Considering becoming an electrician (job, careers, interest, income)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So I'm a 30 year old man who has been working as a Business Analyst these past two years in the Dallas area and I have a masters degree. It took a lot of work to get this job after a long bout of unemployment and while I am happy I finally have income, I genuinely dislike what I do. I'm not satisfied working in a BA role and there are long periods of down time where I have nothing to do except sit at my desk and pretend to be productive.
I'm considering shifting careers to a blue collar/skilled trade but I'm afraid to take that plunge and not sure if I should. I am interested in the possibility of becoming an electrician and I've researched a bit about it apprenticeships. I realize it's a long process to become a certified journeyman electrician but I am willing to endure the lower starting pay.
To be honest, I never had the mental aptitude for hard technology and science and wish I had known about alternative career paths when I was younger.
Should I consider this career change? How feasible is it for someone like me to enter into an apprenticeship? How would potential employers or unions look upon my background?
This is perfectly understandable given the disappearance of trade schools and the big push by everyone to go to college.
There are probably many other things you could be doing in business other than the job you've currently got. Have you explored those first to see if you can find something else in your field that may make for an easier transition from one job to the next, rather than completely changing industries? The problem with just jumping ship is, I've seen people do this only to find themselves unhappy in their new endeavor, too.
It isn't always the job making people unhappy, sometimes it's their expectations and dreams that never come to fruition.
So I'm a 30 year old man who has been working as a Business Analyst these past two years in the Dallas area and I have a masters degree. It took a lot of work to get this job after a long bout of unemployment and while I am happy I finally have income, I genuinely dislike what I do. I'm not satisfied working in a BA role and there are long periods of down time where I have nothing to do except sit at my desk and pretend to be productive.
I'm considering shifting careers to a blue collar/skilled trade but I'm afraid to take that plunge and not sure if I should. I am interested in the possibility of becoming an electrician and I've researched a bit about it apprenticeships. I realize it's a long process to become a certified journeyman electrician but I am willing to endure the lower starting pay.
To be honest, I never had the mental aptitude for hard technology and science and wish I had known about alternative career paths when I was younger.
Should I consider this career change? How feasible is it for someone like me to enter into an apprenticeship? How would potential employers or unions look upon my background?
Dude, bone up on your high school math - basic stuff like division / mult. and algebra - needed for formulas like ohms law / amps / horse power / watts , etc. .
Check out your local library on NEC = national electrical code - it will take time and effort but I say GO FOR IT !
I have lots of friends who work in the field and it's good work that's needed and hard to outsource
If a home or business uses an UN licensed electrician and a problem arrises - there's HECK to pay !
Look around the oil fields , since you're in TX , with new housing being built , apprentices are in high demand .
You didn't know electricians, plumbers, truck drivers, etc existed in the world?
Not really. H.S. career counsellors pushed college and going to UT or OU above anything else. Most of my friends ended up in medical school. I had no idea skilled trades were even really even an option and I also had no idea what I wanted to major in at 18 years old.
Despite everything, I'm thankful I have no student loans to pay off.
This is perfectly understandable given the disappearance of trade schools and the big push by everyone to go to college.
There are probably many other things you could be doing in business other than the job you've currently got. Have you explored those first to see if you can find something else in your field that may make for an easier transition from one job to the next, rather than completely changing industries? The problem with just jumping ship is, I've seen people do this only to find themselves unhappy in their new endeavor, too.
It isn't always the job making people unhappy, sometimes it's their expectations and dreams that never come to fruition.
My degree is in history and there are very few avenues available to me without a hard skill. The field emphasizes research, archival, writing, and documenting. My work as a BA might transfer over to something like technical writing, sales, or god forbid, HR. I fear that these types of skills are less important than ever and will be further automated in the future.
Take technical writing for examples, it used to be companies would hire full-time writers to create manuals for software. That's not the case anymore. Writers are a dime a dozen, usually work as contractors, and often print manuals are not even included. In some ways, the burden has unintentionally been shifted to consumers who create online guides, wiki-projects, and manuals for free.
I need to bite the bullet and start learning a skilled-trade that cannot be outsourced or displaced by technology. There will always be a need for electricians.
There will always be a need for electricians but with the trend towards right to work states, trade wages become a race to the bottom like any other work. What you mention as a negative point in your work, that anyone with 2 weeks of training can do it, is also a plus. Anyone, including you, can do it with 2 weeks of training, and it likely already pays more per hour than you will make as an electrician. In my state, becoming an electrician requires 8000 hours of apprenticeship and the average electrician wage is $42,000 a year. It's worth checking out trade forums and pay close attention to the wages being discussed. The top hourly rates are usually equivalent to the bottom hourly rates for technical office work.
Now, if you hate office work (who doesn't sometimes?) and want to become an electrician because that's what you really want to do, that's another thing. However, you are wise to "consider" the career ramifications before jumping in.
