How to assess civil engineering skills

Civil engineers plan, build, and maintain the infrastructure that towns and cities need to thrive. They may specialize in certain areas like water control or transport to develop facilities like dams, railways, or bridges. 

Identifying the right candidate is key because civil engineers carry a significant amount of responsibility and must show commitment to bettering local communities. So, how can you optimize your recruitment process to learn more about your candidates’ capabilities?

Explore our comprehensive library of skills and traits tests to gauge how candidates use their relevant skills to respond to job-specific situations.

Read on as we delve deeper into our civil engineering assessments, describe the skills worth assessing, and recommend several tests that can elevate your hiring process.

What’s a civil engineering skills assessment?

A civil engineering skills assessment contains up to five tests targeting the specific skills a civil engineer should possess to succeed in their role. With TestGorilla, you have full autonomy over which competencies you want to review from our broad range of pre-made tests and by adding custom questions suited to your opening. 

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the number of civil engineers will increase by 5% between 2022 and 2032 – against an overall decrease in the jobs market of 3%. 

These figures show a growing demand for civil engineers, meaning more companies are competing for top talent. Equally, more people will qualify as a civil engineer, so you need to ensure your recruitment process enables you to identify the best out of a growing talent pool. 

Our expert-designed skills and traits tests give you clearer insights into the skill level of individual candidates so you can filter out underqualified applicants. This information lets you narrow your search to those closely aligned with the role’s specifications.

Why are civil engineering skills important?

The work of civil engineers directly impacts communities and people’s lives, so hiring someone who can handle high-level tasks is key to achieving successful project outcomes. Hiring top talent with the ability to plan carefully, communicate regularly, and apply specialist knowledge will help you in many ways, including a couple reasons below:

1. Efficient project management reduces public disruption

Finding talent with good project management skills ensures plans hit deadlines and milestones, preventing prolonged public disruption. For example, constructing new roads and optimizing existing ones could alter the regular traffic flow, causing delays.

Hiring someone with good project management ensures they procure resources, enlist contractors, and set achievable milestones to condense this disruption. Top talent should also be able to assess risk thoroughly and implement preventative measures to control congestion.

2. Building rapport fosters long-term relationships

Understanding how candidates react to social scenarios can help you evaluate how they communicate with others. Interpersonal communication is important if your company aims to build and sustain positive relationships with contractors. 

Building a good rapport with contractors is an effective way to streamline collaboration and trust. Contractors who understand your company’s aims are more likely to deliver results in line with your specifications. An ongoing relationship also means your company can rely on trusted contractors to do a good job, helping projects to progress smoothly. 

Besides contractors, good communication fosters positive relations with other parties interested in ongoing projects, such as stakeholders, investors, product managers, and environmental specialists. Productive relations elevate your company’s reputation as a proactive and reliable resource.

Which skills and traits are important for civil engineers?

When employing civil engineers, you should review their job-specific skills and traits to ensure they can complete specialist tasks efficiently and coordinate diverse teams successfully.

Consider searching for candidates with the following competencies:

Project management

Given the scale of such tasks, evaluating candidates’ project management skills ensures they can coordinate various parties, allocate sufficient resources, and stay within specific budgets. Some of your projects may span several years, so your new civil engineer should display patience and adaptability to remain effective at various project stages.

Hiring someone with good project management skills also ensures they can assess risk, enabling them to consider preventative measures that help the project meet core deadlines.

For example, civil engineers could leverage their project management skills to identify weather-related risks during the construction phase. Using their initiative, they’d consider the procurement of weather-protection equipment like floodlights and heated equipment cabins. They could also evaluate schedules and assign critical tasks per the forecast. 

Candidates who can plan ahead are better able to mitigate potential setbacks and ensure the completion of infrastructure projects. 

Problem solving

Civil engineers have the power to resolve significant structural problems in local communities, so identifying someone with good problem-solving abilities and critical thinking is key. 

Prioritizing these skills in your recruitment process will help you find candidates who can assess data over prolonged periods to identify gaps in infrastructure. 

Applying productive solutions is more likely to positively impact the community and generate a better return on investment. For instance, investing in waterworks upgrades by replacing pipes should reinforce durability and prevent costly repairs. 

Besides planning, employing someone who solves problems effectively also displays creativity, which is a valuable asset, particularly if your company values innovation. 

Mathematics

Mathematics skills are required to complete several core civil engineering tasks and work with large spaces, like calculating load-bearing capacities, material strengths, and structural measurements or managing complex equations. 

For instance, a civil engineer erecting a bridge would evaluate the volume of concrete needed for construction. They’d also calculate the structure’s strength to confirm weight restrictions. Here, math skills and spatial reasoning ensure the bridge is durable and safe, positively reflecting on your company’s quality work.

Candidates who can interpret 3D models and blueprints also display competent mathematics skills, suggesting they could handle these complex tasks effectively. 

When assessing civil engineering candidates, looking for mathematical and spatial reasoning competencies is essential to ensure they make accurate calculations. Accuracy will aid your company’s productivity because your new hire won’t have to return to tasks rectifying mistakes.

Digital modeling

Data modeling skills enable civil engineers to create and interpret 3D representations of structures and systems, meaning they can identify potential design flaws or inefficiencies early in the planning stage. This ability enables your company to make critical decisions and mitigate the risk of spending excess money correcting issues. 

As your teams may convey ideas through visualizations, hiring someone confident with data modeling software, like AutoCAD, streamlines collaboration. They’ll be able to describe plans to stakeholders, contractors, and other parties involved in civil engineering projects, fostering a rapport-building sense of transparency. 

