Selenium Interview Questions for Freshers (1970)

Selenium is an open-source suite for automating web browsers. Its main component, Selenium WebDriver, is a W3C standard API implemented by every major browser. Freshers use it to write scripts in Java, Python, JavaScript, C#, or Ruby.

1. Selenium IDE — record-and-playback browser extension
2. Selenium WebDriver — code-first API (the main one)
3. Selenium Grid — distributed / parallel execution

The W3C-standard programming interface for controlling a browser. Each browser ships its own driver (ChromeDriver, GeckoDriver, EdgeDriver) that translates WebDriver commands into browser-native actions.

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.seleniumhq.selenium</groupId>
  <artifactId>selenium-java</artifactId>
  <version>4.28.0</version>
</dependency>

WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
driver.get("https://example.com");
driver.quit();

No — Selenium 4.6+ ships Selenium Manager, which auto-downloads the right driver. You just do new ChromeDriver().

close() closes the current tab. quit() closes all tabs and ends the WebDriver session. Always quit() in @AfterMethod to avoid leaked browser processes.

• id, name, className, tagName
• linkText, partialLinkText
• cssSelector, xpath
• Selenium 4 relative locators: above/below/toLeftOf/toRightOf/near

Prefer CSS: shorter, faster, cleaner. Use XPath when you need text(), parent axis, or starts-with. Never chain 6 levels of XPath — use test IDs instead.

driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("[data-test='submit']")).click();

findElement returns the first match or throws NoSuchElementException. findElements returns a (possibly empty) list — great for checking absence: list.isEmpty().

WebElement email = driver.findElement(By.id("email"));
email.clear();
email.sendKeys("qa@example.com");

element.getText();                 // visible innerText
element.getAttribute("value");    // form input value
element.getDomProperty("value");  // Selenium 4 — live DOM property

Prefer explicit. Implicit sets a global polling timeout on every findElement; it's blunt and can mask real bugs. Explicit waits target one condition:

new WebDriverWait(driver, Duration.ofSeconds(10))
  .until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.id("submit")));

Wait<WebDriver> w = new FluentWait<>(driver)
  .withTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(15))
  .pollingEvery(Duration.ofMillis(500))
  .ignoring(StaleElementReferenceException.class);
w.until(d -> d.findElement(By.id("row-42")));

Only in test authoring/debugging. In real scripts it's an anti-pattern — replace with explicit waits or the correct ExpectedConditions.

Re-find the element after the DOM change, or wrap the action in a wait+retry (FluentWait ignoring the exception). Cache locators, not WebElements.

wait.until(ExpectedConditions.urlContains("/dashboard"));
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.titleIs("Dashboard"));

Alert a = driver.switchTo().alert();
a.getText();
a.accept();  // or a.dismiss();

driver.switchTo().frame("frame-name");
// ... interact ...
driver.switchTo().defaultContent();

String parent = driver.getWindowHandle();
for (String h : driver.getWindowHandles()) {
  if (!h.equals(parent)) driver.switchTo().window(h);
}

new Actions(driver)
  .moveToElement(menu)
  .clickAndHold(item)
  .moveToElement(target)
  .release()
  .perform();

JavascriptExecutor js = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;
js.executeScript("arguments[0].scrollIntoView(true);", element);
js.executeScript("arguments[0].click();", element);

Use sparingly — it bypasses real user behavior.

TestNG is the runner that gives Selenium tests: annotations (@Test, @BeforeMethod), data-driven support (@DataProvider), parallel execution via testng.xml, listeners, and reports. See our TestNG Q&A.

A design pattern where each page is a class with locators as fields and user actions as methods. Keeps tests readable and locators in one place — the #1 pattern freshers must know.

public class LoginPage {
  private final WebDriver d;
  private final By email = By.id("email");
  private final By pwd   = By.id("password");
  private final By submit = By.id("login");
  public LoginPage(WebDriver d) { this.d = d; }
  public void loginAs(String e, String p) {
    d.findElement(email).sendKeys(e);
    d.findElement(pwd).sendKeys(p);
    d.findElement(submit).click();
  }
}

ChromeOptions opts = new ChromeOptions();
opts.addArguments("--headless=new", "--window-size=1280,900");
WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(opts);

• W3C-only protocol
• Relative locators (above/below/near)
• Selenium Manager (auto driver download)
• Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) access
• Better Grid architecture

India: ₹3.5–6 LPA. US: $60–80k. UK: £28–38k. See our Selenium tester salary guide and full QA salary guide. Rehearse with our AI Mock Interview, then go deeper with the 300-Q hub.