How to hire a residential service electrician

To hire a residential service electrician, screen for three things a construction hire doesn't need: he can find a fault with no prints, he can talk to a homeowner, and he can work alone all day. Test all three with a structured interview and a paid ride-along. Expect a thin field. One contractor on the Mike Holt forum called manning a service truck the hardest job to fill and guessed "probably 5% of experienced electricians qualify."

01Why a service hire is different

A service electrician runs the whole job by himself, in someone's house, with no foreman and no plans.

One contractor on the Mike Holt forum put it this way: "A great service electrician is harder to get." On a construction job, he wrote, the details are on the plans and come down the chain to the journeyman. "A service tech is a whole different animal" (Mike Holt: Journeyman Applicant Quiz).

That's why a good commercial J-man can be the wrong service hire, and why a service shop can't fill the truck by grabbing whoever has a card. If you're still deciding whether a service electrician is the right next hire, start with who to hire next as your shop grows.

02What to look for in a service electrician

Hire for customer skills and troubleshooting first. You can teach your price book. It's much harder to teach a man to be good in someone's living room.

The forum contractor above listed what he worries about first on a service hire: someone who "wont cause problems with the customer," with "personal appearance, positive attitude, friendly, motivated, able to communicate clearly, reliable." Safety was number two. Skill still matters; it's just not the first filter.

Here's a checklist you can score in the interview and on the ride-along:

• License that lets him work alone. In states that license journeymen, he needs that card or higher to work without supervision. Check the card before anything else with the 5-minute license lookup.
• Troubleshooting order. Does he start with questions and a meter, or with parts? Parts-swapping eats your margin.
• Residential code he uses daily. AFCI and GFCI requirements, service changes, permits and inspections in your jurisdiction.
• Talking to the homeowner. Explains what he found in plain words, doesn't talk down, doesn't oversell.
• Presenting options at the kitchen table. Can he lay out a fix-it-now option and a better option, with prices, and let the customer pick?
• A clean truck. Ask to see a photo of his current truck or toolbag. How he keeps his van is how he'll keep yours.
• Callback rate. He should know it, or at least know what caused his last callback.
• Shows up. Every service call is a promise to a homeowner who took the morning off. Check references on attendance.

03Where service electricians come from

The good ones mostly already have a truck. Another contractor in a Mike Holt thread on hiring service hands put it bluntly: "anyone good enough to make money on a service truck is doing it, on their own truck" (Mike Holt: Where do you hire, how do you train?). One owner in that thread said he was "looking for unicorns."

So you're usually hiring one of five people:

1. A service electrician at another shop. The fastest hire, and the one you'll pay most for. He's comparing your pay plan, truck and call volume to what he has now. See hourly vs commission vs flat rate for service electricians.
2. A residential new-construction journeyman. Knows houses and code, needs training on troubleshooting and customers.
3. A commercial journeyman who wants to be home at night. Strong on skill, needs residential code and kitchen-table training. More on this below.
4. Your own apprentice. The slowest route and often the best fit. He learns your way from the start. See how to start a registered electrical apprenticeship program.
5. Someone a hand or a counterman sends you. The same forum thread suggested asking your own crew and "your wholesale house guys" who they know. A referral bonus gives your crew a reason to ask around.

Say "service electrician" in the ad, not just "electrician." The applicant-quiz contractor quoted above said to make that clear in every ad, and it keeps construction hands who want a crew job out of your inbox.

04Can a commercial journeyman switch to service?

Yes, if he can troubleshoot without a print and he wants to talk to customers. The wiring is rarely the problem. The work alone and the kitchen table are what you need to test.

Ask three things before you hire a commercial J-man for a service truck:

• When did he last troubleshoot something alone? Not "helped the foreman find it." Alone, with a meter.
• How much residential has he done? Service changes, panel swaps, AFCI and GFCI work, old wiring.
• Why service? "I'm tired of the road and want to be home at night" is a good answer. "I heard the commission is good" can be fine, but dig into whether he's sold anything before.

Then plan for it. Put him on a truck with your best service electrician for his first few weeks, and don't put him on commission until he can run calls on his own. Some service ads build that in: one franchise ad pays hourly for the first 30 days before commission starts.

05Interview questions for a service electrician

Use the same questions in the same order for every applicant, and score each answer 1 to 5 on a written sheet. The US Office of Personnel Management describes a structured interview as one where "all responses are evaluated using the same rating scale" (OPM, Structured Interviews).

For a deeper bank on code and skills, use journeyman electrician interview questions and pick the residential ones.

06Run a ride-along as a working interview

A ride-along shows you in half a day what an interview can't: how he talks to a real customer and how he works a real problem.

Set it up so it's fair to him and safe for you:

1. Decide up front whether he works or watches. If he only rides and observes, keep it short. If he's going to touch anything in the customer's house, put him on payroll for the day.
2. Pay him if he works. Under the federal wage law, "work not requested but suffered or permitted to be performed is work time that must be paid for by the employer" (US DOL, Fact Sheet #22). A candidate doing real work on a paying job is working. State rules can be stricter, so check yours.
3. Cover him. Put him on payroll for the day so he's covered like any other employee, and talk to your workers' comp carrier before you put an unhired person in a customer's attic.
4. Pick two or three typical calls. A troubleshoot, a device or fixture swap, and a call where your electrician has to quote.
5. Score him on a sheet. Arrival and appearance, how he greets the homeowner, his troubleshooting order, how he explains what he found, how he'd present the options, and how he leaves the house.
6. Ask your service electrician one question after. "Would you want him on the truck next to you?"

If you want a bench test too, run a 30-minute skills test in the shop before the ride-along. It's cheaper to find out he can't troubleshoot a 3-way there than in someone's hallway.

07The first 30 days on your truck

The first month is when the pay plan, the price book and the software are all new to him. Plan it like this:

• Week 1: rides with your senior service electrician, learns the price book and software.
• Weeks 2 to 3: runs calls with your senior electrician watching, presents options himself.
• Week 4: runs his own calls, with a daily check-in on callbacks and tickets.

The full offer-to-day-90 list is in the new electrician onboarding checklist.

If you need licensed electricians in front of you before the busy season, apply here and we'll see if we can put 5 licensed electricians in front of you in 14 days.

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