
3. What is Selenium WebDriver?
Answer: WebDriver is the main automation component in Selenium. It provides APIs to control
browser behavior and interact with elements.
4. What browsers does Selenium support?
Answer: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, Opera, and headless browsers like HtmlUnitDriver.
5. What’s the difference between findElement() and findElements()?
Answer:
● findElement() returns a single WebElement and throws an exception if not found.
● findElements() returns a list of WebElements and returns an empty list if none are found.
6. How do you handle dynamic web elements?
Answer: Use stable locators like CSS selectors or XPath with contains, starts-with, or regular
expressions. Avoid using changing attributes like timestamps or session IDs.
7. What is the difference between XPath and CSS Selector?
Answer:
● XPath can navigate both forward and backward in the DOM.
● CSS selectors are generally faster and easier to read, but cannot traverse up the DOM.
8. How do you handle waits in Selenium?
Answer: Implicit Wait. Explicit Wait (WebDriverWait with ExpectedConditions). Fluent Wait. Use
waits to handle elements that load asynchronously.
9. What is the Page Object Model (POM)?
Answer: A design pattern that helps organize code by separating page elements and logic into
reusable classes. It improves maintainability and scalability.
10. How do you take a screenshot in Selenium?
Answer: Use TakesScreenshot interface and call getScreenshotAs() method.
11. How do you handle dropdowns?
Answer: Use the Select class and its methods like selectByVisibleText(), selectByValue(), and
selectByIndex().
12. How do you perform mouse and keyboard actions?
Answer: Use the Actions class to handle mouse hovers, drag-and-drop, clicks, and keyboard
keys.
13. How do you switch between browser tabs?
Answer: Use getWindowHandles() and switchTo().window(handle) to change tabs.
14. How do you switch to a frame in Selenium?
Answer: Use [Link]().frame() with index, name, or WebElement.
15. What are some common exceptions in Selenium?
Answer:
● NoSuchElementException
● TimeoutException
● ElementNotInteractableException
● StaleElementReferenceException
16. How do you handle alerts?
Answer: Use [Link]().alert() and call accept(), dismiss(), or getText().
17. Can Selenium be used for testing mobile apps?
Answer: Not directly. For mobile apps, use Appium, which extends Selenium for mobile
automation.
18. How do you run tests in parallel?
Answer: Use Selenium Grid or integrate with TestNG/JUnit to run parallel test classes and
methods.
19. How do you scroll down a page in Selenium?
Answer: Use JavaScriptExecutor to run [Link]() or [Link]().
20. How do you upload a file in Selenium?
Answer: Use sendKeys() to send the absolute file path to an <input type="file"> element.
21. What is a headless browser and how do you use it?
Answer: A headless browser runs without a GUI. Configure ChromeOptions or FirefoxOptions to
run in headless mode.
22. How do you validate broken links?
Answer: Get all link elements, extract href attributes, and use HTTP libraries (like
HttpURLConnection) to validate status codes.
23. How do you assert values in Selenium?
Answer: Use test frameworks like JUnit/TestNG with assertEquals(), assertTrue(), etc.
24. How do you generate logs in Selenium tests?
Answer: Use Java logging frameworks like Log4j or built-in loggers to print execution details.
25. How do you retry failed tests?
Answer: Implement retry logic in TestNG using IRetryAnalyzer, or configure test reruns in your
CI tool.
26. What is Selenium Grid?
Answer: A tool that lets you run tests across multiple machines, browsers, and OSes in parallel.
27. What’s the role of DesiredCapabilities?
Answer: Used to set browser-specific configurations for WebDriver sessions (mostly replaced by
Options classes in newer versions).
28. What is FluentWait in Selenium?
Answer: A wait that defines the frequency to check conditions and ignores exceptions during the
wait period.
29. How do you handle CAPTCHA in Selenium?
Answer: CAPTCHA is designed to block automation. Workarounds include bypass mechanisms
or asking devs for a test-friendly version.
30. What are the limitations of Selenium?
Answer: Cannot test non-browser apps. No built-in reporting. Limited support for CAPTCHA,
image comparison, and barcode testing. Needs coding knowledge and maintenance
