How to Hire a Groundman: License, Pay, Where to Recruit, and How to Screen

A groundman is the entry-level hire on a line crew: the person who makes the qualified hands faster. Define the seat around the support a day of line work generates: setting up the work zone, unloading and staging material, rigging and handling equipment, keeping trucks supplied, staying ahead of the many small tasks before they reach the qualified hands. That is the seat. Hire it as a real position with a path, and it becomes both your extra set of hands and your bench for future apprentices.

Federal pay data has no groundman SOC of its own, so anchor the duties to the crew's work. BLS lists the duties of electrical power-line installers and repairers: installing, maintaining or repairing power lines; stringing cable between poles, towers and buildings; identifying defective devices; inspecting and testing lines; climbing poles and towers or using bucket trucks; and operating power equipment. Beside that, BLS lists construction helpers' duties as assisting tradesworkers — electricians among them — loading materials, and operating hand and power tools. Your groundman works where those two descriptions meet, doing the supporting work so the qualified crew can do the work on the line.

The physical demands are part of the job, not a footnote. BLS describes power-line work as physically demanding: workers must be comfortable at great heights and in confined spaces, and able to climb and balance on poles and towers. Those describe the line installers' work, not necessarily your groundman's: the California Outside Line Construction Agreement says groundmen work under the direct supervision of linemen and under no circumstances climb poles, towers or structures or work in the proximity of energized lines. Put the physical functions your seat actually performs in a written job description before you advertise — under the ADA, a written description prepared before advertising or interviewing is evidence of which job functions are essential.

The worker-side view of the seat — what the work is like and how people enter it — lives on our guide to what a groundman does. This page stays on the hiring side.

Start with the credential that attaches to the truck. BLS says line workers who drive heavy vehicles usually need a state-issued commercial driver's license (CDL), and that workers who drive crews across state lines need an interstate CDL subject to FMCSA rules. Whether a particular groundman posting needs one follows your vehicles and your routes, so decide it per posting: if the seat includes operating or driving heavy vehicles, write the CDL into the posting; if it does not, say that too.

Beyond the CDL, do not assume licensing that our research cannot name. Our research names no groundman license class, and whether a state or municipal license covers line work in your territory is a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction question that does not transfer from inside-electrician rules — BLS counts power-line installers as their own occupation (SOC 49-9051), separate from electricians. Before you post, confirm with your state licensing board, and with the cities you work in where municipal rules can add a layer, what licensing, if any, the work itself requires. What your business needs in order to bid that work is a separate question; what license your business needs covers it in our employer guide.

Screen credential claims skeptically. One document to handle correctly is the OSHA outreach card: OSHA says its 10- and 30-hour Outreach Training Program classes do not fulfill an employer's requirement to provide training under specific OSHA standards. Treat the card as a training record to note — not a license, and not a substitute for the CDL where the seat's driving calls for one.

Groundmen have no SOC of their own in federal pay data, so the closest published figures are for the line installers the seat supports and leads toward: Electrical Power-Line Installers and Repairers (SOC 49-9051). Read them as line-installer pay, not as a groundman wage. BLS OEWS for May 2025, national, all industries, puts the median at $45.83 per hour ($95,320 per year), with the middle half of the distribution running from $32.34 per hour at the 25th percentile to $52.76 at the 75th — a 10th percentile of $24.74 and a 90th percentile of $61.87. OEWS estimates employment in the occupation at 131,070.

Three cautions keep that benchmark honest. It covers the occupation, not the rung: the published table carries one distribution for the occupation, with no experience or training-level split, so the figures describe all line installers rather than a groundman wage scale, and the 10th percentile is not entry-level groundman pay. The same table does not split union from non-union pay: if a collective bargaining agreement covers your crews, the negotiated scale in that agreement is the figure that governs — we don't publish union scale figures, so work from your own local agreement. And it is national, all-industry data: price the offer against your own service territory and the utilities, municipalities and line contractors competing with you for the same entry-level candidates.

