Competency tests for electronics tests

[Geoff]

Has anyone a link to a basic technican test for job application
screening that they have used and found to work OK? I can find
some but would like one that is a little proven. If you can't
tell, I am not using head-hunters at all for this.

Purpose is for a technician to find production faults on hand
soldered assys, and assist service with repairs. Industry is
scientific with high voltages, RF and sensitive analog.

 

[Geoff]

edit heading

 

[Phil Allison]

"Geoff"

Has anyone a link to a basic technican test for job application
screening that they have used and found to work OK? I can find
some but would like one that is a little proven. If you can't
tell, I am not using head-hunters at all for this.

Purpose is for a technician to find production faults on hand
soldered assys, and assist service with repairs. Industry is
scientific with high voltages, RF and sensitive analog.

** Are you after a written test, some kind of practical test or a series of
questions ?

Do you want a non-technical / incompetent person to be able to tell who is
the most competent of the applicants ?

Do you want to buy the Sydney Harbour bridge ?



.... Phil

 

[Geoff]

"Geoff"


** Are you after a written test, some kind of practical
test or a series of questions ?

Do you want a non-technical / incompetent person to be able
to tell who is the most competent of the applicants ?




... Phil

Written test with series of questions, 1 hour or so duration.
The test reviewers will be 2 reviewers, one technical
experienced engineer, and one manager with broad scientific
competence. The test will be prior to the interview, and the
test is expected to cull a list of 50 applicants to about 5.
The test is not intended to be a final answer as to the
applicants suitability, but an indicator of knowledge,
thinking process and communication skills.

Do you want to buy the Sydney Harbour bridge ?

Nah, one hurdle at a time.

 

[Phil Allison]

"Geoff"

"Phil Allison"

Written test with series of questions, 1 hour or so duration.
The test reviewers will be 2 reviewers, one technical
experienced engineer, and one manager with broad scientific
competence. The test will be prior to the interview, and the
test is expected to cull a list of 50 applicants to about 5.
The test is not intended to be a final answer as to the
applicants suitability, but an indicator of knowledge,
thinking process and communication skills.

** If your people cannot come up with the relevant questions themselves -
then they will never be able to asses the answers.

Also, many production techs who would be good at your job may not be good at
written tests or the delicate art of self praise, making it likely that the
best candidate will NOT end up in your top 5.

I think you are still in line to buy the Sydney Harbour bridge.

Better to come up with some practical examples of the kind of fault finding
you need done and give candidates a go at them - then talk about the
results with each.


.... Phil

 

[Tom]

Written test with series of questions, 1 hour or so duration.
The test reviewers will be 2 reviewers, one technical
experienced engineer, and one manager with broad scientific
competence. The test will be prior to the interview, and the
test is expected to cull a list of 50 applicants to about 5.
The test is not intended to be a final answer as to the
applicants suitability, but an indicator of knowledge,
thinking process and communication skills.


Nah, one hurdle at a time.

People good at on hands jobs usually aren't good at bulshitting in writing - look at all levels of public service where you need to address complicated selection criteria and how many fuckwits get a job.

You want a tech guy for hands on job talk to candidate and give them some task to do.

Tom

 

[Adrian Jansen]

Has anyone a link to a basic technican test for job application
screening that they have used and found to work OK? I can find
some but would like one that is a little proven. If you can't
tell, I am not using head-hunters at all for this.

Purpose is for a technician to find production faults on hand
soldered assys, and assist service with repairs. Industry is
scientific with high voltages, RF and sensitive analog.

I dont have any hard info, but my observation is that fault-finding in a
newly built product is a totally different skill to doing a repair on a
failed ( but previously working ) device. And very much harder, since
almost anything can be wrong, often there can be several faults.

My usual question with anybody though is to ask "Where would you start
?" If the answer is not "the power supply" then they fail.

 

[Phil Allison]

"Adrian Jansen"

I dont have any hard info, but my observation is that fault-finding in a
newly built product is a totally different skill to doing a repair on a
failed ( but previously working ) device.

** In an assembly operation, examples of PCBs and finished products that DO
work are available for comparison with each non working example. After a
while, techs can get very "hawk eyed" at spotting wrong parts and parts in
backwards etc.

I once had the job of de-bugging analogue audio processors from the USA that
looked like they had been assembled and tested by Mexican children. There
were ICs installed backwards in sockets, wrong value resistors all over the
place, bad soldering and even a few that tripped my ELCB soon as they were
plugged in.

Turned out screws that held the lid on easily punctured the primary winding
of the AC tranny !!

When new AC trannys arrived to solve the above, they had been engineered for
60Hz operation and ran at over 100C on 50Hz !!!

And very much harder, since almost anything can be wrong, often there can
be several faults.

** The hardest of all is when an incompetent has been there before you and
you have only the one, faulty unit to look at.

Then all bets are off, you can assume nothing and must check every resistor
cap and semi against the schematic to see if it is right and round the right
way.

Servicing kits is pure hell.



.... Phil