Thinking about getting an apprenticeship as a plumber or electrician

Pauleeeeeeee

Recently I've been thinkin about my future(financial security, my own house and all that jazz). So I've decided to take a path in life that shouldn't have me worryin' about money

Since I'm indifferent about whether I should try and get an apprenticeship as a plumber or electrician it all boils down to which one will result in me getting the most amount of money. Do both electricians and plumbers generally make the same amount of money or does one make more than the other. Which one has a steeper learning curve because I honestly don't have much of a clue about either.

Oh and does me to get an apprentice position basically require me to just look through the golden pages and ring up a load of companies and ask if they'll take me on? Would I have to wait till next september (or a similar date to when college courses resume) to start?

Thanks!

TheNog

To be honest with you I wouldn't choose any profession on money alone. I have just resigned from a job paying 50+ a year and taking up another job paying half that at the start.

I took the 50+ for the money and I hated every minute of it for 3 years. It took an enormous toll on me and my family and i will never do anything like that again.

Is there no job out there that interests you? you don't necessarily have to be a person who is a workaholic but remember u will have to spent most of ur time at work so u may as well like it.

Pauleeeeeeee

TheNog wrote:

To be honest with you I wouldn't choose any profession on money alone. I have just resigned from a job paying 50+ a year and taking up another job paying half that at the start.

I took the 50+ for the money and I hated every minute of it for 3 years. It took an enormous toll on me and my family and i will never do anything like that again.

Is there no job out there that interests you? you don't necessarily have to be a person who is a workaholic but remember u will have to spent most of ur time at work so u may as well like it.

Thanks for the advice TheNog. I don't know if I'll hate it or not but that's why I want to try either of them out for a few months. What harm could it do.

I'm still unsure about which one to go for?

opinions?

irishguy

From what i hear from the guys i know doing an apprenticeship there is more money in plumbing, but remember it will take 4 years to be fully qualified and the Irish construction industry will be a very different place then. Dont expect to be getting astronomical amounts of money for the rest of your carear as this will not/cannot last. You might even find it hard to get a well paying job 10 years down the road in Ireland

Pauleeeeeeee

irishguy wrote:

From what i hear from the guys i know doing an apprenticeship there is more money in plumbing, but remember it will take 4 years to be fully qualified and the Irish construction industry will be a very different place then. Dont expect to be getting astronomical amounts of money for the rest of your carear as this will not/cannot last. You might even find it hard to get a well paying job 10 years down the road in Ireland

But you could say that about pretty much any job these days. I've lost count of the amount of times someone has said "don't go down such and such a route because in a few years time there'll be no more work for you or else you'll be getting payed **** money".

irishguy

Thats true, but all i am saying is dont expect to be earn the huge amounts of money that are being earned in this sector at the moment in Ireland (if you want to go abroad in the future you wont have a problem as there will nearly always be a building boom going on some where in the world). The rate of construction of new houses in Ireland is unsustainable, there is a very large number of people taking up trades every year and an increase in skilled migrant workers coming into the country that are prepaired to work for alot less than Irish workers with the same skills. So when the market slows down there will be alot of skilled employees with not enough jobs so wages in this sector will fall. Other sectors such as financial services, science and health are very stable as there is a constant demand for there services and will offer very good wages for the foreseeable future. Even I.T. is becoming a very stable sector with huge growth prospects, in the next couple of years there is even going to be a big shortage of skilled I.T graduates (its already starting to happen). At the end of the day you are better off doing somthing you like as you will be naturally better at it making you more employable and alot happier thats just my 2c you may disagree

IronMan

Plumbing is the better paid of the careers, and is a very interesting job, if you have a talent for it. However as other posters have mentioned, a massive amount of young people are choosing it, and the construction industry in general as a career. When the market cools, their will be a surplus of jobs, so you better have stood out as having a talent, or else have a good business head and move into a niche, such as clean air systems, gas installations, designer bathrooms etc.
As for the training, you normally approach a plumber, and ask if he will take you on as an apprentice. You can ask now. What most of them do, is take you on for the summer on a trail basis, and then offer you an apprenticship if you have a liking/talent for it. It can be a tough industry to train in. I have many friends working for various plumbing firms from the very large to the one man and his assistant style job. Many pay an apprentice rate of wage (below the minimum wage), while others get very well paid. Some are not registered with FAS for upto a year after starting their job, so the whole thing can take 5-6 years to get trained in. FAS experiences delay in processing applicants, so you do not get called for classroom training when you are supposed to. Not always the case, but its something to be wary about.
However if you do find you like it (as the vast majority of plumbers I meet do), then its one of the best jobs out there. A mate of mine who's 23 pulls in over €400 doing cash nixers every Saturday. I'd take it!

