Electrical work sounds like a neat trade to learn. How do apprenticeships there work? I get it’s a 5 year training contract, but what happens after that? I’m a journeyman like a feudal guild or something? I was going to go the local office by next week and inquire, but i figured I should shitpost about it first.
I have a buddy who’s an electrician — got started probably about 5 years ago. He loves it. Gets trained for free and decent pay considering he doesn’t have a college degree. He doesn’t get paid time off, though, and won’t until he finishes his classes and levels up. And he works like 60 hours a week (though I think that’s his call) and works weird hours (wakes up at 2a.
His friends are all super bro, joke around like their 15 years old. All cool guys, but pretty reactionary tbh.
If you’re looking for a jumping career I hear the mormons are looking
IBEW member here… the union has what’s known as the referral system, where any member may sign a work book and then put a bid in on any available job. The system works though an app where you get to see a list of all currently unfilled openings and see information like jobsite location, employer, hours of work, duration etc. and then you put in a bid for whatever job looks best for you and if you are the highest person on the book, you are dispatched to that job. If you don’t like your boss, go sign the books, get a new job, and that’s it. No notice, no interviews, no references, your benefits are through the union also so your employer literally has no leverage over you… it feels right.
Here’s the current package. The wage column is the “on the check” wage before taxes, after benefits.
I applied this year and the process for my local goes like this; you apply, if you’re approved, you move onto the next step which is take an aptitude test. Then if you passed that, you’ll schedule an interview. After that they will take your test score and interview score and compare it with all the other applicants and rank you. If you’re ranked within the number of apprentices they’re taking that year, congrats! You’re in. If you don’t get picked immediately, you’re still on their list for 2 years. So you can get a call anytime in that two years and start work. It’s a 5 year program with one class every two weeks. You work the other days of the week as an apprentice. In 5 years you’ll have your journeyman card. You can take that journeyman card to any local in the US and Canada and get put on a list to work. Or you can stay where you are and work that local.
I would suggest buying the iPrep electrical aptitude test for $40 to see what you’re getting into and practicing some of it. It’s not super difficult, but if you haven’t been in high school for a long time or haven’t been doing a lot of math without a calculator since you left high school… it’s not super easy either. These are the questions they asked me in the interview. I know not every local works exactly like this, but this was my experience.
