Evaluating skills for a new CAD hire

We've been having a lot of issues at our shop with our current CAD designer. They have ok skills, but are not interested in learning and more importantly - they are not really invested in their job (tardiness, not taking responsibility for mistakes, general poor attitude). I have started a search for a new CAD designer, but I would like to know how other people evaluate potential CAD hires. Beyond choosing a better fit attitude-wise, I would also like to hire someone that does a better job than our current person.

The main issue we run into with CAD designers is that they lack the perspective of someone who actually makes/fabricates. It's not unusual to get drawings that can't actually be made into a real object. Another difficulty is that our shop does not produce any single product. We specialize in custom architectural and sculptural installations. So we use a variety of metals that come in all shapes and sizes, and the aesthetic requirements that we need to meet are exceptionally high. This is a challenging environment in many respects, but in some ways it's less intense than doing CAD for a product with 500 parts. Most CAD engineers that send me their resume, make widgets or specialize in a single industry.

How do you evaluate your CAD employees for aptitude? What type of hourly rate or salary are you offering for a CAD employee?

I can't answer your question directly, and my response may not apply given the type of work you do, but in my worlds (RF and subsea) I no longer hire 'draftsmen'. I hire engineers and expect them to produce everything required (not CAM) to make/produce what they think up: cad model, drawings, FEA simulations, specs, manuals, etc.

In my experience draftsmen are seen as a cost cutting measure to hiring engineers, and I find that they are really only duplicitous and add cost to the design/engineering equation and lifecycle. Not always, but often. I also feel like having engineers responsible for everything makes them more engaged in the process.

Somewhat along the lines of Antarctica's reply, do you want a "Designer" who can use CAD, or a "Draftsman"?

I've never heard the term "CAD Designer" used before...

awander said:

Somewhat along the lines of Antarctica's reply, do you want a "Designer" who can use CAD, or a "Draftsman"?

I've never heard the term "CAD Designer" used before...

Click to expand...

Yup.

What does your ad read ? and what have you been hiring ?

Too many times I see soemone hires a full blown engineer, and
then want's them to just "draw".

No real time to get a design a bit more polished, more producible,
repairable, etc.

And the drafting time is shoved in the corner.

There are some good "CAD Monkeys" out there, that "Take Dictation" from an engineer,
and sweat the details, make a very good drawing, with a good CAD file
(easier to make changes to later, better for CAM work, etc.)

And don't want to move up to being a full fledged engineer.

Could you take someone who does know your manufacturing process and have them learn CAD?

Whetstone said:

We've been having a lot of issues at our shop with our current CAD designer. They have ok skills, but are not interested in learning and more importantly - they are not really invested in their job (tardiness, not taking responsibility for mistakes, general poor attitude). I have started a search for a new CAD designer, but I would like to know how other people evaluate potential CAD hires. Beyond choosing a better fit attitude-wise, I would also like to hire someone that does a better job than our current person.

The main issue we run into with CAD designers is that they lack the perspective of someone who actually makes/fabricates. It's not unusual to get drawings that can't actually be made into a real object. Another difficulty is that our shop does not produce any single product. We specialize in custom architectural and sculptural installations. So we use a variety of metals that come in all shapes and sizes, and the aesthetic requirements that we need to meet are exceptionally high. This is a challenging environment in many respects, but in some ways it's less intense than doing CAD for a product with 500 parts. Most CAD engineers that send me their resume, make widgets or specialize in a single industry.

How do you evaluate your CAD employees for aptitude? What type of hourly rate or salary are you offering for a CAD employee?

Click to expand...

I can give you my perspective if you'd like. I do all of the CAD work at my company, but I also do all of our order scheduling and purchasing of raw materials for the parts that take the most turnaround time (castings, motor cases, etc). I do have some experience with manual machining, though mostly just hobby stuff. In no way, would I say I'm a good fit for a machinist position.

I definitely think you're doing the right thing by looking for a replacement for your current guy. If he's tardy a lot and has a bad attitude, he's probably not interested in being there either, which will certainly lead to poorly done work and a lot of mistakes. How much experience does your current guy have?

I think with your potential candidates, you need to stress that they need to be very willing to get out in the shop and observe things from time to time, and they need to communicate very well with the department heads so they can get a feel for the start to finish process on how to make some of the parts they'll be drawing. If you can get someone with any kind of manufacturing experience beyond button pushing, or someone with some mechanical aptitude, even better. I converse with my fabrication department and the machine shop foreman at my company on a daily basis and I get input on almost every single new project I work on.

