Maintenance Worker Interview Questions

A Maintenance Worker helps keep your business running smoothly by fixing and maintaining your facilities. From plumbing issues to fixing faulty wiring, a Maintenance Worker helps resolve all sorts of problems around the building that don’t necessarily require external professionals.

When interviewing for a new Maintenance Worker to strengthen your team, you should try to look for the following skills and strengths:

Impeccable problem-solving skills and ability to find solutions for issues they’ve never encountered before just by using logic, deduction, and research.
Incredibly handy with a wide range of tools and equipment.
Great verbal communication skills as they often have to talk to people across the business to get to the root of a certain problem or when something is broken.

Interviewing a Maintenance Worker

As soon as you’ve invited a potential candidate to an interview, it’s time for you to prepare. But what questions will you ask them? What interview questions actually help you deduce whether the candidate is the right person for the job?

You need to ask the right questions to get the right answers. And that’s where the Maintenance Worker interview questions and answers listed below come in. These are specifically designed to help you figure out if someone is actually a good fit for the position. These questions test their experience as well as their skill set.

But do note that these are fairly general interview questions that are best asked during a first interview, early on in the interview process. You might want to add a few more questions of your own that are more tailored to your business and industry.

How to open the job interview

Opening the job interview is a skill of its own. Doing it correctly can help set the tone for the remainder of the interview and help you more accurately judge whether a candidate will be right for the job.

After all, job interviews can be nerve-wracking. And if your candidate is too nervous, they might end up giving wrong or bad answers, even if they actually know the best answers. So to open the interview, you want to help them settle in and get comfortable first. To do so, try out these easy icebreaker questions.

Job Description available

See our Maintenance Worker job description here

For the interview

A positive opener to start

What has been your journey so far?

What do you love the most about being a Maintenance Worker?

How did you end up becoming a Maintenance Worker?

Behavioral Questions

Tell me about a time when you didn’t know how to fix something. What did you do?
A Maintenance Worker won’t know the solution to every problem that can happen in the workplace. Therefore, a large part of their job is to troubleshoot and problem-solve to try to find a way to fix something. This question tests their problem-solving skill.
Tell me about a time you fixed something that you didn’t know how to fix before starting it. What steps did you take to solve the problem?
This question further goes into the candidate’s problem-solving ability. It also shows you how they work and what processes they follow.
Tell me about a time when you faced a safety risk at work. How did you handle the situation?
Maintenance Workers can encounter dangerous situations in their line of work. Find out how the candidate handles this and what safety procedures they follow to minimise risk.

Soft Skills

How do you keep track of your work schedule and tasks?
Maintenance Workers can have days where they get called from one task to the other. Maintaining an organised calendar to keep track of everything is essential. Find out how the candidate manages their workload.
How do you prioritise your tasks, for example when two machines break down at the same time?
Task prioritisation is another essential skill to have. Find out how the candidate decides which issue to fix first.
In your opinion, what skills should someone have to be successful as a Maintenance Worker?
This question gives the candidate an opportunity to show what skills they found important for this specific role. Most likely, the candidate will name skills they possess themselves.

Hard Skills

What relevant certificates or credentials do you have?
A practical question about their experience and education.
Can you name some safety guidelines and regulations that you are familiar with?
This question tests their practical knowledge of safety regulations and guidelines.
Can you walk me through how you perform a maintenance check?
This is a routine task for a Maintenance Worker, so they should be able to answer this question fairly easily.
What can you tell me about HVAC?
This stands for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning and is a common term in the field. The candidate should be able to explain this to you.

Operational / Situational Questions

Imagine you get called twice in a row to fix two separate issues. The most pressing issue is flagged by an intern, the less important issue is flagged by the CEO. What do you do?
This can be a difficult question to answer, making it a great question to test the candidate’s decision-making ability. Will they choose the CEO’s issue, or rather go for the most pressing problem first?
Imagine you can’t figure out how to fix an issue. What do you do?
A common problem when working as a Maintenance Worker. Find out how they handle this and what kind of process they follow.
Imagine you notice another Maintenance Worker isn’t following the correct procedures and regulations at work. What do you do?
Depending on your company, the Maintenance Worker might be part of a wider maintenance team. This question gives you an idea of how they would work with others in a team.