How can a Human Resources person 'interview' a candidate for an engineering position when the HR person is NOT an engineer?

Engineer is also a human being who requires to have certain soft skills and personal attributes in order to work harmoniously while interacting with other fellow colleagues... team management, flexibility, adaptability, attention to details..... all these behavioral patterns or competencies are checked during an HR interview.... If the candidate is found as a good fit with soft skills, they will be further shortlisted for a technical interview with the department head.....however HR do ask briefly about their engineering experience too that are based on job descriptions. HR gets a good brief from Engineering department head also about what sort of candidates the department is looking for in terms of experience and soft skills.... Hence to answer the question, a good HR is well equipped with everything what they are doing...

There is always a subject expert available to help HR.

Employ the expertise of a technical personnel

The HR never evaluate an engineer, if so there is something wrong

HR person who is not an engineer can only judge or interviewed the engineer of his soft skills, personal attributes related to team management, flexibility, adaptability, behavioral patterns and competencies during an HR interview.

 

 

A technical aspect or acumen of an engineer should be interviewed and shortlisted by technical department only. 

He can ask about communication skills & leadership 

The hiring process is the process of reviewing applications, selecting the right candidates to interview, testing candidates, choosing between candidates to make the hiring decision and performing various pre-employment tests and checks.

During the hiring process, a human resources manager will use the following steps to determine the best possible fit for the job:

1. Review job applications
2. Test candidates
3. Interview selected candidates
4. Choose candidates based on pre-determined selection criteria
5. Perform background and reference checks
6. Send selected candidates for a health check

The HR personnel most times is supposed to have bits by bits knowledge of most fields of human endeavours. But it is always advisable for the HR person to work hand in hand with an expert in that field.

In the event that the engineering fields are not available or understood, he must check the self-confidence, as well as the way to answer the questions and the explanation

In most cases, HR people conduct initial interview and judge on a few things before they shortlist the candidate for an interview with relevant discipline manager. For example, an HR personnel would be more interested in soft skills and behavioural aspects. Though HR people are not engineering qualified, however they are aware of the job descriptions and well prepared. They just briefly touch the technical aspect of the interview to discover whether the candidate is eligible for the position. For instance, whether the candidate has got relevant work experience as per requirements.

Well definitely the HR person doesn't not possess the technical competency here and he is not even supposed to evaluate the technical aspects of the job , this aspect of the hiring has to be delegated to the hiring manager or the interview panel or the person with the technical competency in the subject.

 

I think in this scenario having a well drafted job description , selection criteria and an understanding the organization climate/culture is extremely significant.HR shortlists people with the pre-defined criteria that has been set prior the start of recruitment activities. Hence when you have a shortlisted person sitting right in front of you the job of HR becomes to find the right personality with the right personality traits to fit into the organization culture.