Want To Become An Electrician? Why It Is A Great Job Choice In 2017 & Tips For Landing An Apprenticeship More Easily

Whether you are just graduating from high school and want to learn a new skill that will help you earn a great income or currently have a career, yet are ready to make a change, then you may be considering becoming an electrician. However, like anyone looking to begin a career, you likely wonder what the training will be like and what the chances are that you will earn a great income on the job once you finish your education. To help you decide whether a career as an electrician is right for you, read on to learn why a career as an electrician is a good choice in today's economy and how you can increase your chances of getting into a local apprenticeship program quickly. 

Why Electrician Training Today is Likely to Pay off Big in the Future

When beginning training for any new career today, you want to make sure that there is a good chance there will be a great need for new professionals in the industry when you finish your training and throughout your career. While no one can truly predict the future, the United States Department of Labor performs precise calculations to determine the predicted growth in an industry to help guide the career choices of Americans who are looking to start new successful careers. 

Thankfully, the BLS expects there to be "much faster than average" growth in the need for more electricians in the next decade, and in 2014, they predicted that there would be a need for about 86,000 new electricians in the United States by the year 2024. 

As of 2016, the median yearly salary of an electrician was just under $53,000, which is a salary that can go far in today's economy. How much you can demand as an electrician when you finish training will depend on many factors, but if fewer new electricians enter the US workforce than are needed, you can expect the pay to go up as employers fight for the electricians they need. 

Why is the need for electricians growing so quickly? There are many reasons for this, but one factor is the fact that our world is becoming more high-tech every day, and many technological devices are powered by electricity. That means that more electricians won't only be needed to install electrical wiring to support the technology, but also repair the wiring. 

How to Increase Your Chances of Earning an Apprenticeship Quickly

The classic way to become an electrician is to seek out an apprenticeship with an experienced electrician who is already certified in the industry. However, these apprenticeships can be hard to find and when spots for electrician's apprentices open, there are often many candidates fighting for the same spot. Thankfully, you can make your apprenticeship application stand out from the rest, to help you land one more quickly, by first attending an electrician trade school that offers electrician training courses, such as the HVAC Technical Institute. 

Don't worry that it will take much longer to become an electrician if you decide to enroll in an electrician trade school before you seek out an apprenticeship; if you were to seek an apprenticeship without attending an electrician trade school, you would have to not only train on-the-job with a certified electrician during your apprenticeship, but also spend time in a classroom learning about electrical codes, commercial and residential wiring, how to read blue prints, how to use electrical equipment, and other electrical theory. If you attend an electrician trade school before becoming an apprentice, you can get all of your classroom learning done before you begin on-the-job training during your apprenticeship, which can lead to a much shorter apprenticeship time. 

Electrician trade schools award students with certificates of completion that they can present to their apprenticeship program coordinators as proof they completed the required classroom education already, which then allows the apprentice to receive credit for the classroom time required during the apprenticeship without having to complete it again. 

If you are looking to start a new career and have been considering training to become a certified electrician, then the good news is that this is a great career choice in 2017 that is likely to pay off greatly once you enter the workforce. Keep these tips in mind when making your final career decision and deciding how to begin your electrician training. 

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