technical testing

I am looking for a couple of new maintenance people for my crew, and due to past experiences with hiring new employees, I have decided to test all potential canidates for the positions. Where is the best place to find such a test? or maybe several different test that I may get different questions from to cover several areas of the field. I have been told I should try to find resources as the testing must apply to the different areas of maintenance that we have in our plant. This concept is new to me, although I have taken many test for past employers, I have never actually made a test. Any help or suggestions from you all would be appreciated cause I do not want to F this up.

Basic Ohm's law.
Basic fuse sizing question.
Basic shop math.
Basic gear reduction.
Basic PLC input/output question.

If I could get that much out of my maintenance guys, I'd be tickled pink.

Ramsey has a mechanical aptitude test,,im sure if you googled 'mechanical aptitude test' youll find a nice array of them out there

Fred Raud

I recently worked for a small community college and looked for that same info. I now have customers ask me the same thing for the same reasons as you. All I have ever found is expensive stuff put together by someone who has limited knowledge of the real world. I am waiting to see what this post brings.
When I hire someone I ask if they fix their own car, washing machine etc. If you work that conversation right you can get a good or bad gut feeling. That is as good as it gets I'm afraid.

Here are a couple of recent threads from over at Ron's forum that should be of interest.

http://www.patchn.com/forum1/viewtopic.php?t=620

http://www.patchn.com/forum1/viewtopic.php?t=795

Try a company called Cimtec. They are out of Greenville, SC. If I can find the link I will post it for you later. I think they do that as a service, as well as recruit for others. Some plants will hire only people "certified" through them. They cover electrical, mechanical, etc. Truly "multi-craft".

Just for the heck of it... maybe to get a "feel" for their sense of physical reality...
...ask them to draw a 3-D Cube.

If they do good on that, even if they don't have experience with the particular mechnicals you want maintained, they might be trainable.

If they do good on that...
...ask them to draw a 4-D Cube!

If they do good on that, you'll know that they have "vision" even if they don't have actual experience with the particular mechanics you might want them to maintain. In other words, they are learners... they are quickly trainable.

Psychology-103

OOPS!
Brain F-RT
The company is called Centec.
The link is http://www.centecinc.com/default.htm

before deciding on what type of testing, ask yourself what type of maintenance people you're looking for. Most techs are strong in a particular skill set, like either electrical, mechanical, etc. It has been proven many times that it's easier to train an electrician to do mechanical work than it is to train any other craft to do electrical. True 'multi-craft' techs don't have the in-depth knowledge that specialized techs have...and this is ok for some companies.

I've been in plants that have (and most seem this way) one or two electricians & the rest are mechanics/welders/hydraulic-pneumatic techs. The bad part of this is that we are the 'first response' to almost all maintenance issues, and while we are required to perform all aspects of maintenance, it's understood that the mechanics 'don't do electricity'.

This could be an interesting topic to keep going... Many companies are in the same boat, and finding qualified people is definately a shot in the dark.

Segue...
I've worked for a few companies over the years, and strangely, time and time again, the very best 'job search hires' that any of them has had, as been hiring people that had a mechanical or electrical hobby. Not school, but a hobby they enjoyed and were passionate about.
Evaluating schooling, degrees, thesis papers, et al., never resulted in someone that could actually 'do stuff'.

Segue 2 ...
On a similar note, I have a feeling that the USA (Sorry, PLCS.net members from other countries) is falling far behind the rest of the world by insisting that nobody is useful unless they have some kind of degree from some college.... We (in the USA) need to bring back technical high schools, and technical secondary education. People actually become offended when they ask me 'What should my child study?' and I tell them 'Send them to Welding/Plumbing/Electrician/AutoBody schools'.

End Segue 2
End Initial Segue.

So, for this industry, can we come up with some good, honest, make-em-think logic problems?

On interviews for example, I normally start with:
'Here's a piece of paper... Draw me a circuit, that has a Start Button, a Stop Button, a Safety interlock, and an Output Relay to remember the state'.

I also like to give the puzzles of:
'You have a tank that can hold liquid, a valve that lets liquid in that you can control, and a valve that lets liquid out that you can't control... How do you maintain a level in the tank? 'Black Boxes' are acceptable'.

Or:
'A center-winder motor that winds up string delivers 10 foot-pounds at 12" diameter, how many foot-pounds must it deliver at 24" diameter?'

I don't care if they get the answers right or wrong, but I do care how they think about the problem, and the questions they ask.

rdrast is right on. The Comunity College that I worked for started as a high level tech school. They then brough in a PHD in biology noless to make it a two year college. It soon became worthless. They also brought in a consultant (PHD in votech) who said that teaching CAD was a waste of time because "all machines were designed in universities".
Is it any wonder that we are not able to compete?

when hiring people for the position of 'electrician' in a company I used to work for, I had a simple diagram that I asked them to wire. The correct answer is against the NEC, but that wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to test their grasp of theory.

Testing

Be very careful administering test to screen applicants. While it is necessary, you should seek out a test that is validated and eliminates any test bias. Not doing so could open your company up to being sued.

We use NOCTI

Yes, I agree as a matter of fact I contacted the company lawyer today and got the down low. I have to be carefull she told me that all questions must pretain to our company as to the skills they will need to do the job.
I hope to find the right questions to ask, I can pretty much compile a test as far as skill sets go but I would like to be able to evaluate the canidate on other aspects, for example ambition, common sense, reliability,as well as attitude. I believe if I do this right this could reveal alot about the canidate, and just cut through some of the BS you get in the interview. It's been my experience that alot of people misrepresent themselves and by the time you fiqure out that this individual Has bulls?!ted his way through the interview it's to late and you can't just terminate based on them not knowing what they said they did. I have had this happen to me a couple of times, and the last one really left a bad taste in my mouth. I hope to have success this time cause I really need some good people that love the field as much as I do and want to be successfull, because I have learned that their success is mine.

Terry Woods said:

Just for the heck of it... maybe to get a "feel" for their sense of physical reality...
...ask them to draw a 3-D Cube.

If they do good on that, even if they don't have experience with the particular mechnicals you want maintained, they might be trainable.

If they do good on that...
...ask them to draw a 4-D Cube!

If they do good on that, you'll know that they have "vision" even if they don't have actual experience with the particular mechanics you might want them to maintain. In other words, they are learners... they are quickly trainable.

Psychology-103

Click to expand...

How would you draw a tesseract? There are so many aspects, would 4 cubes "overlaid" be enough? Not sure that would be descriptive enough... a six sided object with a spherical center...just one way to project on a 2D plane.

I do not thinking drawing ability is enough to show abilities in another endeavor OR the ability to learn something...it just means you can draw.

There is no simple answer to this question because "tests" in general can be ambiguous and "good qualified" people could be excluded.

I personally get "upset" over the "idea" of multicraft...why should someone have to learn multiple skills to get the same money that one skill will make?...ie a mechanic can easily make 30K or more a yr...a journeyman electrician can make 30K or more a year...a welder can make 30K or more a year, where is the incentive to make 30K a year but have to be all of the above?

Everyone wonders why it is hard to find "qualified" people....

Anyone looked at Dupont's maintenance program?