How to hire a surveyor-in-training (LSIT/SIT): requirements, pay to offer, where to find them and how to screen

An SIT seat runs on two clocks at once. On today’s clock, the hire adds supervised field and office capacity: traverse and control work, record research, computations, drafting, and a second hand on crew runs. On the firm’s clock, it is succession planning — BLS notes that entry-level surveyors often work under the direction of a licensed surveyor for several years before they qualify for a license. The hire you make this quarter is the licensee your bench needs later.

Decide what the seat covers before you write the ad. A field-heavy SIT rides with your crews and builds instrument and crew skills. An office-heavy one builds record research, computation and drafting depth. A rotational plan splits the week between both, and it is the version that keeps both halves of the licensure runway moving. The seat makes sense when a licensed surveyor is nearing retirement, when a survey department is growing inside an engineering firm, or when you are adding crews that will need a future licensee to run them.

Be just as clear about what the seat is not: a substitute for a licensee. The NCEES Model Law — the template states adapt, not any state’s law itself — defines responsible charge as direct control and personal supervision of surveying work. Its exemption for subordinates covers surveying work that includes no final surveying decisions, done under the responsible charge of — and verified by — a licensee. Each state writes its own version, so the supervision line your SIT works under is your board’s.

Then fix the arrangement in writing: the field-versus-office split, the licensee who carries responsible charge for the seat’s work, and who verifies it. Those three lines tie the seat to the licensure runway. For the job itself as candidates see it, start from what a surveyor-in-training (LSIT/SIT) does day to day.

The credential is a state board’s, not a national one. California styles its intern-level certificate “Land Surveyor-in-Training” (LSIT); Arkansas’s titles are “Professional Surveyor” (PS) and “Surveyor Intern” (SI) — not LSIT — and other boards name theirs differently again. The education, exam and experience route to the credential is written board by board too, so never assume another state’s rule describes yours. When a resume says “LSIT”, treat the state board as the source of truth and confirm the status with it.

Exam status is the other half. The Fundamentals of Surveying (FS) exam is NCEES’s, which describes it as generally the first step toward becoming a licensed professional surveyor; where it sits in your state’s route to the in-training credential is your board’s rule to confirm. Ask each candidate where they stand: certificate in hand, FS passed and awaiting the board’s next step, or scheduled to sit.

However the ask lands, the FS is a real filter. In fiscal 2025 (October 2024 through September 2025), 1,433 first-time takers sat the FS exam and 63% of them passed; 853 repeat takers took it that year and 35% passed, per NCEES. A passed FS tells you something verified about the candidate. Those 853 repeat takers are why a repeat attempt on a resume should prompt a conversation, not a rejection.

Experience is the third input. BLS describes entry-level surveyors as often working under a licensed surveyor’s direction for several years before they qualify for licensure. Read the candidate’s supervised years, the range of work types they touched, and how their experience was documented alongside the credential.

Two confirmations belong to your desk, not the candidate’s: the certificate status with the board that issued it, and your state’s supervision rule for unlicensed staff doing surveying work. Rules change board by board, so check both against current board guidance before you post the seat.

Start with what the data cannot give you: BLS publishes no surveyor-in-training wage. Its OEWS Surveyors occupation (SOC 17-1022) combines licensed and unlicensed surveyors into one line, so any “national SIT salary” on a job board has no federal benchmark behind it. Build your range from labelled inputs instead.

The closest available benchmark is the surveyor line, and it is not an LSIT figure. In the BLS OEWS May 2025 release, surveyors (SOC 17-1022, all industries) earned a national median of $75,440 a year ($36.27 an hour), with the 25th percentile at $58,170 and the 75th at $98,130. Read it as a ceiling reference rather than a target: the BLS line combines licensed and unlicensed surveyors and is not broken out by credential.

The rung below anchors the floor. Surveying and mapping technicians (SOC 17-3031, same release) earned a median of $54,240 a year ($26.08 an hour), all industries. Within architectural, engineering and related services (NAICS 541300) — the industry row a survey firm sits in — the same May 2025 release shows surveyors at a $73,320 median and surveying and mapping technicians at $50,340, slightly below their all-industry medians.

Set the seat between those anchors: above your technician scale for a candidate who holds the certificate and has passed the FS, moving toward the surveyor band as supervised experience and scope grow. What moves the number is credential status, field-versus-office range, and internal equity with technicians doing comparable field hours — not a national figure, because none exists for the title.

Classification travels with the pay decision. DOL’s view, stated in its 2023 Davis-Bacon rule preamble, is that unlicensed survey crew members are generally not learned professionals even when a licensee supervises them. Licensed surveyors, DOL adds, “may in some cases” qualify — with the answer varying where a state’s licensing does not customarily require a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction. Job titles do not determine exemption; the duties and salary test decides. Our research found no DOL statement on the SIT-with-a-surveying-degree question specifically, so confirm how you will treat the seat with the Wage and Hour Division or counsel before you post it as salaried.

