Electrician skills test: a 30-minute bench test for new hires

A good electrician skills test takes 30 minutes at a bench with a hand bender, a meter and one print. Have him bend an offset and a 90, find a fault you planted in a control circuit, terminate and torque, answer five questions off one print, and talk through what he'd check before energizing. Score it on one sheet, give every applicant the same test, and keep it de-energized or low-voltage.

This is the hands-on step in the full process for hiring a journeyman who can do the work.

01Why a bench test beats a quiz

A bench test shows you his hands, and a quiz only shows you his memory. The federal Office of Personnel Management says that on work sample tests, "performance on the tests relates highly to performance on the job," and applicants "often perceive work samples as being very fair" (OPM). Hiring research keeps finding the same thing: a structured interview and a real hands-on test beat a gut-feel chat.

The online electrician tests that come up first in a search are multiple-choice quizzes. They can tell you whether a man studied, and that's about it. One national electrical contractor told us they kept getting "so-called journeymen that can't bend conduit... They're basically laborers." Five minutes with a hand bender catches that. Why agencies keep sending those hands is its own post: why staffing agencies send journeymen who can't bend pipe.

02The 30-minute layout

Set up five stations on one bench and run them in order. Here's one way to lay it out, not an industry standard:

That's 30 minutes (8 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 2). Have the foreman who'd run him watch and score.

03Station 1: the conduit bending test

Bending is the fastest way to tell a journeyman from a laborer. A real hand measures, marks and bends without stopping to think about which way the arrow goes.

Set up: a 10-foot stick of 1/2-inch EMT, a 1/2-inch hand bender, a tape, a marker, a torpedo level, and a block or a piece of strut screwed to a board as the obstacle.

Task A, the offset. Ask for an offset that clears the obstacle and lands back on the floor line. Let him pick the angle. Many hands pick 30 degrees for a small offset because the multiplier is 2.

He should know the math cold. The multiplier is about 1 divided by the sine of the angle, and shrink per inch of rise is about the tangent of half the angle, rounded the way the trade carries them:

Worked example: a 6-inch offset at 30 degrees puts the marks 12 inches apart (6 x 2), and the pipe shrinks 1-1/2 inches (6 x 1/4). He should add that shrink to his measurement so the offset lands where it's supposed to.

Task B, the 90. Ask for a 12-inch stub-up. He reads the take-up off the bender you hand him. Say it's 5 inches: he marks the pipe at 7 inches (12 minus 5) and lines it up with the bender's arrow. Then he checks it with the level.

What good looks like:

• He measures and marks before the first bend, not after.
• Both offset bends are the same angle, and the rise is within about 1/4 inch of target.
• The pipe lies flat on the floor. No dog-leg.
• The 90 is plumb on the level and the stub is within about 1/4 inch.
• No kinks or flattened pipe.

Red flags: he bends first and measures after, asks which mark lines up with the arrow, lines up the wrong end of the bender, or reaches for a phone app for a 30-degree multiplier. On this test, you want to know whether he knows it cold.

If you have a few minutes left, ask for a kick or a 3-point saddle. Score it separately and treat it as a bonus.

The 1/4-inch tolerance is our suggestion, not a code rule. Set yours, write it on the score sheet, and use it for everyone.

04Station 2: the planted fault

The troubleshooting station shows how he thinks. A contractor on the Mike Holt forum laid out the idea years ago: wire up a couple of 3-ways and 4-ways and a contactor, then "stick a piece of paper between the contacts or cut the wire an just stick it under the screw." Put "a meter, screwdriver, wire strippers on the table" and "watch them work" (Mike Holt Forum).

Build the board once and keep it. Run it de-energized with continuity checks, or on a low-voltage control transformer, never line voltage. Rotate between two or three faults so word doesn't get around.

What good looks like: he checks his meter first, starts from the source and works out in order, talks through what he expects to read before he reads it, and finds it without swapping parts. On a single open, you're grading method more than speed.

Red flags: random poking, swapping the contactor before testing anything, or no plan he can explain.

For industrial hires, swap in an across-the-line starter with overloads and a start-stop station, a check trade testers on the forum also suggest (Mike Holt Forum).

