Kasper Munkholm
Project Manager and Partner
How to assess a technical candidate: what isn't in the CV
A CV for a technical role shows titles, projects, systems and years. It rarely goes into detail about what the candidate actually did on the projects, how much responsibility they had and which parts of the work others handled. Assessing technical candidates is therefore mostly about what lies beneath the CV, and about asking the right questions to bring it out.
Table of contents
Read the CV as a series of tasks
Start with what the previous jobs involved before you look at the titles. A site manager from a power plant and a construction manager from a data centre have different titles, but many of the tasks can be the same. Conversely, two project engineers with the same title may have had completely different tasks.
So read the CV with your own tasks alongside it. Has the candidate handled tasks similar to those the role requires? And if not exactly the same, can what the candidate has done cover the need? The gap is often smaller than the titles suggest, and what’s missing can be learned on the job. We’ve written more about what a new hire can learn quickly in a separate article.
There are almost always gaps
Almost every technical CV has gaps that aren’t clearly described. It might be a project where the role is unclear, a system mentioned without context, or a period where it’s hard to see what the candidate was doing.
A gap in the CV is first and foremost something to ask about. A candidate who seems to lack something on paper may have the experience but not have written it down. And a candidate whose CV ticks every box may turn out to have had a smaller role than the wording suggests.
Ask specifically: when, how and in what context
General questions get general answers. Instead, ask about specific systems and tasks, and follow up with the same three questions: When did you use it, how did you use it, and in what context?
Examples of questions for an electrical or automation profile:
- Have you worked in Siemens TIA Portal, and what did you do in it?
- Have you set up a soft starter yourself, and from which manufacturer?
- Which software did you use for quality control on site, and what did you record in it?
- Who drew up the schedule on the project, and how did you follow up on it?
The answers show whether the candidate has done the work themselves or watched others do it. They also show how close the candidate’s experience is to yours. If the candidate has used a different program from yours, the relevant question is how quickly they can learn yours.
One line in the CV. Three questions.
CV
Siemens TIA Portal
- When?
- How?
- In what context?
What was the candidate's own role?
On large projects it’s easy to write yourself into a result you were only a small part of. It’s rarely deliberate, but it means you need to ask about the candidate’s own role:
- How many people were you responsible for, and who did you report to?
- Which decisions did you make yourself, and which were passed on to others?
- What didn't go to plan, and what did you do?
It works in the other direction too. We’ve had assignments to find electrical leads where the candidates hadn’t clearly described the responsibility they’d had. When we asked, it turned out they had more management experience than the CV suggested. Some candidates undersell themselves, and others do the opposite. Both call for someone to ask.
The CV doesn't show the whole picture
Undersells themselves
On paper
Electrician on a substation project
After the interview
Led a team of six electricians
Oversells themselves
On paper
Delivered the commissioning of a data centre
After the interview
Handled documentation for one system
What isn't technical
Technical experience isn’t the only thing that decides whether a hire succeeds. The candidate also needs to fit into the team and the company, and that’s just as important to clarify in the interview.
Language is a concrete example. We’ve seen a candidate who had worked abroad, but whose language skills still weren’t enough for the job he was to do. If the employee will be working with customers, suppliers or contractors in another language, hold part of the interview in that language.
How we assess technical candidates
Our recruitment consultant screens the candidates. When needed, one of our technical project managers takes an in-depth look at the candidate’s experience. Our project managers have themselves worked as electrical engineers, construction managers, HSE managers and service engineers, among other roles, and each covers their own field. They are the ones who can read what the previous jobs actually involved and where the gaps are.
With new clients, we often bring a technical colleague to the first meeting so the technical terms are in place before the search starts. That makes it easier to clarify the job requirements profile and which requirements must be met from day one. Read more about our technical recruitment.
Contact us
If you need help finding and assessing candidates for a technical role, we’re happy to talk. Read more about our technical recruitment or contact us directly.
FAQ
By reading the CV as a series of tasks and comparing them with the tasks the role requires. Then ask specifically about systems, responsibility and projects: when, how and in what context.
Ask about specific tasks rather than general skills. Ask the candidate to describe their own role on a project, which decisions they made themselves and what didn’t go as planned.
Follow up on each system or project with the questions: When, how and in what context? A candidate who has done the work themselves can usually answer in detail.
Not necessarily. If the candidate has worked with a similar system, what’s missing can often be learned quickly. The most important thing is whether the professional foundation is in place.
Someone who knows the tasks in practice, such as the future manager or an experienced colleague. That’s the person who can tell whether the answers to the technical questions hold up.
Because a CV is short, and because candidates differ in what they choose to include. Some describe their responsibility modestly, others broadly. The gaps are a starting point for questions in the interview.
