Interviewing for an electrical specialist role? You’ll need to demonstrate your technical expertise and experience to land the job. While every interview is unique there are several commonly asked electrical specialist interview questions you should prepare for.
In this article, we’ll cover examples of role-specific questions for electrical specialists and tips to help you give strong, compelling answers With the right preparation, you’ll feel confident and ready to ace your upcoming interview.
Common Electrical Specialist Interview Questions
Here are some of the most common interview questions for people looking to work as electrical specialists:
What’s your experience in construction/industrial/commercial setting?
The people who are hiring want to know how much experience you have as an electrician working in a variety of settings. When you answer, make sure to mention that you have experience working on construction sites, in factories, warehouses, commercial buildings, and any other relevant places. Discuss specific examples of projects and challenges faced in each type of environment.
What did you find most challenging during your apprenticeship?
This question tests your self-awareness and ability to reflect on your training. Select one key challenge from your apprenticeship and explain how you worked to overcome it. For example, maybe you initially struggled with accurately reading technical drawings or safely using heavy equipment. Demonstrate how you improved those skills through hands-on practice and mentorship from journeymen electricians.
What’s your experience troubleshooting a PLC?
People who are interviewing you for industrial electrician jobs especially want to know if you have worked with PLCs (programmable logic controllers). Talk about a time when you had to fix problems with a PLC system. Describe the steps you took to get the system working again and the methodical way you used to figure out what was wrong.
What’s the most necessary piece of PPE (personal protective equipment) for an electrician?
With this question, the interviewer wants to confirm you take safety seriously. Emphasize how you always wear appropriate, OSHA-approved PPE for every task without exception. Discuss how your go-to PPE includes insulated gloves, safety glasses, flame-resistant clothing, and electrical hazard boots as the bare minimum safety precautions.
Tips for Giving Strong Responses
While the technical questions will vary, these tips can help you formulate thoughtful, compelling responses:
1. Listen carefully. Make sure you understand what the interviewer is specifically asking before responding. It’s perfectly fine to ask for clarification or for them to repeat part of the question. You want to answer the actual question, not what you thought they asked.
2. Ask for a moment. Don’t feel rushed in your responses. If you need a brief pause to gather your thoughts before answering, just politely ask for a moment or a few seconds. Once you’ve formulated your ideas, you can then provide a confident answer.
3. Walk through examples. Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) when possible to provide specific examples that illustrate your skills and experience. Clearly yet concisely walk through real scenarios, challenges faced, actions you took, and results achieved.
4. Keep it positive. Even if discussing professional challenges, focus your responses on the lessons learned, knowledge gained, and how the experience ultimately made you a better electrician. Don’t badmouth previous employers.
5. Ask clarifying questions. If you need more context for a behavioral interview question, politely ask clarifying questions to gather the appropriate details before providing your complete response.
6. Relate your experience. Explain how your background and skills either directly or transferably qualify you for the electrical specialist role you’re applying for. Help the interviewer see how you would excel in the position.
7. Admit what you don’t know. It’s better to honestly say if there’s an area or skill where you lack experience rather than try to fake your way through an answer. Explain your eagerness to learn and pickup new skills on the job.
Questions to Ask the Interviewer
Towards the end of the interview, you’ll likely have an opportunity to ask the interviewer some questions. Prepare at least 2-3 thoughtful questions that demonstrate your interest in and understanding of the role. Here are some examples:
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What are the day-to-day responsibilities of this role?
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How does the electrical maintenance team interact with the production team?
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What are the opportunities for continuing education and training?
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What performance metrics are used to evaluate success in this role?
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What are some of the current projects the department is working on?
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What are the opportunities for advancement from this position?
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How would you describe the culture on the electrical team?
Set Yourself Up for Success
With the right preparation, you’ll be ready to take on any electrical specialist interview question confidently. Brush up on your technical knowledge, review the STAR method, and practice answering likely questions aloud. Polish your responses to communicate your skills and experience persuasively. You’ve got this!
Should you use structured or unstructured interviews to hire electricians?
There are several reasons using unstructured to hire electricians is a problematic option. Not only will it be hard to compare and contrast the electricians’ answers, but you might also make a choice that is affected by unconscious bias.
When you use unstructured interviews, it can be hard to keep track of all the candidates’ notes in a structured way. Then, when you need to look at your notes again, you’ll see that the unstructured method makes it harder to review candidates.
If you have unstructured interviews that feel like a casual chat, this can lead to unconscious bias that shows up in the hiring process. For these reasons, we recommend using structured interviews.
Structured interviews enable you to:
- Evaluate candidates’ knowledge and skills in a more objective way
- Easily compare candidates
- Get rid of hiring bias by skipping small talk and focusing on candidates’ answers.
- Enhance the fairness of the interview process
When used with skills tests, structured interviews make for a well-rounded, objective hiring process that makes it much easier to make the right hires.
Explain the properties of the red wire in electrical circuits.
What do your applicants know about the red wire in electrical circuits? It’s a secondary live wire that electricians use in 220-volt circuits. What do they know about how electricians connect red wires to each other and how they can be joined with black or other red wires?
