How to Assess a Candidate’s Technical Depth When You Are Not an Engineer: A Playbook for CFOs, CHROs, and Executives
Many of the people who make the final hiring decision for a VP of Facilities, Director of Construction, or Director of Engineering are not technical. They are CFOs, CHROs, presidents, provosts, and board members. They are responsible for a hire whose work involves mechanical systems, capital delivery, and code compliance, and they are asked to judge whether a candidate really knows the subject.
The concern is reasonable. A confident communicator can sound expert without being one. This playbook explains how non-technical decision-makers can assess technical depth with confidence, without pretending to be engineers.
Principle One: Test Judgment, Not Vocabulary
Technical jargon is easy to learn and hard to verify. What matters is whether the candidate can make sound decisions with incomplete information. The best way to assess that is to ask about real situations, not definitions.
A candidate who can explain, in plain language, why they chose one approach over another, what the tradeoffs were, and what they would do differently is demonstrating real depth. A candidate who stays at the level of buzzwords is not.
Principle Two: Let the Right People Do the Technical Screen
Non-technical executives should not try to evaluate technical content directly. Instead, build a process in which a qualified technical assessor does that work and reports back in terms the decision-maker can use.
Who Can Serve as a Technical Assessor
- A trusted senior engineer or facilities leader from within the organization.
- An experienced owner’s representative or consultant who works with the institution.
- A peer from another institution, with the candidate’s knowledge and consent.
- Your search partner, if it has deep domain expertise in facilities and construction.
Ask the assessor to provide a short written summary: what the candidate demonstrated, where the depth is strongest, and where it is thinner relative to the role.
Five Questions Anyone Can Ask
1. “Walk me through a project that went wrong.”
Strong candidates describe the problem, their own role in it, what they did, and what they learned. Listen for ownership. Candidates who blame others without describing their own decisions are showing a gap in accountability, not only in technical judgment.
2. “How did you decide between two approaches?”
Ask about a specific choice, such as repair versus replace for a major system, or one delivery method versus another. Good answers include cost, risk, schedule, and operational impact. The explanation should be understandable to a non-expert.
3. “How do you know when to bring in outside expertise?”
Technical depth includes knowing the limits of one’s own knowledge. Leaders who describe a clear approach to using consultants, engineers, and specialists tend to be more reliable than those who claim to handle everything themselves.
4. “How would you explain a major system risk to our board?”
This tests both depth and communication. A candidate who understands a risk well can describe it simply and recommend a course of action. Confusing or overly complicated answers often indicate shallow understanding.
5. “What would you want to learn about our facilities in your first 90 days?”
Experienced leaders ask about condition assessments, deferred maintenance, capital plans, critical systems, and the team. The quality of the questions they ask reveals how they think about risk and priorities.
Signals of Real Depth
- Specific examples with clear numbers, timelines, and outcomes.
- Willingness to say what they do not know.
- Clear thinking about tradeoffs rather than absolutes.
- Consistent stories that hold up across interviews and references.
- Respect from former technical peers and direct reports.
Warning Signs
- Heavy jargon with few concrete examples.
- Credit for team achievements without clarity on the candidate’s own role.
- Reluctance to discuss failures or constraints.
- Answers that change when the same question is asked a different way.
Use References to Confirm Technical Credibility
Speak with people who worked directly on the candidate’s projects, including engineers, contractors, and owner-side peers. Ask specific questions: Was the candidate the technical decision-maker or the manager of those who made decisions? How did they handle problems on site? Would the reference trust their judgment on a critical system?
Where a Specialist Search Partner Helps
A firm that specializes in facilities, construction, and engineering leadership can screen for technical depth before candidates reach your final round. It can also help you structure the assessment so that your decision rests on evidence rather than on first impressions.
Real8 Group has no large minimum retainer, handles Director-level searches as well as C-suite, and typically presents qualified candidates within two to three weeks. To discuss how to evaluate candidates for a current search, visit real8group.com/how-we-work, see real8group.com/finding-talent, meet our team, or reach out at real8group.com/contact.
Real8 Group is a specialized executive search firm serving the real estate, construction, engineering, and facilities operations sectors across the U.S.