How to hire competent operators

Hiring competent workforce can be a real challenge for any company. They often see this as a pain and the HR finds this to be the most challenging task out of the many activities they conduct on a daily basis. It is simply not possible for any human being to judge another person by having a 15 minute talk. You may not know if the person knows about the subject that the company wants him to work on or for that matter how the person will be facing once he is hired. If the job demands a person who can work under pressure, it is virtually not possible for an HR to identify the person who can indeed work under pressure and still deliver results. But when the company needs human resource, the HR team has to get into this work of hiring men/women and they have to ensure that they pick the right guys/gals from the lot that come for the interview.

The construction industry is a highly competitive business and here the impact of hiring a wrong candidate can prove to be really costly to the company. The HR of the company does understand the seriousness of the business and this is the reason why they take utter precaution while hiring for important positions. They conduct levels of interview with the same person in order to judge the kind of person he/she is. The different levels of interviews are held by different people and then their view on the interviewee is collated and a decision is finally taken if they all agree to hire him or not.

Hiring an operator becomes more challenging because here the person interviewing the candidate should have little technical knowledge about heavy equipment and how it works. So firstly, the ground level HR can interview him by checking his credentials and qualifications. If the HR finds him to be apt then he goes to the next round where he is interviewed by guys with sound technical knowledge.

Asking the right question is important:-

When you are hiring an operator, you can’t ask him questions that are relevant to a mechanic. You should be checking with him the different types of heavy equipment that he/she has worked on and the models. On the basis of his answer, you should be putting forth your next question. He may not be able to answer a question that does not fall within his domain and therefore asking the right question is important.

Check his skills on the machine:-

When you are hiring heavy equipment operator, you should make it a point to check his skills on the machine. You can provide him with construction equipment and give him a task to complete. The task should not be a complex one as you are only checking his skill and not trying to get a part of the work done. You need to see how well he can maneuver and how smooth he is on the machine. If the operator is really good on it, you can hire him.