Ten HR Questions for Welding Engineer Candidates

One of the common Welding Engineering searches online by HR or staffing professionals is looking for questions to ask Welding Engineering candidates.  Since such searches turn up little information, I’ve offered these ten questions for staffing professionals in HR roles to ask a Welding Engineer or Materials Joining Engineer:

1. How did you become a Welding Engineer?  (This seems overly basic, but since ~70% of titled “welding engineer” positions have little or no training in the field, this is a vitally important question.)
2. Which welding processes have you had formal training in?
3. Which welding processes are you comfortable with?
4. What materials have you commonly welded?
5. What material thickness ranges have you worked with?
6. Can you describe the types of welding training that you have conducted personally?
7. What degrees or certifications have you received?
8. Can you give me an example of how you’ve saved a company money, or increased profitability in welding operations?
9. What do you see as the broad responsibilities of a welding engineering role in our industry?
10. What could you do for us that most welding engineers can’t?

Bonus questions for experienced welding engineering candidates:

• Based on your training, skills and experience, how comfortable are you in structuring and executing world class welding in an automated welding environment?
• Based on your training, skills and experience, how comfortable are you in structuring and executing world class welding in a manual welding environment?

Keep in mind that some questions may not be as applicable in some companies – you might ask an engineer for help in selecting or modifying the best questions. But in general, these are great questions.  Sadly, questions like these are often a competitive advantage. Why?  Companies interviewing for these positions are selling their expertise at manufacturing complex welded assemblies, but don’t even know that describes their core business competency needs. So these questions are a plus to qualified candidates, who will get the impression that your company at least has a clue about the need and value of welding engineering.