EEG Technician Interview Questions
& Model Answers, 2026

Measure nasion to inion and preauricular to preauricular, mark the vertex at the intersection of the fifty per cent points, and place electrodes at ten and twenty per cent intervals from those landmarks with odd numbers on the left and even on the right. Prep the skin with an abrasive gel, apply collodion or paste per protocol, and verify positions against the measurements rather than eyeballing symmetry. Poorly measured placement makes lateralisation unreliable, which is the entire clinical purpose of the study.

Aim for under five kilohms with the electrodes reasonably balanced, since mismatched impedances create differential artifact even when each is individually acceptable. For a high electrode, re-prep the site with additional abrasion, add conductive medium, reseat the electrode and check the lead and the jackbox connection. Replace the electrode if it will not settle. Record the impedance check at the start and repeat during long recordings.

Bipolar chains compare adjacent electrodes and localise a focus by phase reversal, which makes them good for identifying focal abnormalities. Referential montages compare each electrode to a common reference and show amplitude better, which helps with widespread or generalised activity but is vulnerable to contamination of the reference. Good practice is to review in both, and to add specific montages such as a transverse chain when a temporal focus is suspected.

Hyperventilation for three to five minutes can bring out generalised spike-wave and is avoided in recent intracranial haemorrhage, significant cardiac or pulmonary disease, sickle cell disease and moyamoya. Photic stimulation at stepped frequencies can elicit a photoparoxysmal response and should be stopped immediately when one appears. Sleep and sleep deprivation increase yield for epileptiform discharges. Document the start and stop times of each procedure and the patient's response.

Keep the recording running — that data is the reason the study exists — protect the patient from injury, note the exact time and annotate the onset, and perform the clinical testing protocol: check responsiveness, give a word or object to recall, test speech and limb movement, and observe and describe the semiology including head and eye deviation and automatisms. Then note the postictal state and the recall test. Call for clinical help while continuing to document.

Check the field: a true cerebral discharge has a logical electrical field across adjacent electrodes with an expected morphology and aftergoing slow wave, while an electrode pop is confined to a single channel with a sharp vertical deflection. Eye movement shows as frontal deflections that correlate with observed blinking, muscle artifact is high frequency and often temporal, pulse artifact is rhythmic and locked to the ECG channel, and sweat produces slow undulating baseline sway. Always record an ECG channel and annotate what you see the patient doing.

A reduced electrode array appropriate to head size, additional polygraphic channels for respiration, ECG, chin electromyography and eye movement so state can be determined, longer recordings to capture sleep-wake cycling, careful attention to skin integrity with gentle application, and knowledge that normal neonatal patterns such as discontinuity and delta brushes vary by conceptional age. Document conceptional age, medications and behavioural state throughout.

Be honest about the cause — poor application, an uncooperative patient, an equipment fault — and describe what you changed. Neurodiagnostic labs care about first-time quality because a repeat means another appointment for a patient who may have travelled a long way.

Cover adaptation: a shortened montage, faster application, a parent present, distraction, recording during natural sleep, and documenting the limitations for the reader. Explain how you protected the electrodes without restraining the patient.

Status epilepticus or an unexpected clinical event during a routine study: describe how you recognised it, who you contacted, and how quickly. Say that you would not wait for the interpreting neurologist's report to raise something that is happening now.

Describe how you taught measurement rather than approximation, how you critiqued their recordings, and how you handled a trainee whose electrode application kept failing. Labs with training programmes weigh this heavily.

Anchor honestly on the residual series while naming its limitation: health technologists and technicians, all other, have a BLS OEWS May 2025 median of $50,290 a year with the top 10% above $85,270, and that code is a catch-all covering many small technologist occupations rather than neurodiagnostics alone. Registered technologists in hospital neurodiagnostic labs typically sit above the midpoint, so ask for the employer's own posted range.

Ask directly whether registration carries a differential or a grade change, whether the employer funds the exam and the annual continuing education requirement, and whether additional credentials in long-term monitoring or intraoperative neuromonitoring move you up a band. In neurodiagnostics registration is usually the clearest single step between pay grades.

Ask whether the lab covers an epilepsy monitoring unit or intraoperative monitoring, what the call rotation is, and what standby and callback pay. Intraoperative neuromonitoring in particular involves unpredictable hours and should be compensated accordingly. Confirm whether ambulatory hook-ups at patients' homes are part of the role and how travel is paid.