Electrical Competence.

How to tell if someone is competent for a particular role is actually very tricky, and is one where things beloved of personnel depts like CVs, and qualifications from degrees to NVQs and certification of every colour, are only ever part of the story, perhaps a pre-filter to remove a few of the most unsuitable candidates from the short list.

The first challenge is to know and be clear what the role actually requires, and all to often often the process fails at that stage. As an example not too far from reality,  perhaps one day we want someone who can design test rigs, and the recruiting team decide to advertise for a test engineer - so we get folk who have 30 years experience of following test procedures, but have never written one. Waste of everyone's time, or you get someone who claims they can but can't.  Everyone thought they were doing the right thing but the result is not good.

Then assuming the description is good, how to weed out the lazy, those who over estimate their ability or those for some other reason can't hack it ?

Well, the first thing to do is to talk to them, and that can be by 'phone to begin with. Equally an on-site meeting can be telling, as even the casual 'have a good journey ?' question reveals folk who got driven in by parents, those who can or cannot read a timetable and generally how good the candidate is at planning their working day. Then if it's a technical role, what  have they worked on what part of it was theirs - to what degree do they sound like they personally took responsibility for their contribution. Clearly this only works if the interviewer is up to speed on the topic.

The result of getting it wrong is managers who don't understand what their charges are supposed to be doing and possibly engineering staff who don't either, that way lies poor decisions and waste, and in extremis,bankruptcy.

How to tell if someone is competent for a particular role is actually very tricky, and is one where things beloved of personnel depts like CVs, and qualifications from degrees to NVQs and certification of every colour, are only ever part of the story, perhaps a pre-filter to remove a few of the most unsuitable candidates from the short list.

The first challenge is to know and be clear what the role actually requires, and all to often often the process fails at that stage. As an example not too far from reality,  perhaps one day we want someone who can design test rigs, and the recruiting team decide to advertise for a test engineer - so we get folk who have 30 years experience of following test procedures, but have never written one. Waste of everyone's time, or you get someone who claims they can but can't.  Everyone thought they were doing the right thing but the result is not good.

Then assuming the description is good, how to weed out the lazy, those who over estimate their ability or those for some other reason can't hack it ?

Well, the first thing to do is to talk to them, and that can be by 'phone to begin with. Equally an on-site meeting can be telling, as even the casual 'have a good journey ?' question reveals folk who got driven in by parents, those who can or cannot read a timetable and generally how good the candidate is at planning their working day. Then if it's a technical role, what  have they worked on what part of it was theirs - to what degree do they sound like they personally took responsibility for their contribution. Clearly this only works if the interviewer is up to speed on the topic.

The result of getting it wrong is managers who don't understand what their charges are supposed to be doing and possibly engineering staff who don't either, that way lies poor decisions and waste, and in extremis,bankruptcy.