Hire electrical project managers

Project size, phase, and responsibility

State the project types, approximate size, current phase, and number of jobs the manager will carry. Include the field leaders and office support already assigned. Managing one large installation with a superintendent differs from running several small jobs with shared crews.

Tell applicants whether estimating, purchasing, billing preparation, and customer meetings are part of the job. Identify the decisions they can make and those that need the owner or operations manager. A project-manager title doesn't establish those arrangements.

Field changes and their cost

Ask about a field change from one of the candidate's projects. What triggered it? How did they establish the work and cost, obtain a decision, and tell the foreman what to do?

Follow the change through the records. When did the schedule and forecast reflect it? What happened if the customer hadn't approved it yet? Listen for the actual process, people, and documents rather than “I stayed on top of change orders.”

Use fictional project information for an exercise. A current employer's pricing or customer files aren't needed to assess how the candidate thinks.

Weekly reviews with the foreman

Ask what information they want before the weekly job review. Discuss completed work, labor used, material status, unanswered drawing questions, and upcoming areas. How do they investigate a job that's using hours without finishing the planned work?

Have them describe a material delivery that threatened the schedule. What alternatives were considered, who made the decision, and how did the field plan change? Ask how they informed the customer without promising a date they couldn't support.

For data-center construction, include the commissioning and handover milestones this manager will coordinate.

Closeout, billing, and warranty handover

Ask about a job that was substantially installed but slow to close. What held it up? How did they assign the punch list, gather records, arrange final reviews, and track the remaining commercial work?

State your company's responsibilities for billing preparation, collections follow-up, and warranty handover. If you need the manager to own these tasks, include them in the job and give them access to the necessary information.

Authority, support, and compensation

Include reporting line, project portfolio, field and office support, decision authority, software actually used, travel, hours, pay range, benefits, and any confirmed incentive terms. Describe the electrical experience and qualifications your work requires.

Post the electrical project-manager opening. For crew leadership, use foremen and superintendents. For bid work, see electrical estimators.