What to ask electrical applicants, and what you check
You and your HireBus team set these electrical questions during setup, and Iris asks them in each interview. Your lead electrician follows up on the answers:
- License. Ask whether they're an apprentice, journeyman or master, which state or city issued the license or registration, and whether it's current. You look it up with the issuing body before an offer.
- Service or install. Ask which residential and commercial jobs they've done, and which ones they ran alone.
- Troubleshooting. “Tell me about the last breaker that kept tripping. What did you check first?”
- A callback. Ask about a job they went back to fix and what they told the customer.
- Pay and on-call. Spell out the pay and the on-call rotation, and ask when they can start.
Electrical roles to hire for
- Service electrician. Has run residential service calls alone and can explain a fix to a homeowner.
- Apprentice. The training done so far, the work done under supervision and whether their registration is current.
- Lead electrician. Runs the job, trains apprentices and checks their work.
- CSR / dispatcher. Asks a caller the right questions and books the call with the right electrician.
Questions electrical owners ask
Can Iris verify an electrician's license?
No. Iris asks which electrical license or registration they hold and who issued it. You look it up with the issuing body before an offer.
Can we ask about commercial experience?
Yes. Name the kind of commercial work you do, then ask which parts they've worked on. Follow up on who supervised them and whether they read plans.
What should we say about the van?
Your actual policy: who provides the vehicle, whether it goes home at night and when a new hire gets one. Use the same terms in the ad, the Iris interview and the offer.
Founder & CEO of HireBus. Brandon took over his father's window cleaning business in 2012 and grew it past seventy employees in six seasons. He founded HireBus in Denver in 2021 with Rick Breden, PhD, an industrial and organizational psychologist. Read our story.