Write the offer against the progression, not just the start. A groundman who can see the rung above the seat — and what it pays once training is done — has a reason to sign with you rather than the next outfit. The wage itself you set against your local market; the figures above tell you where the occupation's money sits, not what to write on the posting.

Recruit for the seat, not the ticket. Groundman openings are entry-level line work, so cast for people positioned to enter the trade: CDL holders in adjacent driving and construction work, helpers and laborers already around heavy equipment, and workers who have finished a pre-apprenticeship or line program and need a crew to start on. Referrals from your own crews are a second source — your groundmen, apprentices and linemen know who is looking — and open postings keep the pool wider than word of mouth.

If your crews work under a collective bargaining agreement, ask the local how its referral and dispatch procedure works before you post anything; if you hire merit shop, your applications, your yard and your reputation in the territory are the pipeline. Either way, put two answers in front of every entry-level candidate: what the seat pays, and where it leads.

Deeper sourcing tactics are covered in how to recruit when applications are thin, and hiring electricians: the employer guide is the employer-side starting point for every role on the board. When you are ready to list the seat, your groundman jobs page is the job-seeker side of this guide — write the posting against the screens in the next section.

Screen in the order the requirements attach: the driving credential first, the work history second, the physical demands third.

License. If the posting includes driving, confirm the CDL is current and valid with the state agency that issued it, and check which class the seat's actual vehicles require. If your crews cross state lines, the interstate CDL question travels with them, subject to FMCSA rules (BLS) — confirm what those rules ask of you as the employer before a driver's first run, with FMCSA itself rather than assuming the driver's license settles it.

Work history. Ask candidates to walk through crew work they have done: the material they loaded and staged, the equipment they rigged and handled, the sites they set up, how the crew ran the day. You are listening for whether they can take instruction, keep pace with a qualified crew, and stay attentive around the work — the things a resume cannot show. A reference from a foreman or crew lead who supervised them tells you how they actually performed.

Physical demands. Screen against the essential functions you wrote into the job description — the physical work your seat actually performs, not the climbing BLS describes for line installers unless your seat includes it. Keep the questions on the functions and how the candidate would perform them, not on medical conditions; and if you plan any physical testing at the yard, run the design past employment counsel first, because the boundary between a job-related test and a medical examination is a legal question.

Testing the seat itself. For an entry-level crew seat the useful test is observational: a task at the yard with your crew lead watching tells you more about this seat than a written exam will. If you consider a working trial, settle the pay and classification questions with employment counsel before the first shift, not after. For the whole sequence in one place, the hiring process guide walks it from posting to offer.

The first weeks set the trajectory. Pair the new groundman with a named crew lead rather than leaving the assignment to drift, write down the schedule, travel and call-out expectations you actually run, and make sure the crew's working rules are explained on day one rather than absorbed by accident. If the seat can grow into driving or equipment work, say what support you provide toward it and what the candidate has to bring.

The seat's retention story is the pipeline above it. BLS says power-line installers typically complete apprenticeships or employer programs that may last up to 3 years, combining on-the-job training with technical instruction — though the programs' own rules run in hours: ALBAT's line apprenticeship requires 7,000 hours of on-the-job training, and the California-Nevada JATC's lineman apprenticeship asks for 7,000 hours over nearly four years. The groundman seat is where you watch a candidate work before either side commits to that runway: the people who keep showing up prepared are the ones to put forward when a program seat opens — and the program's sponsor, whether a JATC, a utility program or your own, sets its entry rules, so name it and learn it. A groundman who can see that path inside your company has a reason to build those first seasons with you rather than across the street.

After that, retention tracks the basics: review pay against the territory, keep the promises the posting made about travel and storm work, and hand the strong ones more responsibility before they have to ask. Prevent turnover in this seat at the offer stage by being explicit about the job you actually run. More on the mechanics is in onboarding new electricians, and the broader duty picture is in OSHA obligations for electrical employers.

Employer information, not licensing, legal, code or safety advice. CDL classes, licensing and FMCSA duties vary by state and by contract — confirm with your state licensing agency, FMCSA and your employment counsel for your own situation.