Really, it sounds like you know what you want already. Someone who is willing to learn. They're out there, unfortunately there are many more people who are just looking to eek out that 9-5 shift asap. I wouldn't necessarily turn away people with no hands-on experience, but I would emphasize that it's a bonus.

To evaluate a potential CAD person to replace my CAD duties, I'd probably see if they wanted to come sit in and see what I do. I'd really just be using that to gauge interest, not ability. If they're interested, I can work with that.

I'd expect to pay about $15/17 per hour for a newbie CAD person.

Thank you. This is helpful. It's definitely challenging to find someone who is curious and invested in their work in addition to having a basic CAD skill set. There is a lot of flow through from the shop into the office, so I can push a bit more of that.....more familiarity and awareness of what's happening on the floor. I should probably be looking for people who have actually made things, or have that interest. Unfortunately we don't have the workforce to hire from within. In the future, with a good CAD person on board, we can start thinking of apprenticeships and filling the pipeline that way. Which makes this next hire rather critical.

What do you have for CAD? Is your specific package perhaps limiting your hires in your area because no one has experience? Your two basic choices are to choose a younger guy good with CAD but unskilled in the ways of the shop and train him up, or choose someone with shop experience and try to teach him the CAD side. Generally, trying to pull someone into CAD that hasn't done it before is a nightmare. Maybe you don't have manufacturing-type mistakes, but you have filing mistakes, model mistakes, software goof ups that cost you just as much time, and now they're issues that your shop floor can't help fix.

10 times out of 10, I would choose the guy with CAD experience but not product experience. Choose someone eager to learn, and use the expertise of your shop to fill in the holes in his knowledge.

Better to use the term "CAD operator" than draughtsman/draftsman. As a board-trained draughtsman after a 4-year appieship, I had to design and draw things that fitted together and/or did not fall down. The engineer at most would look at the drawings after they had been checked by another draughtsman. When I came to the US I realised drafting was not what it was overseas. No overseas company would 'hire schoolboys after-hours for $10/hr.' Contract draughtsmen in Africa were driving Benzes! I taught myself AutoCAD, but was too scared to apply for a job because it seemed more about the ins and outs of the software rather than the ability to design something that worked. CAD changed draughting in the same way digital cameras and Photoshop changed photography - no preview screen on the back of my Olympus OM2! Two years at college for $17/hr is hardly worth it when your mates are becoming nurses for $35/hr after 2 years.

You need a bloke off the bench to train. Drafting used to be a 'step-up' off the bench, now it is a 'step-down' career-wise these days.

gwelo62 said:

Better to use the term "CAD operator" than draughtsman/draftsman.

Click to expand...

Or as I like to call them.... "CAD Monkey".....

The problem with looking for CAD guys is its the tweener ground between machining and engineering. I don't know how complicated your guys work is, but lifting someone up off the shop floor and sending them to some CAD training is going to land you a better candidate if you have the time. They'll have the insight you're after on the machining side and they'll likely be a more long time employee at that position. As an engineer, even with just a 2yr degree, becoming a CAD jockey is a last resort. The pay is weak compared to other jobs that you already qualify for and depending on the work you do, incredibly boring. So even if you find one to do the work that possess the machining knowledge, they're probably not sticking around that long.

I work for a manufacturing company as an engineer. We had a drafter, he just quit. So, from my point of view, I'll second what was said at the top. You either want someone that can draw - a drafter. Or you want someone who can design parts and draw them - an engineer. Significant cost difference between those. CAD designer sounds like you want an engineer at a drafter wage.

Msut10 said:

The problem with looking for CAD guys is its the tweener ground between machining and engineering. .....

Click to expand...

2 thumbs up on that statement. I am fortunate to have been given that route. Started out at the bottom 40 years ago. worked up into toolmaking in the stamping industry. The skills I learned making chips and machines make me a way better cad/cam guy. Plus I love the imagination you have to use to take on new projects. Now I do the CAD/CAM and capabilities/quoting in the aerospace industry. You just need to keep lookin' and find a guy like me who loves the work and you'll be in tall cotton.

P.S. Digger- Love the cartoon! put it on my office wall.

To answer your specific questions:
How do you evaluate your CAD employees for aptitude?
I sit down with the candidate and show them some examples of work and the desired workflow used. Then I let the candidate use whatever tool they are most comfortable with and let them have an hour or so to replicate something relatively simple and create a manufacturing drawing.

