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Wednesday, October 16, 2019
A Test for Assessing Skill Levels of Carpenter Job Candidates
Remodeling: At Nuss Construction Co., in Marlton, N.J., carpenter and lead carpenter candidates take this test because, as president Tammy Herbert points out, “Anyone can interview ... and say they can do this, but how do you know their skill level?”
I have often wondered if any companies have tests or practical evaluations for the carpenters they hire. It would make sense to me for theaters to implement something like this too. You might be able to tell if someone is going to be a good employee based off of their applications but what about their actual skill sets? For jobs like carpentry, it can be hard to have a comprehensive portfolio that adequately showcases ones skillset, so it is hard to fully represent their ability on paper. For people who work in props or other fields it might be easier because there are much more tangible things you can photograph to show to future employers later on. It would be rather funny to see a portfolio for a scenic carpenter that just contained images of flats and platforms. Our summer stock this season struggled with this quite a bit. They hired a scene shop full of really great, young people who were enthusiastic and good workers, but they lacked the skills and experience to work at the capacity that the shop really needed to be running at. They lost a lot of time to errors and training their people on how to build certain things. I think a practical like this might take out some of the unknowability of the job hiring process when it comes to jobs like this.
This is a very interesting idea and I’ve never heard of anything like it. It seems like such an obvious way to test someone’s ability to complete a task. Getting into Carnegie Mellon was an interview process like this and I’m sure there were specific things that the faculty look for. My guess is one of those things is good personality traits, like teamwork. The only way to really test teamwork would be by having a team of people face a challenge. Having the interview also involve some sort of teamwork exercise, like an escape room for example, might lead to being able to find out who works well with others and who doesn’t. I also wonder if this type of technique is employed in any other industries to weed out the people who would be a good fit for the job. I can imagine the interview process for many things in the future change to be similar to this.
This is very clever and a very simple way for evaluating a candidate. I know several companies do things such as personality tests to see how best you’ll fit with the teams. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it to be a thing for theater as well. I think it might be important when giving candidates this test to inform them that their answers will not be the only piece factored into them being offered a position, but may help the company place them into a position that matches them best. I could see a more basic version of this being implemented for theater shops, but would worry that a too detailed test would be intimidating and also would be hard for say a Props Master to write in a way that could be fully comprehensive. It might just be an understanding that it’s not an official test but a “you say you can do this, can you do it on a small scale with these tools as I watch” thing and also a “you’ve listed this special skill as something you can do, can you speak through the whole process from start to finish with me?”
This is an interesting idea. I think tests and such are valid and should be used for hiring applicants. Something to me can feel off. It may be that my dad, who has worked in carpentry his entire life, does not speak English very well. His writing, both in English and in Spanish, is also not so good. Does this bar him from working at this type of place? I would think that this company and others would have open minds and have different language tests, but even then, some people do not do well with written exams. Especially for this type of work, is not the physical work more important than the written, if you are just hiring someone to do carpentry? This is all personal appeal, so my argument may not be sound, I just think some thought would need to be put in for people who struggle with a language barrier.
Having this type of questionnaire is certainly helpful as the article when it comes to "weeding people out". In the same way that this application focuses on local codes and standards, a theatrical application could focus on terminology and methods that we use in theatre (that are often VERY different from framing or finish carpentry). Additionally, since theatrical carpenters are often expected to have other skills such as welding, rigging, and experience in other technical disciplines, these could be used to evaluate how someone would fit into the team given their strengths and weaknesses. As the article points out, it isn't often a black & white issue, and in our industry there could be more of a 'myers briggs' analysis of the applicant pool. Even in the PTM office, everyone brings their strengths to the table, and having all of us in a room to collaborate and combine those strengths to tackle a project is better than having a group of like-minded TDs. I would be curious to see this developed and implemented into a theatrical setting and even more so as a way to evaluate incoming students.
Like most of my classmates above, I think this is a good idea to put to practice. Especially in summer companies when the interns are a mix of kids fresh out of highschool and underclassmen. Like the article says, anyone can “say” they know how to do something, but the tests provides proof. After the hiring process they could run a ‘diagnostic’ test to understand the skillsets of the group, or to evaluate if there are different mentalities towards certain types of build, since sometimes schools would teach things differently. I believe it would be useful for the crewhead to know where the interns are in knowledge. This can be used to develop staffing strategies, build assignments. To know where they need to pay more attention. Usually close to the end of the season, the TD knows their staffs strengths and weaknesses, but it would be really handy to have data at the beginning of the season to help with work flow.
