Hiring skilled people for industrial machinery makers: where to find them and how to test them

A pump maker advertises for an assembly fitter and gets a pile of applications. Most list the same trade certificate and the same phrase: knowledge of all fitting work. The works manager interviews six of them in an afternoon. He hires the one who talks best. Three weeks later the new fitter cannot set impeller clearance without help, and the person who could have done it took another offer while waiting for a call back.

Scarce engineers and fitters are a running theme across the machine and equipment group. Finding them takes different channels, and choosing well takes a test rather than a conversation.

• Referrals from your own seniors. Good fitters know other good fitters, often from earlier shops or the same institute batch. Ask them directly and reward successful referrals.
• Vendor and job shops. Fabricators and machine shops that supply you employ welders and machinists who already know your drawings.
• Dealers' and distributors' service teams. Technicians who service drives, compressors or hydraulics for a dealer often want a steadier base.
• ITIs and polytechnics. For helpers, apprentices and junior draughtsmen, a standing link with a few institutes beats one-off campus visits.
• Seniors returning from overseas or retired early. Experienced welders and supervisors back from long projects abroad, or seniors who left larger firms, may want a final decade somewhere smaller.
• Former employees. Leavers who parted amicably and have since picked up new skills elsewhere.

• Assembly fitter. Build a small pedestal bearing unit or worm gearbox from a drawing, set end float, fit a taper lock bush and correct a deliberately misdrilled bracket. Watch the order of work and the instruments used.
• Panel wireman. Wire a direct-on-line starter from a diagram, with contactor, overload relay and a stop-start interlock, ferrule every core and run an insulation test. Then find a fault planted in a second panel.
• PLC programmer. Write logic for a short sequence such as a clamp, a cylinder and a sensor, then debug a program with a seeded error.
• Design engineer or draughtsman. Detail a part from a sketch in first-angle projection with fits and tolerances, then mark the errors on a drawing that contains several.
• Test bench technician. Read a set of performance readings against a curve and decide pass, hold or retest, explaining why.
• Service engineer. Fault-find on a rig, then handle a role-played call from an angry maintenance head.
• Stainless welder. Lay a TIG seam on a thin sheet coupon, ready for polishing, with no burn-through and little heat tint.

1. 1

   Write the brief from the skill

   Describe what the person must build, wire or test unaided, not a list of duties. The brief's skill lines then double as the test.

2. 2

   Screen by phone in fifteen minutes

   Ask about the last machine they built or serviced, the snag they hit and how they cleared it. Vague answers end the call politely.

3. 3

   Hold a half-day practical test

   In a quiet corner of the shop, with a senior fitter or engineer watching. Plant one fault or misfit in every test.

4. 4

   Follow with a structured interview

   Identical questions for each candidate, asked by the works manager and one other person, scored on the same sheet.

5. 5

   Take a reference from a former foreman

   Ask which jobs the person handled unaided, how they coped with a bad week, and whether the foreman would hire them again.

6. 6

   Decide and offer within days

   Skilled candidates usually have other conversations running. A week of silence after a good test often loses them.

Candidate, role and level tested for.
Test task given, and the planted fault or misfit.
Drawing or diagram read correctly: fully, partly or not at all.
Order of work and use of instruments: notes from the watcher.
Found the planted fault: yes or no, and how long it took.
Asked for help at the right moment, or forced on alone.
Quality of the finished task against the stated standard.
Interview score on the agreed questions.
Reference summary from a former foreman.
Decision, level offered and date of offer.

Use the same task, the same planted fault and the same watcher for every candidate in a round. Write the standard on the scorecard before the first test, so nobody adjusts it to suit a favourite. Keep the rig and parts ready in a box, so the test is not cancelled when the shop is busy. Structured interviews explain why consistent questions predict better than an easy conversation.

Special purpose builders need people who can turn their hand to anything, as versatility-first hiring at SPM shops describes. Food machinery makers screen welders and polishers with sample work, covered under sample-work screening for welders and polishers. A ready interview scorecard saves drafting one, and help with the recruitment process can build tests and briefs for each trade you hire.