When I evaluate, I look for workflow clues to show that they know what they are doing. The methods to produce the model and drawing should tell you a lot about what they were thinking about. Almost as important is the questions they ask or don't ask about the manufacturing process.

I would give as much help as necessary to bring the candidate into the same line of thinking you have for the position and use your judgement as to how receptive they are to the information. Taking them around the shop first, introducing them to the machinists and fabricators and letting them put their hands on the work, can sometimes work wonders in driving home the point that what you care about is the stuff created in this space by these people.

What type of hourly rate or salary are you offering for a CAD employee?
Assuming the person doesn't need to design anything and just takes design data and translates that into 3D models: I'd say around the same that you pay people who have a specific skill set at your company and that aren't asked to do much more.

If you need someone to design stuff that is manufacturable, that works most of the time the first time and can effectively communicate those designs to your shop: Increase the pay to slightly below your more valuable employees and be ready to negotiate at higher wages than anticipated.

There are many answers to the pay question but it really boils down to the amount of work that this person creates or saves for others and the contributions he/she makes to the company. If every project that comes across their desk results in respectful questions, probing and suggestions that saves a week worth of labor, material savings, etc., that would matter a lot to me. Same holds true for the opposite situation.


------------------------------

Some other thoughts:
Instead of using the term "CAD Designer", that may scare people off, I'd define exactly what you expect from the person and let that drive your job search and pay level.

When I read "CAD Designer", I see red flags. Like others have mentioned it's almost like the hiring company doesn't want to pay for an engineer but they are expecting this person to design to some standard. Not saying this what you are doing or your intent.

CAD is a means to an end (a tool) and can be learned by many. Design is much harder to define and, after the initial foundation based around science and math, is an art that relies on experience and the ability to apply that experience, and the experience of others, to a particular problem. Good design that can be efficiently manufactured is worth a lot in my opinion.

Apologies for the rambling, I know you weren't asking for the extra stuff but I have spent quite a lot of time hiring engineers (CAD being a necessary tool) for various positions and thought it may be helpful.

Try looking for an experienced fabricator who has the computer experience.

Maybe an older guy who has retrained due to injury or layoff

Depending on your pay scale I would look for a guy or gal that has manufacturing/shop experience to go along with CAD experience. You can find a good designer but without the floor experience you may be better off looking for a draftsman. I would put an add in the paper looking for a Design Engineer with cam or machine experience.

I wrote up my usual rant about engineers as drafters vs. drafters as engineers and realized I should think about it a bit differently:

Drafter (Not detailer, designer, or checker, but drafter) in the 30 years ago sense was someone who did the time consuming work of drawing to get out the idea of an engineer who you didn't want spending all of their time drawing. This requires one important thing:

The task needs to take enough longer than the explanation to cover the pay differential between the explainer (engineer, sales, whatever) and the guy doing the drafting. Otherwise it's cheaper to do it yourself. This balance of course changes based on the explaining skill of the engineer, and the understanding skill of the drafter. This works both ways.

Where this has failed me in the past are:
1) Due either to the drafter or myself it takes too many tries/I have to be too involved.
2) The drafter lacks some key skill for the level of explanation I can provide. Generally this falls under either how the part works or understanding GD&T. Of course after they fully understand how the part works, how to dimension things, and everything else they aren't just a drafter any more, and cost more too.

As for hiring them, other than my standard suggestion of hiring a junior engineer who wants to draw (this was me once upon a time) we would:
1) Check attitude, attitude, and attitude.
2) Ask them about some GD&T symbols (this was important to us, and when it inevitably is different than what we wanted you can see how they respond, see item #1).
3) If they claim to be great at the CAD software you use, put them down in front of it for an hour. Do they go right ahead and burn through, or fumble with the controls?
4) Have a discussion about modelling the way a part works/is made vs. the fastest to draw. The interviewer needs to be on top of things.
5) You can always teach software to someone that understands these other things and wants to learn. You can probably also teach at least a couple of these other things.
6) At several places I have been this ends up being a bit like asking a machinist to work for just out of trade school pay, but be able to turn a print into a part with zero scrap, program their machine, and know the ins and outs of inspection.

Doing CAD *really well* is very involved and requires a huge amount of skills and knowhow.

