Ask HN: What to ask in interview for Electronics Tech position
long version:
We are struggling about what questions to ask potential employees that are applying for an Electronics Tech job. Their basic job duties are to do prototype solder assembly for simple PCBs, fix custom PCB's that are returned under warranty and be able to do basic tasks like adding mosfets, sensors etc. Additionally, we want them competent enough to load firmware and run diagnostics on custom assemblies, but this is trainable.
My main electronics person wants to grill these people with questions that remind me of the esoteric questions from software interviews in the late 90's and early 2000's. However, given only he has this as the core area of expertise we are trying to get some outside opinions. We all recognize, the position has objective answers to questions so we should be able to ask and receive reasonable answers to help gauge a potential employees competence. e.g. Ohms law, component functions etc.
So my question is, what questions are appropriate, what are some you have asked, answered etc that might help us find knowledgeable people. Are there any resources you can point me towards? Is it reasonable to hand someone a small PCB and have them identify the basics of what it has on it? Is it also reasonable to hand them a known defective board with some background of course, and have them walk us through how they would diagnose it?