Before I retired we would give a written test, there were certain questions that were designated as safety questions and if you missed any of them that eliminated you from going any further in the process, we would not usually set a pass or fail score until after the test, due to the fact that you might have an older lineman who probably knew the work but wasn't good with written test, at that point we would offer the ones that made the cutoff an opportunity for a field skills test which would consist of changing out an insulator on a 3 phase line out of a bucket truck, then a downed line on a 2 phase lateral, we would tell them it was a trouble call show us how you would go about putting it back up, one pole would be considered rear lot while the take off pole was on the street, roughly 95% would get in the bucket truck and install grounds and then climb the pole and sag everything on the rear lot pole instead of stepping up the rear lot pole 15' and sleeving the wire and then going back to the bucket truck to put everything in the air, but you get to see the way each man goes about doing a job and how he thinks , you see if he uses cover , does he use grounds, all the while understanding that there are a lot of right ways to get a job done safely. We also would have them troubleshoot an underground loop and make up an elbow on a #2 piece of URD cable, hope this helps.