A *really good* CAD operator will be about 5x faster and 5x better than most, and will save about 10x the time down the line in all sorts of ancillary stuff.
A good CAD operator can
- link his stuff to databases, and
- link spreadsheets from the SQL databases, with instancing and versioning, and
- provide materials lists, costs, masses automatically, and
- create families of parts
- will routinely create macros and shortcuts that automate all above, as well as automating some detailing stuff
All automatically, routinely.

Things like automating fillets or corner rounding, while instancing the original object and the resulting model, and providing say automatic callouts with versioning.
With one keypress, allowing later adjustments to smaller/larger/different corner rounding or edge breaks.

Or automatic instancing of both high res and low res assembly details.
Into automatically generated detail files, as instances from the main file.

Things like tapped holes as simple cylinders
- very fast and small models
- and simple tapped holes with the threads
- and perhaps tapped holes with real-world defined accurate threads, either so they can be made or
- perfect theoretical threads

Or a set of scripts that generates common objects from a spreadsheet, allowing instant generation of mounts, fixings, standoffs, bearing mounts, motor mounts, etc etc to various levels of accuracy for visualisation or assy check or general use.

While automatically instancing and versioning the objects for rollback or roll-forward or re-use of the model or the model parts, in hidden layers or instanced separate exported models.

So that an object that has say a set of holes can later be adjusted to have 6 holes versus 5, while keeping both versions, with accurate instances of all 3 files - no holes, 5 holes, 6 holes.
Allowing single minute mods to be done later, from original models/assys/drawings.
And all done invisibly, transparently, in real time, automatically via programmed scripts.

Zero extra work, and working drawings and detail views done automatically via scripts.

Or changing bolt holes or tapped holes to imperial/metric or different accuracies/tolerances automatically.
With versioning and instancing - and say clever labelling of instances.

So the working drawings will have say * partname - AAA *-nnn.* for one version and * partname - BBB.nnn.* for another.
With automatic dating and visible dating on parts/sheets/details.
And not say a silly long 20 digit numeric code with one digit difference.
So everyone working on parts can refer to parts "AAA" or "BBB" and no-one will use a wrong or old or different version by mistake.

1.
Someone who is used to doing all above is going to be very expensive, and very hard to find.

2.
Someone who is pretty interested, somewhat skilled and motivated can learn to do all above.
For say "decent money" and imho actual extra pay on productivity increases as the system grows up and gets better.

It takes about 2000 hours to learn all above for someone who already knows CAD well and can do some programming in scripts, algos, sql, macros, etc.
And *wants* to learn.
--

Based on my experience over 30+ years in catia, cadkey, 3dstudio, acad, proe, solidworks, rhinoceros, etc. and programming macros in 3ds, rhino, vs, vb, sql and 8+ programming languages.


--
CAP:
Get someone who is interested and keen and has some *good* IT+CAD skills.
Forget certs and titles and formal education.
Ask them to demonstrate skills, and to discuss 2-3 ways to make the model better in some way, (even theoretically).

Endless easy tests are asking about model size/accuracy/resolution proofs of same.

Thank you for the reply. We've been using the term CAD designer, because we really don't need an engineer but we do need someone who is more creative than a draftsperson.

Our shop is populated entirely with people who have fine-arts or design degrees. We need a designer who knows CAD. So I guess that's how we landed on the term.

Our current CAD job posting

This is our post listing the position online:

We are seeking an SOLIDWORKS designer with ideally a background in fabrication, furniture, or sculpture

We work primarily in many types of metal and the project scope or scale may vary greatly. One month we may be building a 17' complex archway in stainless while making a set of brass furniture pieces, and also designing a bronze vestibule for a historic renovation. Creativity, determination, curiosity, and desire to work as part of a team is critical. We are a small but dedicated shop that values collaboration and the talents each individual brings to the table.

Seeking applicant with the following qualities:

Basic 3D and 2D CAD generation from drawings or sketches in Solidworks
Must be proficient in Weldments/Sheet metal/basic solidwork functions
Can create construction drawings
Can compile material lists by project
Capable of material ordering
Able to research external vendors
Maintains an organized file structure
Corresponds professionally with clients about design, function, details etc.

Our ideal candidate uses problem solving to determine ideal means of construction. They are able to mentally work through a proposed project fabrication, from start to finish.

Previous experience in metal fabrication, industrial design, Solidworks weldments, Excel, Adobe CS, art and design is a plus.

We offer competitive wages, healthcare and dental contributions, 10 days PTO and good coffee.

Please send resume, any images of your work, and cover letter with desired compensation.