How do you gage an interviewee

Pick a few of your typical parts. Try to create the model from the detail and time how long it takes. Do this with your "best" and "worst" IV users.

Now have the candidate try to create the models. Inspect them for proper dimensions and general "correctness". Did the person base features off other features. Is everything full constrained. Did they take 5 steps when only 1 was necessary.

Based on a combination of these items you'll probably get a good idea of how well they know the software.

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Sean Dotson, PE
RND Automation & Engineering
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Thanks for the advice.

I didn

Absolutely. When I interview engineers and designers I ALWAYS have them demonstrate their skills. If they take issue with this then they do not need to be part of our organization.

For engineers I have a quiz that asks simple things such as gear ratios, shear stress, torque calculations... real basic stuff. You'd be amazed at how many cannot even begin to answer the questions.

A bit of time before hand can save you TONS of time after the fact. Don't be afraid of making people prove themselves.

Just make sure they know the interview will contain this and have them plan enough time.

_________________
Sean Dotson, PE
RND Automation & Engineering
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I don't know how practical this would be to set up, but based on my experience training (and retraining) raw beginners, experienced faculty and experienced industry users I would set up a half hour training type session as part of the interview.
I have met a lot of people who present very well (first impression) have good credentials on paper (say 2.5 years Inventor, MDT, or SolidWorks experience) but when they take a Level 2 (or even Level 1) class with me I discover they don't really have a clue how to use a 3D modeler, and worse if I introduce something new in a monkey-see, monkey-do fashion they cannot begin to even reproduce what I am showing them.
In thirty minutes of - I'm doing this you follow my lead and do this - the trainable individuals are quickley identified. My experience is the people who can follow directions in uncharted waters are also the ones who can figure it out on their own.

Not sure if this is of any help or not, but I am I guess what you would call an inventor "newbie". I have only been using inventor for about a year or so now.

My first experience with inventor was with my current company. The company was looking for an experienced drafter with solid modeling skills. Now I must admit, I had no previous solid modeling skills, however in the past I had used modeling software ( maya, 3dsmax ).

At the end of my interview they sat me down in front of inventor with a drawing and said make a model and a simple drawing with dimensions. They gave me an hr time limit ( for a very basic part ) and told me when I was finished to save it to the hard drive. Not knowing anything about the program, I dived into the help files for 15 minutes to learn basic functions and overall workflow, at which point I began modelling. 15 minutes later the part and drawing were done. After I was finished they had told me they were going to review what I had done and would call me a few days later. I eventually recieved the call and got the job.

Anyway, shortly after I came aboard I was asked to start using Inventor and come up with a library and deploy vault. Inventor was very easy for me to grasp and within 3 months I had learned almost everything about the program. 6 months into it I was deploying vault and the library was taking shape. Now almost a year later I have everything running smoothly, I am training the engineers, I have created 4 machines totally in inventor with roughly 700 parts each and I have created tons of Iparts and Ifeatures, for company use.

So I guess what I am trying to get at is that depending on the person, they may easily adapt to inventor, even with no prior knowledge.

IMO the best way to judge whether or not a candidate could adapt easily would be to either take jdmathers approach, or sit them down in front of the program, give them a time limit and then see what they can come up with.

However, If your looking for someone who is an experienced pro in inventor and absolutely correct models are your concern then Id take seans advice.

Anyway, hope this helps, and gl on the interviewing....

Absolutely test the interviewees!,

In my last job, we would interview designers if they had pro-e, MDT or Inventor listed on the resumes (a few AutoCAD Only & SWs also). I had a laptop with all but the SW programs on it and we would give the following test. (All candidates got the same test sketch)

I would hand them a napkin sketch of a VERY simple square gasket w/ 8 holes (in the 4 corners & @ the mid of each side). The thk was not defined, and the location of the holes was not defined. I would wait to see if they asked for the missing dims or not. If asked, I give the missing info. This model should be able to be produced by sketching a square(outer profile), offsetting the sq(inner profile), offsetting the sq (hole locations). One extrusion for the solid & one- (8) hole feature (set at the vertices & midpoints.)

When checking the models, I always looked to see how the sketch was constrained (if it was) Did they use lots of individual numeric dimensions or geometric constraints? Did they center the object around the origins? Ground it?

Done with the least dims possible, there would only be 2 showing on the sketch (1 for original sq& 1 for the offset sq) AND the sketch will be black (fully constrained)

You would be shocked by the number of supposedly experienced candidates who could not produce either a 2d or 3d model/drawing of the above description even when given thier choice of software to produce it in. Some could produce it but with alot of extra steps & features and in 4 years, I did not have a single candidate that either: worked centered around the origins or had a fully constrained sketch before extrusion.

I then asked them to dimension this object in a drawing (providing them with a functional idw to work from to see if they have any understanding of basic drafting practices & dimensioning styles. Then I gave them two dimensioned drawings of the same model one w/ ordinate dims & one with linear (chained) and ask them what the resulting tolerance differences are in using the two (resulting hole spacing & location min & max). Again, most do not seem to get how much difference it can make what type of dimension is used.

A resume can look great & the candidate may actually believe they are representing themselves accurately, but most schools don't teach drafting anymore. They teach software use and when you learn the software, you are not very often taught how to apply the tools available in it.

Having a license to drive a car and having driven for years does not always ensure that you are a good driver.... Always test the candidates.

Good Luck

Sue

ZI totally agree with u... I had an inventor course with my friends at the same place... The course teached us how to use the prog not how to draft... After the course they made a big mistake by leaving hand sketching... The result that this year in the Design course at the university they could not create 'real' construction drawings...
Programs are just tools to describe your thoughts...

Btw when I went to hv a training I was asked to do what SeanDotson said and i succeeded

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One day I will move from my shadow to your sun

Do you still test if the applicant is certified? For example if the applicant is a PE, and an AICE would you test their knowledge in Inventor and general engineering skills given that the applicant has proven his skills in these subject areas?

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Matt Russell
Mechanical Engineer
P&G
www.pg.com

Yes. I know someone who has won a contest and could participate the AICE test for free...

...he passed the test, but he still didn't have any solid knowledge of certain basic functionality of Inventor.

Always test the applicant.

I would agree to always test.
there are still some guys out there who missed out on the computer age(believe it or not) and are pc illiterate.
my brother asked me to help with ms word. he was saving his files to the desktop. I asked him about windows explorer and file directories and got a blank stare. I then walked away.

senior engineers might have been in management jobs with secretaries and juniors doing the work. they tend to get rusty and lose most of their engineering skills.

so by all means a quick quiz on engineering basics plus doing an actual design , modeling it and drawing it are essential, espesially in a small firm. in a big firm they can ask for help and try and hide their inabilities.

over here the eng institutes are now insisting that all practising engineers engage in continuous on job training to keep up their skills, ie attending seminars, training etc.

the other thing is the ability to visualize in 3d. some people have it and some dont. make them do quick perspective hand sketches of simple opjects from plans and also the other way.

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Frans X LIebenberg
Structural Engineer
Cape Town, South Africa