new draugtsman

[chrisdarmanin]

any exercises to determine if a draughtsman is competent on autocad?

[ReMark]

Can't you just give the person a drawing you have done and see how he/she approaches it?

[tzframpton]

any exercises to determine if a draughtsman is competent on autocad?

f700es has a good method on this. Basically, it was along the lines of this:

 

Take some examples of existing jobs. Create some DWG's where things are out of place, missing, or in need of some type of AutoCAD function to complete. It can be as simple as "Move this object to X=10, Y=25 and rotate it 30°". Or it can be something complex that is very specific to the job position. I would think tasks should be between 1-5 minutes to complete, based off level of difficulty and user competence. Throw the person in front of the computer hooked to a projector in a conference room or something.

 

This is along the lines of what I'd do. Only you know what your office needs, and what is required to complete the type of work you guys do. So taking existing jobs, stripping it down to a handful of "tasks" that range from simple to complex, would be best.

[ReMark]

Along the same lines tell the person what you want accomplished in a specific task and first ask them to verbally describe how they would go about doing it and then have them actually do it. You'd be surprised how much of a disconnect there is at times between the "explaining" and the "doing".

[chrisdarmanin]

i like both!! thanks

[Organic]

I've got CAD tests although I'm not a huge fan of them.

 

In my opinion what you should hire on is attitude. Everything else can be taught if required. A good attitude cannot be taught though.

 

Focus more on the person and not as much on the skills.

[RobDraw]

Hiring someone that does not have the skills for the job may not be an option. Therefore, any potential employees MUST prove some technical aptitude and a well designed test will do just that. The test should not be about solving difficult problems but more to establish a basic knowledge and ability to follow direction and standards. The best ones have questions designed into them that are not directly stated. Put something simple in your test file that is wrong, like a wall on the wrong layer or text that is the wrong height. It is very important to make the test fairly easy. The interview process in itself can be stressful and trying to determine extent of skills at that time can be misleading. So, keep it simple, like stuff that is done on a daily basis.