There will always be a need for electricians but with the trend towards right to work states, trade wages become a race to the bottom like any other work. What you mention as a negative point in your work, that anyone with 2 weeks of training can do it, is also a plus. Anyone, including you, can do it with 2 weeks of training, and it likely already pays more per hour than you will make as an electrician. In my state becoming an electrician requires 8000 hours of apprenticeship and the average electrician wage is $42,000 a year. It's worth checking out trade forums and pay close attention to the wages being discussed. The top hourly rates are usually equivalent to the bottom hourly rates for technical office work.
That 42k isn't including the daily per diems...most of which run 75-100 a day. Add that into the salary and you are talking much more. The 42k is just base salary.
There will always be a need for electricians but with the trend towards right to work states, trade wages become a race to the bottom like any other work. What you mention as a negative point in your work, that anyone with 2 weeks of training can do it, is also a plus. Anyone, including you, can do it with 2 weeks of training, and it likely already pays more per hour than you will make as an electrician. In my state, becoming an electrician requires 8000 hours of apprenticeship and the average electrician wage is $42,000 a year. It's worth checking out trade forums and pay close attention to the wages being discussed. The top hourly rates are usually equivalent to the bottom hourly rates for technical office work.
Now, if you hate office work (who doesn't sometimes?) and want to become an electrician because that's what you really want to do, that's another thing. However, you are wise to "consider" the career ramifications before jumping in.
Admittedly, I would be sacrificing a lot. I'm currently make $24 an hour as a contract BA. That is the most money I've ever made and I would essentially be cutting my salary in half by taking on an apprenticeship.
I graduated college at the height of the housing market crash and as a result, my career has been permanently marred by it. My experiences with the job searches have always been awful. I'm not gonna lie, those periods of long term unemployment affectedly me deeply and I have a very negative perception of HR, white collar field, and academia as a result.
Yes, a BA job is relatively easy but it is also highly competitive. I only got my current job thanks to networking. Even finding something simple like data entry or administrative assistant roles has become an exercise in futility. I think that the soft white collar jobs will be the first to feel the affects of greater automation. It's already happening in areas like archiving and data entry.
You're right, it is a race to the bottom but why not at least gain a valuable skill where, with enough experience, you can set off on your own in bad times?
The last few weeks of school totally stressed my son out. All they were talking about in what felt to him like all of his classes were "career readiness" and other "plan for your future" "crap" (son's word).
He just turned 14 and doesn't know what he wants to do when he grows up and was royally PO'd about having to spend the last few weeks of school writing papers about "When I grow up, I want to be a....."
So anyway, we had to have an electrician out to fix a light switch.
Took the electrician all of about 6 minutes.
We paid him $72.00. My son watched me write the check.
Guess what my son suddenly wants to be when he grows up?
OP - I think you should go for it! Maya Angelou, RIP, said it best: "Life loves the liver of it!"
Admittedly, I would be sacrificing a lot. I'm currently make $24 an hour as a contract BA. That is the most money I've ever made and I would essentially be cutting my salary in half by taking on an apprenticeship.
I graduated college at the height of the housing market crash and as a result, my career has been permanently marred by it. My experiences with the job searches have always been awful. I'm not gonna lie, those periods of long term unemployment affectedly me deeply and I have a very negative perception of HR, white collar field, and academia as a result.
Yes, a BA job is relatively easy but it is also highly competitive. I only got my current job thanks to networking. Even finding something simple like data entry or administrative assistant roles has become an exercise in futility. I think that the soft white collar jobs will be the first to feel the affects of greater automation. It's already happening in areas like archiving and data entry.
You're right, it is a race to the bottom but why not at least gain a valuable skill where, with enough experience, you can set off on your own in bad times?
Well I don't want to be too negative. But I just don't think the trades are necessarily a panacea for white collar career ennui. At least in most of the USA. My sister's husband is a tradesman in Australia and he makes good money, about $100K per year. However, all my cousins on my mom's side of the family are tradesmen in southeastern Minnesota and they don't seem to be doing well at all. Two of them who are around my age (late 30s) are living with their parents. One is an electrician, the other a carpenter.
Here are some negative factors regarding electrical and trade work in general:
- apprentices get all the **** work. so 3-4 years of crawling under the house, etc
- the guys you are apprenticing for are usually going to be dicks. legit unpleasantness that would never be tolerated in most corporate settings
- you are going to have limited autonomy, no choice of jobs, actually get yelled at, etc during apprenticeship
once you're done:
- nepotism and favoritism, much worse than most corporate jobs. i.e. guys literally are giving jobs to their brother, son, nephew, buddies.
- many unions have systems and rules to prevent nepotism this but even then it works in reverse; you get hired on a job but when people get let go, the brother, son, nephew or buddy always seems to stay on
- not as many journeymen needed; one guy with a bunch of apprentices can do the job. rules about this vary by location
-work is tied to the economy; when new buildings are being constructed, there's a more work, but when there's not building being done, there is a LOT less work to go around
- there are already a lot of electricians
Etc, etc. There are legit reasons why people pushed their kids away from trades in the first place. I also think your age is a factor. The apprenticeship system is sort of a relic of the age when people were tracked into these fields when they are young.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
there's HECK to pay !