6 comments:
I have often wondered if any companies have tests or practical evaluations for the carpenters they hire. It would make sense to me for theaters to implement something like this too. You might be able to tell if someone is going to be a good employee based off of their applications but what about their actual skill sets? For jobs like carpentry, it can be hard to have a comprehensive portfolio that adequately showcases ones skillset, so it is hard to fully represent their ability on paper. For people who work in props or other fields it might be easier because there are much more tangible things you can photograph to show to future employers later on. It would be rather funny to see a portfolio for a scenic carpenter that just contained images of flats and platforms. Our summer stock this season struggled with this quite a bit. They hired a scene shop full of really great, young people who were enthusiastic and good workers, but they lacked the skills and experience to work at the capacity that the shop really needed to be running at. They lost a lot of time to errors and training their people on how to build certain things. I think a practical like this might take out some of the unknowability of the job hiring process when it comes to jobs like this.
This is a very interesting idea and I’ve never heard of anything like it. It seems like such an obvious way to test someone’s ability to complete a task. Getting into Carnegie Mellon was an interview process like this and I’m sure there were specific things that the faculty look for. My guess is one of those things is good personality traits, like teamwork. The only way to really test teamwork would be by having a team of people face a challenge. Having the interview also involve some sort of teamwork exercise, like an escape room for example, might lead to being able to find out who works well with others and who doesn’t. I also wonder if this type of technique is employed in any other industries to weed out the people who would be a good fit for the job. I can imagine the interview process for many things in the future change to be similar to this.
This is very clever and a very simple way for evaluating a candidate. I know several companies do things such as personality tests to see how best you’ll fit with the teams. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it to be a thing for theater as well. I think it might be important when giving candidates this test to inform them that their answers will not be the only piece factored into them being offered a position, but may help the company place them into a position that matches them best. I could see a more basic version of this being implemented for theater shops, but would worry that a too detailed test would be intimidating and also would be hard for say a Props Master to write in a way that could be fully comprehensive. It might just be an understanding that it’s not an official test but a “you say you can do this, can you do it on a small scale with these tools as I watch” thing and also a “you’ve listed this special skill as something you can do, can you speak through the whole process from start to finish with me?”
This is an interesting idea. I think tests and such are valid and should be used for hiring applicants. Something to me can feel off. It may be that my dad, who has worked in carpentry his entire life, does not speak English very well. His writing, both in English and in Spanish, is also not so good. Does this bar him from working at this type of place? I would think that this company and others would have open minds and have different language tests, but even then, some people do not do well with written exams. Especially for this type of work, is not the physical work more important than the written, if you are just hiring someone to do carpentry? This is all personal appeal, so my argument may not be sound, I just think some thought would need to be put in for people who struggle with a language barrier.
Having this type of questionnaire is certainly helpful as the article when it comes to "weeding people out". In the same way that this application focuses on local codes and standards, a theatrical application could focus on terminology and methods that we use in theatre (that are often VERY different from framing or finish carpentry). Additionally, since theatrical carpenters are often expected to have other skills such as welding, rigging, and experience in other technical disciplines, these could be used to evaluate how someone would fit into the team given their strengths and weaknesses. As the article points out, it isn't often a black & white issue, and in our industry there could be more of a 'myers briggs' analysis of the applicant pool. Even in the PTM office, everyone brings their strengths to the table, and having all of us in a room to collaborate and combine those strengths to tackle a project is better than having a group of like-minded TDs. I would be curious to see this developed and implemented into a theatrical setting and even more so as a way to evaluate incoming students.
Like most of my classmates above, I think this is a good idea to put to practice. Especially in summer companies when the interns are a mix of kids fresh out of highschool and underclassmen. Like the article says, anyone can “say” they know how to do something, but the tests provides proof. After the hiring process they could run a ‘diagnostic’ test to understand the skillsets of the group, or to evaluate if there are different mentalities towards certain types of build, since sometimes schools would teach things differently. I believe it would be useful for the crewhead to know where the interns are in knowledge. This can be used to develop staffing strategies, build assignments. To know where they need to pay more attention. Usually close to the end of the season, the TD knows their staffs strengths and weaknesses, but it would be really handy to have data at the beginning of the season to help with work flow.
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