Leadership

Your next civil engineer will be a central figure in many operations. Finding someone with leadership traits like emotional intelligence, confidence, interpersonal communication ability, accountability, and authority shows they can coordinate large teams with varying personalities and skill sets.

Emotional intelligence enables civil engineers to inspire their teammates to contribute their best efforts toward a mutual goal. Meanwhile, interpersonal communication skills help them work with various teams specializing in architecture and construction. 

They’ll also liaise with suppliers and stakeholders. A good civil engineer should be able to adapt their language for each party so they deliver instructions and updates with clarity. 

Hiring someone who inspires team cohesion nurtures a drive to succeed, helping your company build long-lasting relationships. It can also help stakeholders feel confident in your company’s procedures and operations. 

Skills and traits tests

At TestGorilla, we’ve built an impressive library of pre-employment skills tests, enabling you to modernize your recruitment process and learn more about the candidates you’re screening. 

Assessing how someone applies relevant skills can help you visualize how they may react to real scenarios in your company. The results will distinguish applicants most suited to your position, streamlining the candidate shortlisting process. 

Here are several tests suitable for assessing civil engineering candidates to help you get started:

Project management test

Our Project management test evaluates candidates’ abilities to make productive decisions for the good of their projects. It determines how they prioritize tasks and risks and communicate with other key project members.

This test delves into core project management competencies so you can feel confident that applicants are adept at assessing risk and overseeing budgets. If you’re looking for a competent individual who can work well independently and as part of a collaborative team, include this test in your assessment. 

The Project management test encourages candidates to define and deliver quality work, giving you an idea of whether they’ll lead by example and contribute to a positive, conscientious culture. 

Problem solving test

Civil engineers will work with considerable data to make informed decisions. Consider our Problem solving test to evaluate candidates’ competency in interpreting data, identifying recurrent issues, and thinking logically about effective yet realistic solutions. 

You can also use the Problem solving test to see how candidates react to a changing environment, because the test delves into changing schedules, adjusting deadlines, and task prioritization. As your new hire will likely face complex challenges, this test should give you a good idea of how they make decisions under pressure.

Spatial reasoning test

Our Spatial reasoning test is ideal for hiring engineering specialists because it assesses their ability to analyze 2D and 3D objects and areas. Civil infrastructure operates on a large scale, so employing someone with the ability to visualize development in vast or already built-up spaces is key to planning and design processes. 

The test also evaluates candidates’ mental rotation and folding. These competencies refer to candidates’ abilities to imagine structures from various angles. If your company also values the development of aesthetically pleasing designs, consider analyzing these skills. 

AutoCAD test

If you seek someone competent in using digital modeling software, include our AutoCad test in your assessment. This test gauges applicants’ ability to draw, edit, and manage digital 2D and 3D drawings on the software. 

The test targets intermediate skills, so it’s ideal if you’re looking for someone well-established in the field. Some questions will focus on the function of certain keys, whereas others will use visual aids for candidates to analyze. 

Civil engineer skills assessment FAQs

Besides our product tour, our frequently asked questions should give you more clarity about skills testing and TestGorilla’s talent assessments: 

Which skills are needed for a civil engineer?

Civil engineers need hard skills like project management, mathematics, and specialist knowledge of construction, design, and the infrastructure they’ll manage. These abilities allow them to complete job-specific tasks successfully. Soft civil engineers’ skills like problem solving, analytical thinking, and leadership ensure they can handle complex situations productively, communicate consistently, and make good decisions.

Which characteristics are needed in civil engineering?

Confidence is key in civil engineering because these professionals’ decisions will affect fundamental aspects of society like public transport, water management, and educational opportunities. They also need to be proactive in their communication so all relevant parties understand their projects’ progress and respond to problems promptly.

What questions do civil engineering skills tests ask?

TestGorilla’s civil engineering skills tests ask situational, behavioral, and factual questions. Situational questions evaluate how candidates apply specific skills to resolve challenges or complete tasks. Behavioral questions outline candidates’ thought processes and suggest how they’d react in real-life scenarios. Factual questions have right or wrong answers and test applicants’ competency managing tools like 3D modeling or data management software to see if they’d use it correctly.

How TestGorilla can help you find skilled civil engineers

At TestGorilla, we’re committed to optimizing skills-based recruiting and streamlining the overall hiring process, saving you considerable time where possible. So, what makes us different?

Find out how our unique approach can help you find the perfect civil engineer:

• Tailor assessments to your specific role. Combine our expert-designed tests with custom questions to cover every aspect of your job vacancy. Adapt the way you retrieve candidate information by attaching long-form, multiple choice, and file attachment answer forms. If you hire for the same role in the future, you can save and re-use these questions.

• Compare candidates’ responses easily. Review results in real time so you can identify top talent immediately. Our helpful filtering tools let you compare candidates based on ratings and the latest activity. We deliver detailed reports and easy access to file attachments, like video responses to custom questions, so that you can jump between people of interest efficiently.

• Receive reliable results. Accuracy is at the heart of what we do. Our testing methods are backed by science and constantly reviewed by advanced statistical algorithms to maintain their effectiveness. 

Use TestGorilla to extract top talent from your candidate pool

TestGorilla’s talent assessment method was designed to remove the complexities and uncertainties from hiring, helping you quickly and objectively identify candidates who can perform at your desired level. When hiring for a role as crucial to the community as a civil engineer, we understand that it’s a decision you’ll want to get right the first time.

Register for TestGorilla’s free plan to get immediate access to 10 skills and traits tests and all personality tests, and start your search for the perfect civil engineer candidate today.