Pauleeeeeeee

I just got off the phone to a company that my cousin is doing a sparx apprenticeship with. He said they are a medium sized company so basically yer not getting the fook load of work you might have to do if you were just workin with a really small company (ie one man and his assistant) but yer also not working for a large company who don't even know yer name and with whom you learn SFA.

Also, they seem well organised. There was none of this "see how he gets on for a few months and then give him his apprenticeship". They took him on, registered him with Fás and got the ball rolling.

cargrouch

Go for it, do every nixer you can in the next few years and stash as much cash as you can. If there is a big squeeze in a few years time you can try the UK or use your stash of cash to support you while you do a course.

One example of how college doesn't pay:

I did a very tough degree course (electronic engineering). I was interested in it and I still am, but a lot of people were pushed/enticed into it by this idea of trades being somehow unstable and having a degree meant better job security. For a few years electronic engineering looked like it was gonna be the "next big thing" in Ireland. Now all the electronics (chip design) companies are going or gone. I still want to use my degree but there are at least 50 different "types" of electronic engineer - so if you even if you have good experience in one particular area then there may be very few jobs in it, especially in Ireland. A plumber is a plumber no matter where you go!

Anytime someone mentions a trade, a load of people will say "you'll be fecked in 4 years time, go to college". Well I've had plenty of people in trades think I should be making great money as an engineer, then burst out laughing when I tell 'em I don't make the 500+ a week that they do. My contract includes no-pay overtime, and tisn't the greatest profession for nixers!;)

Do the plumbing or sparks apprenticeship, take as much money as you can while it's going. When you've done your time you could try working as a contractor, or get in somewhere with a union (licence to do half-nothing and get paid a packet) or carry on with the company you're with for a while.

You'll at least save yourself a packet of money throughout life being able to do your own work at home, even if you do have to do a course or join the guards in a few years time. Every fella in the country who scraped a bare pass in the leaving cert seems to be driving a subaru/celica/beemer and paying off a house and laughing at us fools in office jobs. (not saying all tradesmen only scraped a leaving cert, just pointing out the extremes - technically you would only need to have scraped your @rse over the line at school and you could be earning twice what a college graduate is getting - who would you say is smarter???)

Pauleeeeeeee

I got 465 points in the leaving cert actually

cargrouch

:cool: Yeah, like I said, not making out that all tradespeople scraped a leaving, just saying that you/me/him-over-there could have scraped a leaving, done a trade and still be making a packet more than at least one type of engineer. And have better job security!

Believe me, I got plenty more than that, but I'm not in a position to stick my tongue out at anyone considering where all those points got me!

DublinWriter

irishguy wrote:

Even I.T. is becoming a very stable sector with huge growth prospects, in the next couple of years there is even going to be a big shortage of skilled I.T graduates (its already starting to happen).

Just a little OT I know, but felt like I needed to say something re the above.

Most blue-chips, including the big four or five or whatever recruit graduates with *any* degree straight from college - they tend to hunt for people with firsts in anything.

For example, I'm currently working on a project at the moment for a government body where a 'senior' I.T. consultant from one of the biggest consulting companies around (won't mention who) turned around and asked me after a meeting "What does bandwidth mean?"

The consultant in question would be a senior P.M. I.T. lead, is 29 and would have spent their entire working career with the big consultancy in question after graduating with a first in, wait for it, biology.

Basically the whole I.T. graduate shortage issue is a myth. Plenty of people from other disciplines end up floating into I.T. in non-technical roles, while most technical people tend not to have a degree.

cargrouch

DublinWriter wrote:

Just a little OT I know, but felt like I needed to say something re the above.

Most blue-chips, including the big four or five or whatever recruit graduates with *any* degree straight from college - they tend to hunt for people with firsts in anything.
....
Basically the whole I.T. graduate shortage issue is a myth. Plenty of people from other disciplines end up floating into I.T. in non-technical roles, while most technical people tend not to have a degree.

In that case, eastern europe can supply thousands. I know of at least one company with a large base in Ireland that is checking out different Polish universities to supply them with graduate engineers.

irishguy

Well i have had a number of interviews for grad IT jobs in the last few months and a number of the companys are worried about the lack of grads. One company (a very large US investment bank) even whent so fars as to ask me to estimate how many IT grads were in each year of my course and other IT courses in my college. A number of IT companys are finding it hard to recuit 'suitable' staff. The consultant you are talking about would have been hired during the whole .com boom where they would hire anyone who saw a computer, alot of lessons have been learned from that and i would doubt that would happen again (hiring non it people for an IT role that is).
Last year 46 people graduated from my course. This year there are going to be 24 people graduating, in 3rd year there are 9 people and about 5 years ago there was around 100 people. The IT industry has only bounced back in the last year or two, wait till next year or the year after and they will be big shortages.