Plan one gap honestly: our research found no primary-source figure for how much pay moves at licensure. Set your own step between your SIT range and your licensed-surveyor range instead of an industry norm our research could not find.

Source in categories and rank none by habit. The categories: niche surveying job boards (this site among them, built for exactly this posting), general boards, surveying and geomatics programs and their career offices, state and national society job boards and events, employee referrals, and recruiters. Judge each channel by the applications it produces for your seats.

Your own technician bench is a sourcing channel too. BLS notes some surveyors start as surveying technicians and become licensed after many years of experience under a licensed surveyor. Requirements vary by state, so a rod person or instrument operator already on your payroll may be closer to this seat than an outside resume. What stands between them is your board’s route; check it with the board before you assume.

The entry pipeline is measurable. NCEES reports FS and PS exam volumes in fiscal 2025 reached a 15-year high, and 1,433 first-time takers sat the FS that year. Exam takers are not job seekers, but a pipeline at a 15-year high is the population you are hiring from.

Write the ad for the credential stage, not a graduation year. The EEOC flags help-wanted ads that seek “recent college graduates” because they may discourage applicants over 40 from applying and may violate the law. Ask for certificate status, FS standing and supervised experience instead of an age-coded proxy.

Say the parts of the offer that decide this hire: the licensee who will carry responsible charge, the field-versus-office rotation, whether you fund exam fees and study time, and the pay range. Where a posted range is required, the rules are state ones. Washington, for example, requires employers with 15 or more employees to disclose the wage scale or salary range in each job posting. Confirm your own state’s rule before you publish the ad. Candidates choosing between firms at this stage are choosing the supervision they will work under.

For the channel-by-channel mechanics, the cross-role breakdown sits in our guide to hiring for your survey firm, which lists the full post-to-first-day hiring workflow.

Verify before you screen. Confirm the certificate with the board that issued it, and ask for the candidate’s NCEES exam history rather than trusting a resume line. Candidates planning multi-state careers may maintain an NCEES Record, which holds transcripts, licenses, exam results, employment verifications and references in one file; NCEES sent 63,080 Record transmittals to licensing boards across 2024–25. Whether a candidate keeps one tells you how organized their licensure runway is.

Test the craft with a short, job-related exercise. The EEOC requires that a test you require of applicants be necessary and related to the job, and that it not exclude people of a protected group. An SIT-appropriate exercise draws from the seat’s first-week work: a setup with a checked backsight, closing out a small traverse and reducing it, pulling a deed and plotting the calls, or cleaning a field-book run into a drawing. Score it identically for every candidate, and tell candidates in advance what it covers.

Interview against the license line. Habits worth probing for: complete field notes, checking work before leaving the site, and knowing which decisions belong to the licensee. Asking what they would do when a shot will not close, or when a client asks a question that is a final surveying decision, gets at that without a lecture.

Add the practical checks. BLS notes employers may prefer survey-technician candidates who hold a valid driver’s license — a parallel worth running when your SIT will rotate through field crews. If you buy background or driving-record reports, the FCRA requires a written, stand-alone disclosure and the applicant’s written permission before you pull one. Call the reference who actually supervised the work: the party chief or the licensee, not HR.

How long the hire takes has no published benchmark: our research found no time-to-fill figure for survey firms, and we will not invent one. The clock runs on your pipeline, the candidate’s notice period, and where they sit in the exam-and-certificate queue. Plan further ahead than the ad. BLS describes entry-level surveyors as working under a licensed surveyor’s direction for several years before they qualify for licensure, and NCEES describes the PS exam as designed for surveyors who have gained at least four years of work experience. This seat is a multi-year runway, so a slower search is cheaper than a wrong hire.

Set expectations with pass data scoped the way NCEES published it. In fiscal 2025, 1,188 first-time takers sat the PS exam and 60% of them passed; first-timers with an ABET-accredited bachelor’s passed at 70%, and 637 repeat takers passed at 43%. Fund the attempt rather than penalizing it. Under the FLSA’s regular-rate rules, 29 CFR 778.217(b)(1), reimbursed credentialing exam fees and organization membership dues relevant to the employer’s business stay out of the regular rate. That makes exam support cheaper for hourly staff than it first looks.

Retention at this stage is the supervision you promised, delivered: the rotation you actually run, the named licensee reviewing their work, and a pay review at each credential milestone. The levers are yours to set — what you fund, what you review, and how visible the path to licensure is inside the firm. None of it needs a figure. It needs the arrangement you hired against to be the one the new hire experiences.

Confirm the moving parts with their makers: the certificate and supervision rule with your state licensing board, exam questions with NCEES, and classification and pay treatment with the DOL or counsel.

Employer information, not legal, tax or licensing advice; confirm what binds your firm with your state licensing board, the DOL, NCEES or counsel as the question needs.