Employers / Recruitment field guide
Switchgear commissioning: what to put in the hiring brief
Define switchgear voltage class, test responsibilities, protection interfaces and required authorization in a commissioning search.
01
Break the work into accountable scopes
Factory witness testing, installation verification, specialist acceptance testing and functional verification can involve different parties. Identify which work the hire will perform, witness, review or coordinate.
Vertiv explicitly distinguishes component acceptance testing from broader commissioning. Hiring managers should preserve that distinction rather than combining every electrical task into one undifferentiated requirement.
- Voltage class and equipment type.
- Primary or secondary-system scope, as applicable.
- Protection and controls interfaces, including specialist support.
- Test-document review and discrepancy ownership.
- Site-required training, authorization and supervision.
02
Verify the boundary of technical competence
OSHA's electrical training standard ties qualified-person training to the work and exposure involved. It is not enough to see a generic safety credential and assume all equipment or tasks are covered.
Ask the candidate what they were authorized to do on a previous assignment and what they referred to another specialist. Recognizing a boundary is useful evidence of judgment, not an admission of weakness.
03
Ask about one documented discrepancy
Use an example the engineer can explain without revealing confidential drawings or relay settings. Ask which requirement applied, how the discrepancy was established and how the final result was recorded.
A recruitment guide is not an energization or switching procedure. Actual work must follow approved site controls and be carried out by appropriately qualified and authorized people.
Quick answers
Common questions
- Does commissioning experience automatically include protective-relay testing?
- No. Establish the engineer's specific responsibility and qualifications, and whether a separate testing specialist performed that work.
- Should the brief state the voltage class?
- Yes. It is a material part of the scope, although voltage alone does not describe every equipment, risk or competency requirement.
Further reading
Sources
- OSHA — 29 CFR 1910.332: Electrical safety training
- Vertiv — Commissioning Your Data Center (PDF)
- WBDG — Commissioning Documents: Process, Contents, and Acceptance
Sources provide industry background. Loadbank Talent’s hiring prompts and editorial checklists are not source quotations or operating procedures.