DublinWriter

irishguy wrote:

The consultant you are talking about would have been hired during the whole .com boom where they would hire anyone who saw a computer, alot of lessons have been learned from that and i would doubt that would happen again (hiring non it people for an IT role that is).

Quite true, having lived through the period myself, I saw some complete muppets being recruited, but the major consultancies still perform graduate recruitment based on results rather than discipline, strangely enough.

A UK friend of mine graduated in Engineering back in 1994 and she's one of IBM's top AIX consultants now.

Organisations working in a particular industry sector, such as banking, manufacturing, etc, do tend to recruit based on the area in which you graduated in.

Believe me, there's no shortage of contract and freelance I.T. workers out there doing the 'technical stuff' and filling in the gaps.

FX Meister

I'm just into my second year as an electrical apprentice and I love it. Never had any regrets. It was a tough choice for me being 27 and having two mortgages to worry about. The money isn't great to start but it gets better in your second year and I have the opportunity to do as many nixers as I want. I've been told plumbing makes better money but I'd still rather be doing what I'm doing. It may be tought in a few years though when the building boom slows down but if you are skilled then it shouldn't be too bad. Being that bit older I have a better head on my shoulders and work hard at what I do. So when it came to my phase 2 in Fas I was the best there. A lot of young lads get into it as it's just a job and don't have a huge interest in it. It's hugely important to enjoy what you do though and after a number of well paid jobs in the past I was never really happy and now things are the best they have every been for me work wise.

Pauleeeeeeee

I just got an interview with a company called Vaughan J Electrical in Blanchardstown. They said that they have 55 staff at the moment Anyone ever hear of them? Would you say they are a good choice?

FX Meister

Find out what kind of work they do and what you will be doing. Big companies often have you doing donkey work for ages. I was with Mercury dudes in Fas who were in the job over a year and they never wired anything, just put up conduit and pulled in the cables.

Pauleeeeeeee

The company I'm having the interview with next week are "industrial and commercial engineering contractors". I know that every apprentice has that intial phase of going to the shops to fetch breakfast rolls for the rest of the lads and sweeping up the dirt until they actually start doing 'real' work.

So how would I phrase a question like "how long will it be before I actually start to do any proper work?" to the person interviewing me.

Oh, and if you don't mind me asking FX Meister, who are you working for at the moment? How many people work at the company and did you have to spend much time doing donkey work at the begining?

FX Meister

My company has about 15 employees. We have been working on a big estate on the northside for about 6 years now and we do a good few re wires of big houses and the odd commercial place. No industrial, my boss subs that out if it comes up. I didn't do that much donkey work. I did a good bit of chasing the first week or two and that was really tough at the start as I wasn't used to manual labour all day long. My first day the electrician I was working with actually arrived with coffee for me. Luckily I never had to fetch any breakfast rolls but I've seen other lads at it and I wouldn't envy them. In the interview they will ask you if you have any questions and at that stage ask them what kind of work you will be starting with and at what rate will you learn new skills. I started with chasing, then wiring and then moved on to second fixing. I picked it up fairly quickly and then in Fas I learnt all the science of the trade. But I did physics in school and electronics in college so it didn't come that hard to me. What age are you by the way?

Pauleeeeeeee

I'm 20 now, not 21 till next year.

I was very good at maths an physics in school which hopefully will mean something (I can barely remeber how to divide these days though :P)

Do you think it matters whether the company I will be working for does domestic or industrial stuff? Also, how does a company with about 55 staff sound to you?

Pauleeeeeeee

Well, after been given the most useless directions I've ever been given I went for an interview this morning after about and hour trying to find the place, (even the taxi cab driver I got got so pissed off he practically threw me out of the car and left me). I ****in' hate business parks.

aaaaaaanyway....

I don't think I'm going to go with this particular company though for 2 reasons-
1: They want me to work on a probational period of 6 months before they even register me with Fás.

2: They want me to get a Safe Pass and get a Manual Handeling Cert before employing me. That's all well and good but they cost near enough to €100 each to do. Money which I DON'T have at the moment.

Not to worry though because the company my cousin works for say they'll ring me for an interview in a day or two. They signed him up to Fás straight away and payed for his Safe Pass course and didn't require for him to have a Manual Handelling Cert.

FX Meister

My company paid for my safe pass. Are you on the dole at the moment? If you are you can get them to pay for the safe pass course for you. Mercury have to do a six month trial as well. Most places will put you on a trial but I think six months is way too long.

Pauleeeeeeee

I'm headin' for an interview this morning with a different company.

They sign you on with Fás straight away. I asked them if they would be paying for my SafePass course but they said no (which is a bit of a pisser because they paid for my cousin's safe pass just under a year ago.) They said it was something to do with "needing a lot of people straight away".