What are you really looking for?

How do you hire a quality apartment maintenance person if you don't know anything about apartment maintenance? You can't. Please don't be too embarrassed to comment because of this lack of knowledge. Sales people are hired for the position of apartment management. It is not reasonable to expect a sales person to have an understanding of repair and maintenance. This is just the way the system works. You are not to blame for anything. I would be very interested to hear what you have to say.

What happens if you were to hire a completely incompetent tech? Nothing…. Let me explain that. The owner(s) of the property are not interested in running the place or they wouldn't have hired your third party management company in the first place. The owner(s) is only interested in the bottom line. Will hiring a Bozo affect the bottom line? Yes, but not immediately, it may take years. The tenants will be unhappy, the property will degrade, and you'll spend more on vendors than necessary. None of that will be linked to the Bozo because you don't know what he/she is doing so it doesn't matter if he/she does or not. The owners never see the Bozo so it's running around making silicon and duct tape repairs until he/she gets tenure in his/her position, and the tenants probably love him/her. Five years later the place is unlivable and the manager thinks it has something to do with advertising because, sales is what they do.

That is my reasoning so far based on countless interviews with manager's who (some by their own admission) don't know anything about apartment maintenance. Therefore, my question is, "What are you really looking for in an interview with a would-be new hire?"

Inquiring minds and out of work maintenance guys would really like to know.

Won't someone please reply? The next time I walk into a rental office to be interviewed by some woman who doesn't know a pipe wrench from a pile of poo, I'd like to be a little fore-armed.

Hi Perry,

It's an interesting question. I know a bit about maintenance, but not enough to truly qualify a tech. My philosophy has been to not reinvent the wheel, and to tap our seasoned techs from sister properties or our maintenance director for assistance in crafting up an interview.

I've seen some of our communities use testing, either on paper or with mock-ups (a personal favorite was a turn apartment that the maintenance supervisor basically set up for a service call with all the common issues: clogged toilet, dripping faucets, jammed disposal, heater wasn't working, etc). In each of the interviews, he asked the prospective tech to bring his toolbag for an aptitude test: answer the service call.

Would I go so far as to do that? I don't know. But it would be a good method.

Hi Jay:

Thank you so much for responding. I admire you're courage in admitting that your knowledge might be understandably limited and perhaps you might not have the background to "truly qualify a tech." In this day and age it is difficult to find anyone who will admit that they "Don't know." Hats off to you.

Using an incumbent tech couldn't hurt, but there is always the question "Does he/she actually know what they're doing?" After all, someone who probably couldn't "truly qualify a tech" hired him/her.
I was hired for my first maintenance job because I was the only one of the applicants who passed the UA. Skill assessment test... the ones I've taken seem to be very dated with questions about 110V circuits and refrigeration. The first refrigeration question should be "are you EPA 608 licensed to work with refrigerants?" and that has been since 1994. Another problem with the test is regional dialects and trade jargon. For example: A "ballcock" is a very specific type of toilet float valve. They haven't been popular in about 20 years so this might puzzle a younger tech despite having replaced a thousand float valves.

The original question remains. What would you look for, with the information you currently have, when interviewing a potential maintenance tech? Please anybody, jump in.

Hi Perry,

I was working on something similar when I saw your post. Personally, I would prepare 10 questions and ask 5-7 of those at the interview, even if you don't get the exact answer you were looking for at least you will get the idea of his personality.

1-Tell me a little about yourself.
2-What types of maintenance are you qualified to perform?
3-Describe a situation when you did not know what to do at all.
4-What are some major repairings you have done in the past?
5-How do you handle stressful situations?
6-What types of general maintenance or repairs are you most familiar with?
7-What role do you generally like to take in team projects?
8-Why do you consider yourself a team player?
9-How do you deal with problems when you can't seem to find the right solution?
10- Describe a time you were faced with stresses which tested your coping skills?

Jade, thank you for responding.

Good questions all but my question is: "What are the answers you want?"
I want the job so I if I can I'm going to tell you what you want to hear without being untruthful. Perhaps if I answer these questions you could tell me what I'm doing wrong.

1-Tell me a little about yourself.
Answer: I'm old and bald. (usually gets a laugh)

2-What types of maintenance are you qualified to perform?
Answer: Pretty much, you name it and I can do it.

3-Describe a situation when you did not know what to do at all.
Answer: About six months ago in an interview for an apartment maintenance position the interviewer asked me how I would weigh an airplane without a scale.

4-What are some major repairings you have done in the past?
Answer: A programming student hired me to take the memory leaks out of a project he had written.
I would pick that because you used the word "Major." As a maintenance person you don't get to make "Major" repairs. It's usually not legal.

5-How do you handle stressful situations?
Answer: I don't experience stress, not as most people do anyway.

6-What types of general maintenance or repairs are you most familiar with?
Answer: Fine wood working.

7-What role do you generally like to take in team projects?
Answer: I generally am not involved in team projects. More than one maintenance person on the same job will trip over each other. Unless it's a safety issue such as using tall ladders.

8-Why do you consider yourself a team player?
Answer: I can and will follow directions exactly, unless it something outside the law. That's how they got Nazis, they were great team players.

9-How do you deal with problems when you can't seem to find the right solution?
Answer: Research, experimentation, and if no solution, appeal to experts.

