How to Become an Apprentice Electrician

hey what is going on you guys today I'm going to be explaining exactly the steps that you need to take if you want to become an apprentice electrician alright well hey guys my name is Steven and if you're new to this channel I'm gonna be releasing one new video per week so if you want to see up-to-date and you like what I have to say then make sure that you hit the subscribe button and also the notification bell so you can be notified every time that I released a new video so in today's video I'm gonna be explaining exactly what an electrician apprenticeship is and the steps kind of an overview of the steps that you need to take to become one so in the coming weeks I'm gonna be explaining more in depth what each step in this process looks like from applying to taking your aptitude test and how to study for that and I also want to make a video about how to interview and I may even do sort of a mock interview so you can see an example of the answers that I gave when I applied for this apprenticeship so if this is something that you want to stay up-to-date with and you are interested in pursuing this as a career you're not gonna want to miss those videos so anyways I hope I can be a great resource for you and I hope that you enjoy what I have to say so the question that brought you here today is how do you become an electrician and the answer is through an apprenticeship now whether you go the Union route or the non-union route the process is gonna look a little bit different but for the most part the idea of an apprenticeship is going to be the same across the board so becoming a nautical apprentice what that is is this basically just a process that you go through in order to become a journeyman electrician and what a journeyman electrician is is it's someone that has completed their apprenticeship they've completed the minimum number of on-the-job hours they have completed their minimum requirement of classroom time they have taken their state licensing tests and they now have their journeyman's license so there's really as I said there's two components that go into completing an apprenticeship your on-the-job hours and your classroom time so let's talk about the on-the-job portion of the apprenticeship now here in Portland Oregon we have a minimum number of 8,000 required all the job hours that you must complete before you can turn out and become a journeyman electrician so when you're first starting your apprenticeship you're most likely going to be working side-by-side with a journeyman now if you're anything like me when you first get into this trade it's gonna feel really overwhelming because there is so much that you have to learn and you may feel like how am I supposed to learn all of this in four to five years okay when I first got into this trade I knew pretty much nothing about construction I didn't know even the difference between what a drill and an impact was but you know what that's okay because every day when you show up to work if you have a good journeyman they're gonna be showing you everything okay you're gonna overtime day in and day out by putting in your hours you're gonna slowly learn what the different material is you're gonna learn how to use different tools you're gonna learn all the different tips and tricks that your journey will show you in the idea is that by the end of the four to five years that you put in in your apprenticeship you are gonna become a well rounded electrician and you're gonna feel confident working on your own so here's a quick overview of what the schooling portion looks like now every apprenticeship is set up a little bit differently a lot of apprenticeships require you to go to night school which could be nice because then you don't miss any days of work throughout the week so you're gonna be getting full paychecks now here in IBEW Local 48 the way this works is we have on and off terms so we're either going to school in the spring in the fall or the summer and winter now the way that works is we basically take one day off of work each week and we go to school for eight hours that day so I like that because you know I'm not tired when I'm going to school I can be really focused and I can get a lot out of my classroom time now the classroom time in an apprenticeship is really really important because there is so much to learn in this trade and you know there's a lot of different theory that you have to have down and it's a dangerous trade okay you want to make sure that you're being as safe as you can and a lot of that safety you're gonna learn from school so in school you're gonna be learning anything from AC theory to DC theory you're gonna learn how to wire transformers you're gonna learn about fire alarm you're gonna learn a low voltage you're gonna learn about motor controls so there's a lot of different things that you learn in school but the idea is just like with the on-the-job hours that by the time you finish all of your terms of school and by the time that you finish all of your on-the-job hours you're going to know how to do your job and do it well and you're gonna have all the knowledge that is needed to do this job as I said in our last video electricians make great money but that's because we dedicate four to five years of our lives learning how to do this job and how to do it well so that's kind of how an apprenticeship works and now I want to explain the process that it takes in order to become an apprentice now the first step would be just to do research right that's what you're doing right now when you're watching this video but you're gonna need to decide do you want to go to the Union route or the non-union route and the reason why is because if you decide that you want to be a union electrician you are actually going to look up what the local union in your area is and you can do that by doing a simple google search and once you know where that training center is you're gonna actually want to call them you're gonna want to figure out what days they are accepting applications go to the website and see what the specific requirements are to join if you go the non-union route you're gonna want to do a Google search for whatever companies are in your area and you're gonna wanna I would recommend calling every single one of them finding out if they're hiring and then apply for every single company so going off of my personal experience doing a union apprenticeship this is what that process looks like so IBEW Local 48 when they are hiring they are accepting applications one day each week and that is usually on Wednesdays and there's a certain window of time that you can actually go in and apply now when you go to apply you are actually going to bring a little packet of information that you have put together now it is important that you make yourself stand out amongst everybody else that's applying because this is a very competitive program to get into okay there's a lot of people that want to become electricians and they're only gonna choose the best of the best so here's what you need to bring with you when you apply to become an electrician the things that we need to have an IV w-welcome 48 is our high school transcripts we also need to have photo ID there's an application fee let's see you need to bring a resume spend your time on your resume make it look really good I would recommend bringing a cover letter to that's just going the extra mile and making yourself stand out a little bit more and then here we also are the requests that we bring photos of projects that we have completed or anything that we want to let the interviewers know about us when we actually get to the point