05Station 3: terminate and torque

This station takes five minutes and catches sloppy hands fast. Give him a breaker or a mechanical lug, a few lengths of THHN in two sizes, strippers and a torque screwdriver or wrench.

What good looks like: strip length matches the lug, no nicked strands, no insulation under the lug, and he looks for the torque value on the label and uses a torque tool to hit it. NEC 110.14(D) requires terminals to be tightened to the torque value on the equipment or in the maker's instructions, and the code expects a torque tool or another approved means to hit it. The exact wording changed between editions, so check the one your inspector enforces. If he cranks it "good and tight" by feel, that's a red flag.

06Station 4: one print sheet

Print reading is the "point A to point B" test. Pick one real sheet from a past job: a plan with a panel schedule, or a one-line. Ask five questions:

1. How many circuits are on this panel, and how many are spares?
2. Where does the homerun for this circuit land?
3. What feeds this panel, and from where?
4. What does this symbol mean?
5. Is anything on this sheet missing or in conflict?

What good looks like: he reads the legend and notes first and asks a question or two. Guessing is a red flag.

07Station 5: the energize walk-through

This two-minute question shows whether he'll get someone hurt. Point at the board from station 2 and ask, "What do you check before you energize this?"

A good answer covers lockout and tagout, verifying dead with a meter he's checked, terminations torqued, covers on, grounding and bonding, and who's clear of the equipment. OSHA's general industry rule has a qualified person use test equipment to verify a circuit is de-energized, including a check for backfeed (OSHA 1910.333).

08The scoring sheet

Score each station 1 to 5 right after he finishes it. Write down what a 1, 3 and 5 look like before the first applicant, so two scorers land in the same place:

Here's an example pass mark, not a standard: 18 out of 25, with no score of 1 on the walk-through. A 1 on safety is a no, no matter how well he bends.

Keep the score sheet with his application for at least a year. That's the federal record-keeping floor for hiring records (FTC and EEOC).

If you're short-handed now, apply here and we'll see if we can put 5 licensed electricians in front of you in 14 days.

09How to run it without insulting a real journeyman

A good journeyman will take a fair test. He'll walk out of a stupid one. Keep it fair:

1. Tell him on the phone screen that there's a 30-minute bench test and what's on it. No surprises. (The rest of that call is in journeyman phone screen questions.)
2. Keep it to 30 minutes. He has a job.
3. Let him use his own bender if he brings one.
4. No trick questions. One plainly worded question, one right answer. When one shop posted its closed-book quiz on the Mike Holt forum, the advice back was to ask "What is the bend multiplier for 30 degrees?" instead of burying it in a word problem (Mike Holt Forum).
5. Score the work, then talk. A hand who's been running gear for two years might be rusty on a 3-way. Ask before you mark him down.

Then go straight to the interview while he's there. The questions are in journeyman electrician interview questions to ask. What to look for in the first week after you hire him is in what a journeyman should do on day one.

If you hire a lot of journeymen and want a third-party check, NCCER runs knowledge assessments and performance verifications, including a journey-level Commercial Electrician assessment that contractors use for "verifying journey-level competency before deployment" (NCCER).

10The rules: same test, safe bench, fair pay

Three rules keep the test fair. Rules vary by state and city, so check anything unusual with your employment lawyer.

Same test for everyone. The EEOC says giving a test to some applicants and not others because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin is intentional discrimination. And a test that screens out one group at a higher rate has to be "job-related and consistent with business necessity" (EEOC). A bending and troubleshooting test for a journeyman who'll bend and troubleshoot is about as job-related as it gets. If an applicant asks for an accommodation, the ADA requires reasonable accommodations in how tests are given, unless it causes undue hardship.

De-energized or low-voltage only. He isn't your employee yet and he doesn't know your board. No line voltage on the bench, safety glasses on, and the foreman watching.

Pay for it if it runs long or is real work. A 30-minute bench test on scrap pipe is a test. A day pulling wire on your job is work. Federal wage law counts work an employer "suffered or permitted" as hours worked (DOL Fact Sheet #22), and state rules on tryouts vary. If the test turns into production, or you want a paid trial day, put him on the payroll for it.

FAQFAQs