10- Describe a time you were faced with stresses which tested your coping skills?
Answer: I had just turned 18, and was still in high school and one of the teachers in my humanities class just started yelling and calling me horrible names and the like. I was overwhelmed. I just broke down from the unexpected brow beating delivered for no apparent reason. That was the last time my copings skills were tested, I've grown up a lot in the last 40 years. I cope well.

Perry,

Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions. You asked for an honest opinion and I will give you mine, first, there is no right or wrong answer to these questions but I do expect your answers to have something to do with your work history in order to get to know you as a professional and see if you would be a good fit for the role. From what what I read on most of your responses I got a sense of negativity....maybe? Let me explain, generally when you are asked by the interviewer "Tell me a little about yourself" it usually refers to "Walk me trough your background", I have seen candidates ramble on about hobbies and personal preferences many times and it's a surefire way to make a weak first impression. Instead try concise, enthusiastic response that summarizes your big-picture fit for the job.
On the second question I am looking for specific scenarios of things you have actually fixed in the past, answering "Pretty much, you name it and I can do it" sounds too vague.

On the third question, I am looking for an answer that has to do with your previous job experiences and not interview experiences, also don't assume it's ok to discuss your previous interview experience with the person interviewing you, remember to always stay on point with answers that relate to your previous work history.

On the fourth question I am looking for a sense of what you are skills are and your reply was "A programming student hired me to take the memory leaks out of a project he had written. I would pick that because you used the word "Major." As a maintenance person you don't get to make "Major" repairs. It's usually not legal. " A better answer would be something like "I spent a whole week making major repairs on a unit that was torn apart by tenants and I used x and x skills to bring the unit back to pristine condition." Don't take every word figuratively.

Make your answers more relevant to your work history and you are guaranteed to Ace any interview.

Jade:

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Very useful and to the point information! Very helpful! That's a real eye-opener, I should have seen it before of course, the sub-text to all the questions is "as it relates to this position." That only makes sense. I'm so literally minded that if you ask me "Do you see the glass as half full or half empty?" I'm going to say "Yes." Let me try these questions again with this in mind...

1-Tell me a little about yourself.
Answer: As a child I worked in the family business of Antique furniture restoration which finally led me to open a business in that field which folded in 1986. I then went on to... etc.

2-What types of maintenance are you qualified to perform?
Answer: Plumbing, electrical, drywall, refrigeration (although not currently licensed), framing, finish carpentry, painting including clear finishes and stripping paint....

3-Describe a situation when you did not know what to do at all.
Answer: Within the context of apartment maintenance, I'm pretty hard to stump.

4-What are some major repairings you have done in the past?
Answer: I'm not sure what you mean by "Major" but I once had a complaint of water around a toilet which turned out to be a plumbing leak inside a wall. After I removed the base boards and cut away the drywall I was able to see that the 2" galvanized DWV pipe had rotted out the bottom. After removing cripples to access the pipe better, I used a reciprocating saw to cut the pipe and removed it back to the last union. I replaced it with the recommended rubber coupling, a piece of threaded galvanized transitioning to ABS. After checking for leaks, I patched, sanded, replaced the baseboard and painted the entire wall. Then I reported to my supervisor that in all probability the plumbing in the entire building was in about the same shape.

5-How do you handle stressful situations?
Answer: I don't really have stress. I don't see the point in getting emotional about things.

6-What types of general maintenance or repairs are you most familiar with?
Answer: Fine wood-working.

7-What role do you generally like to take in team projects?
Answer: I do not agree with the concept of a maintenance "Team" in a maintenance situation. There is no need to consult or argue if you're working alone and an outside observer can more easily detect a weakness or need for improvement.

8-Why do you consider yourself a team player?
Answer: I can and do interact well with others when necessary. My greatest strength is probably that I can accept that someone else has a good idea.

9-How do you deal with problems when you can't seem to find the right solution?
Answer: Question my base assumptions, research, reason, appeal to authority. In that order.

10- Describe a time you were faced with stresses which tested your coping skills?
Answer: My immediate supervisor was fired with just cause. I had been through three managers at the same job. The previous two managers and one assistant had left in disgrace. I was left as the sole maintenance person. This went on for three weeks during which I didn't have a complete day off. The pool had to be cleaned every day because we had ducks and I was constantly on-call. The new manager replaced the four man landscaping crew with one of two and the weeds were getting high. The tenants blamed me. It was mid summer and very hot to the point where people couldn't open their garage doors because the plastic parts of the locks kept melting. That left me working in temperatures between a metal door and sun baked pavement of about 120 degrees, trying to break into a garage. The manager they hired was having great personal problems and she seemed to be taking it out on me. This was a person of such limited intellect that she couldn't convert minutes to hours (I watched her try) nor compose an English sentence. "Irregardless" and "needs washed" were part of her communication pattern. All of this I endured. What finally broke the camel's back was that some months before the heat exchanger in the pool began to leak and since the company decided that they would not mothball the outdoor pool for the winter, we were forced to route the pipes around the heater. Four months later after they had fired my immediate supervisor and the head of the company came to interview me for the head maintenance position, it was discovered that the manager had not reported the defective heat exchanger to upper management so no one was even thinking about fixing it. He asked me to let him know directly if anything major like that happened again. Three weeks later we started having small electrical fires within some electrical boxes due to poor installation technique and I found water in the oil of the pressure washer so I thought that should be reported. I went into the office and asked for the owner's e-mail address... and the Manager went postal, yelling, red-faced, completely unglued. Apparently thinking that I was going to tattle to the boss-man about something or other. The next day I was fired, but I never lost my cool.

Is that better?