ExamopotamiaWhy test electricians before you hire?
Trade cards and qualifications vary between countries, and CVs rarely show whether someone actually tests before touching. Contractors, facilities teams and agencies hiring electricians, maintenance technicians or apprentices need a quick way to confirm the safety basics and the core theory behind them. That matters most for people who will work alone or unsupervised from the first week. A short test does that before you spend time on a practical assessment or a site trial. Practical tests take a supervisor's time and materials, so filtering first means those hours go to people who already understand why isolation is never skipped.
What this template covers
- Safe isolation: lock-out/tag-out, testing dead and proving the tester.
- Protective devices: what RCDs, breakers and fuses protect against.
- Earthing: why the protective conductor matters in a fault.
- Basic theory: Ohm's law, power and resistors in parallel, with the working shown.
- Emergency response: what to do when someone is receiving a shock.
How to run it well
Twelve questions in 15–20 minutes is fair, allowing time for the calculations. Candidates may want a calculator, so say whether one is allowed. Set the pass mark at 75% for qualified electricians, and treat the isolation questions as essential: a wrong answer on testing before touching should be followed up whatever the total score. Shuffle questions and options as usual.
The pack is mostly single-choice questions, with a select-all on safe isolation steps, a true/false on testing and one short-answer resistance calculation. In the results, compare the theory and safety sections. Someone who gets the maths right but the isolation questions wrong is a bigger risk than the reverse. Theory gaps can be taught on the job; a casual attitude to testing dead is much harder to change.
Who this test is for
Use it for electricians, maintenance and facilities technicians, electrical apprentices, solar and EV charger installers, and multi-skilled engineers. It covers principles only, not any country's wiring regulations, so it suits international recruitment and agencies supplying trades to several regions.
Make it yours
Add questions on the wiring rules, cable sizing tables and test procedures that apply where you work, along with your company's permit-to-work system. You can also add photos of installations and ask what is wrong. Use the AI generator to draft more calculation questions, and check the numbers before you publish them.