where we interview so at this point you've turned in your application and they have checked and you have met the minimum requirements now after about three months they're gonna schedule you to take an aptitude test now what the aptitude test consists of is a reading portion and a math portion and the reason they want to check for this is because reading and math are something that you're going to be using a lot and you're gonna be using that just about every day on the job so if you have not gone to school for a while by the time that you are applying for this apprenticeship I would recommend brushing up on your algebra I would also recommend just practicing reading that way you are ready to go and that way you can pass this aptitude test with flying colors so the last portion is the interview and this is without a doubt the scariest part of the application process now here in our local union we have thousands of people that apply every single year so this is your time to shine this is your time to stand out amongst everybody else and you're gonna let them know exactly why they should pick you for this apprenticeship now I'm not gonna go into details right now about how to interview and interview well but I will be making a video where I'm gonna be talking one about the aptitude test how to do well for that and I'm also gonna be making a video about how to interview and how to do a really good job with that so overall this whole process from applying to interviewing is gonna be about a three month process and after you're done interviewing you're going to just wait and what you're gonna be waiting for is a letter in the mail that's going to let you know your number on the list of apprentices that they are going to have start the apprenticeship so now the way the list works is the lower the rank the better so here if you rank anywhere between one and I think it's 18 that means that you are gonna be in the next class that they have that starts the apprenticeship okay and say you rank 19 well that means that you're gonna be on the next class that they have started the apprenticeship the higher up that you are on the list the smaller the chances get of you actually getting accepted into the program okay I ranks I believe it was in the low 60s and so that actually took about three months after the time that I interviewed for me to start the apprenticeship so 60s pretty good my brother ranked I think like a hundred and eighteen he's still got accepted into the program too but the higher up that you get ranked you know the less of a chance you have of actually getting into the program now it's not all bad news if you rank really high on the list you didn't ruin your chance of getting in it just means that you're gonna need to take some extra steps if you really want to do this as a career so here if you want to re-interview and you want another shot at getting a lower rank on the way well you have to wait six months and during that time you're gonna want to maybe take a college class on electrical theory you're maybe going to want to get some sort of on-the-job experience and the idea is that by the time that you interview again you're gonna be able to present yourself as a better applicant and a better fit for this trade that way they're gonna choose you and hopefully you'll get a lower rank on the list now even a lot of people that interview a second time they don't get accepted sometimes even a third time they won't get accepted so here's kind of the thing that I would recommend doing if you really want to do this and you just can't seem to get a good rank I would really recommend going to one of the contractors that you want to work for in your area and ask about becoming a material handler now what a material handler is is it somebody that is pretty much just a helper for everybody okay they help apprentices in the help journeyman and they're gonna be bringing different materials to you as you need it they're gonna be cleaning up the laydowns they're gonna be doing kind of all the heavy lifting all of that kind of stuff now it's not a glamorous job by any means but that is the route that a lot of people take in order to kind of get their foot in the door and show that they really want to do this as a career so if you spend six months one year two years as a material handler by the time that you go to reapply they're gonna see wow this person really wants this as a career and they are most likely gonna let you in as an apprentice so that is what I would recommend doing and it's worked out for most people that I have talked to you I'm sure it'll work out for you all right so whether you made it in after interviewing your first time and you got a really good rank or you had to interview several times before getting your good rank in getting call to start the apprenticeship you're finally in kind of so here in IBEW Local 48 and I think the way a lot of unions work is there is one more step in the application process and this is boot camp okay so essentially what this is is when you get your call to start before actually going to a job site they want to be absolutely sure that you are a good fit for the trait and so there is a two-week period where you're gonna be going to school every day and they're just going to teach you the safety requirements they're gonna teach you the basics of how to wire things up how to bend pipe you know you're gonna is kind of like schooling 101 you're just gonna get a quick crash course of how to do this job before you actually start but really what this is used for is a way for them to sift out anybody that they think is not fit for the trade and let me tell you if you have made it to the bootcamp stage of the application process do not mess this up okay there was actually two people in my boot camp that they just you know they made it to this point and there was one guy that kept falling asleep in class and there was another guy that didn't pass the drug test and you know I just can't even imagine getting to that point in being so close to starting your career as an electrician and then just messing it up if you mess up your time in boot camp you have most likely messed up and you may not have any chance of actually doing this because they see that you're not somebody that they want to to have as an electrician so anyways that's kind of the last step in the process but once you have completed your boot camp you are in you're gonna be sent out to a job site and you're gonna start working so there it is there's a quick overview of what an apprenticeship is and how to start an apprenticeship now like I said subscribe turn on the notification bow because I will be releasing more videos in the coming weeks where I go in depth of each step of this process please leave me comments I want to know exactly what you want to know is that way I can answer any questions that you have and yeah I'm excited to help you guys out I hope that you have found this helpful and I hope that you guys start this as a career and I hope that you guys have a great day

Channel: Mad Electrician

Views: 288,772

Keywords: How to become an electrician, how to become an apprentice electrician, how to become an apprentice, what is an apprenticeship, electrician, apprentice electrician, how, to, become, an, apprentice, apprenticeship, ibew, union, tradesman, journeyman, electrical, mad electrician, mad, new career, career, tradeschool, trade school, ibew local 48, local 48, interview, aptitude test, application, training center, Stephen, Sparky, ibew apprenticeship, becoming an electrician, electrician apprenticeship

Id: O6bhds8IwQs

Length: 15min 9sec (909 seconds)

Published: Mon May 25 2020