Nobody has ever given you a straight answer about where your skills actually stand. Your last performance review was about attendance. Your license proved you passed a test once. Your years of experience are a number, not a measure.
TradeGrader is a free assessment for working technicians that tells you what you can actually do, scored against real trade standards, in about 10 to 15 minutes.
What you get
A real score, not a pass/fail. The assessment is scored in up to five areas, depending on your role: safety, knowledge, technical diagnosis, communication, and sales. You get a score in each one, so you find out whether you are strong across the board or carrying one area on the back of another.
Questions that are actually about the work. Not “define superheat.” You get a system with a set of readings and a customer complaint, and you say what you would check next. The questions are built for your trade and the role you do, every version of the test runs the same mix of routine and hard items, and the written answers get live follow-up questions on what you actually said.
The reasoning, not just the number. Every score comes with what it was based on. Safety and knowledge are scored against a fixed answer key with no AI judgment involved at all, so those numbers are auditable. The rest is scored against spelled-out criteria.
A record you own. The score lives in your account. Not your employer's.
What the shop you work for sees
Nothing. Not your score, not your account, not the fact that it exists.
This is the first question most technicians ask and it deserves a direct answer instead of a link to a privacy policy, so here is how it actually works. There are two separate things on this platform and they do not touch each other.
Your technician account is yours. You created it, it lives with you, and it is walled off from the side of the product that contractors pay for. When a shop sends an assessment to someone they are interviewing, that sits in an entirely different system. Your current employer cannot look you up, cannot search for your account, and cannot see a score. That is not a setting you have to get right. It is how the thing is built, and it does not change later.
Hiring employers are a different group. These are companies looking to hire, posting jobs to the network. Whether any of them can see you is a switch you control, and it starts off. If you turn it on, they see your trade and your score, and your name and contact details are not shared unless you apply for a job or accept an offer yourself.
So the short version: the shop you work for now is never in the picture. Shops that are hiring are only in the picture if you put yourself there. If you want to show your score to somebody directly, that is your call to make, one person at a time.
Find out where you actually stand.
Free, 10 to 15 minutes, on your phone if you want. The shop you work for never sees it.
Take the free assessmentWhat we are building
TradeGrader is putting together the largest network of verified skilled technicians in the trades. Right now that means a growing group of techs across HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and garage door who have a real, scored record of what they can do.
Job opportunities get posted to that network over time, as it grows. That is the direction this is going and it is the reason the technician side exists at all.
What we are not going to do is tell you a job is waiting, because that would not be true today. What is true is that the techs who get scored early are the ones already in the network when postings start landing in it. And when that happens, whether a hiring employer can see you is still your call, and the shop you work for now is still not in the picture.
Two other things worth being straight about:
This is not a certification. It does not replace your license, your 608 card, or anything a state board issues. It measures something those credentials do not, which is what you can do right now.
This is not a training course. You will see where your gaps are. Closing them is still on you.
Why we built it
TradeGrader's paying customers are contractors who use it to evaluate people they are hiring and to track their crews over time. The technician side is free and always will be. Everything that pays for this sits on the employer side of the business.
The reason the technician side exists at all is that a hiring process built on resumes and license numbers is bad for good technicians specifically. If you are better than the tech sitting next to you, nothing in the current system proves it, and you get paid the same. A score does prove it, and a network of scored technicians is something employers eventually have to come to rather than guess around.
That is the long game here, and it only works if enough good techs get scored. Which is the actual reason this is free.
Pick your trade
- HVAC: interview prep and EPA 608 prep
- Electrical: interview prep
- Plumbing: interview prep
- Garage door: certification path
Frequently asked questions
Is it really free?
Yes, and permanently. Contractors pay for the employer side of the product. Technicians do not pay for anything.
How long does it take?
About 10 to 15 minutes. You can do it on a phone.
Can my boss find out I took it?
No. Your technician account is a separate system from the assessments shops send to people they are interviewing. The company you work for cannot search for you, cannot see your score, and cannot see that you have an account at all.
What if I score badly?
Nothing happens. Nobody is notified. The score is yours, and the breakdown tells you which area pulled it down, which is more useful than a number you were expecting.
Can I take it more than once?
Yes, once every 30 days per trade. Questions are drawn from a large bank, so a retake is not the same test. Retaking after you have worked on a weak area is the point, and your most recent score stays on your profile in between.
Will this get me a job?
Not today, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. We are building the network first. Job opportunities get posted to it over time, and the technicians who are scored and in the network early are the ones there when that happens.
Will hiring employers be able to see my score?
Only if you decide to let them. This is about companies posting jobs to the network, not the shop you currently work for, which never sees anything either way. The switch starts off, and even after you turn it on your name and contact details are not shared unless you apply for a job or accept an offer.
Does this replace my license or certification?
No. It measures something different: what you can do today, rather than what you passed once.
Get your score, and get in early.
Every technician who takes it is part of the largest network of verified skilled technicians in the trades. Job opportunities get posted to that network over time. Getting your score now means you are in it when they do.
Take the free assessmentRaising the bar for the trades.