Questions That Separate Machinists from Button Pushers

This week’s topic: What are your go-to questions to figure out if a candidate (machinist) really knows their stuff?

A simple “tell me about yourself” doesn’t cut it when hiring a machinist. Real skills show through hands-on questions, practical tests, and sometimes… just throwing someone on a machine and seeing what happens. Here are some of the best responses we saw when this question came up in the MACHINIST Facebook group:

Practical “Show Me” Tests

• “Hire them as a 1099, give them a print and a machine. Tools are loaded, offsets aren’t set. Make me a good part.”

• “We’ve got a test piece that should take less than an hour. If they can’t make it, you’ve got a button pusher, not a machinist.”

• “We run a 1-2 hour manual lathe test—1-3 fits (+0/-0.002), threads, and basic measuring. You see technique, time, stress management, and honesty right away.”

• “If you can’t tram a mill vise, indicate a 4-jaw, or sharpen a drill—good luck. Those are basic skills.”

Math & Measurement Skills

• “Tangent of 45 = ?”

• “9 x 7?” (You’d be shocked how many blow this one.)

• “Square root of 9?”

• “How many thousandths in an inch? How many per mic thimble turn?”

• “How comfortable are you with a 1” mic?”

Process & Problem-Solving

• “How would you get rid of chatter on a bore?”

• “How would you add a taper to a turned dimension?”

• “How do you pick up an edge with an indicator to within .0002?”

• “Walk me through your order of operations for this print. What tools would you use?”

Written & CAD/CAM Tests

• “I’ve seen shops hand out a written practical that weeds out people who don’t belong.”

• “We’ll hand you a program and ask you to mark up what each section does, then draw the part.”

• “SolidWorks? Mastercam? Let’s see you reverse-engineer and program a part. Then estimate setup and cycle time.”

Attitude & Mindset

• “The biggest question? How do they feel about learning? A good machinist never says they’ve learned it all.”

• “Ask how they take care of their tools, their station, their machines—this tells you a lot.”

And of course… humor:

• “They should be able to move both axes at the same time while standing on their head, reciting the alphabet backwards, all while wearing a Tim Couch jersey.”

Your Turn

What’s the one question or test you use to separate the real machinists from the pretenders? Hit reply and let us know—we’ll feature the best responses in a future edition.