Does anyone pay attention

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iwire said:
Of course the fact that you are an industrial electrician has not had any influence on your opinion. :D
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Former industrial electrician.And of course that doesn't influence my opinion in the least.:grin:
 
Actually there is more electrical required in a 10,000 sqft house than there is in a 10,000 sqft TI.

If I hadn't knocked on a door and taken a chance I wouldn't have this job. I had been laid off and was out of work for about six weeks trying to figure out what I was going to do, when I saw the ad for this job. Put in and application and they called me, I came in second after the first interview and first after the second interview. It's surprising what you know and I've always been thankful that someone gave me the chance.

Even when I first started in the trade, I was the go and get parts from the truck guy and I didn't even know what all the parts were, by the second year I was running jobs. Then I went into commercial/industrial, where I had some experience, but not much and stayed with that company for seven years, again, because someone gave me a chance.

Just because you hire them, doesn't mean you need to keep them.
 
brian john said:
There is no type of work I won't try and can do it all (SO FAR). I think it depends on the person and their mechanical aptitude.

It is all pretty basic, till you get into controls and/or speciality work.

Worked with a guy that only did residential he bought a bender and couple 100 feet of 1/2 emt spent a week trying to learn. He took a commercial job and no one was the wiser. It is amazing how many electricians do mediocre pipe bending , his mark to shoot for was not all that high.

Did a gas station remodel years ago I sat down and read the NEC over and over asked questions of a few electricians that had done a gas station, got through it.

IMO a good electrician should try different things, move around through their career. IF THE MARKET ALLOWS. Our apprentices transfer every 12 months. Seldom get residental expierence.
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Exactly. Electrical is all the same. Just the application of it differs.
 
cowboyjwc said:
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Just because you hire them, doesn't mean you need to keep them.
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Thats just it. Do you have any idea what the actual final cost of hiring someone is? I need people to come in and be able to do what the job requires. If I needed to teach someone I would have put that in the ad. I don't care how much some of you guys harp on it, there is a significant enough amount of difference between resi and comm that I will not hire someone with no comm exp.
 
tyha said:
Thats just it. Do you have any idea what the actual final cost of hiring someone is? I need people to come in and be able to do what the job requires. If I needed to teach someone I would have put that in the ad. I don't care how much some of you guys harp on it, there is a significant enough amount of difference between resi and comm that I will not hire someone with no comm exp.
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I don't entirely disagree, but how hard do you think it is for someone to come in and say they have experience?

Do you test your applicants? There's a big difference between experience and knowledge.

I've sat on many oral boards and can tell you that I have seen some great looking resumes, but as soon as we start asking questions, the real electrician starts showing through.
 
I've sat on many oral boards and can tell you that I have seen some great looking resumes, but as soon as we start asking questions, the real electrician starts showing through.
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Resumes are like dating services on the Internet everyone is a George Clooney or Miss America. then you see them face to face and the lies show through.

I rather hire a hard worker with less experience that is telling the truth than a more expierenced BS'er any day.
 
Just a few random thoughts:
10 years of experience doing things wrong does not make you a good electrician.
Everyone knows that commercial electrons are not compatible with residential electrons.
Ohm's Law only applies in commercial installations.

Any GOOD electrician should be easily able to transition from one type of work to another. It should only take a matter of hours to get "up to speed" on the things that are different form one type of work to another. That said, there is a shortage of GOOD workers that are willing to learn new methods and techniques in all trades. Don't let one of the few GOOD workers get away because they don't have the specific experience that you are looking for.
 
brian john said:
I rather hire a hard worker with less experience that is telling the truth than a more expierenced BS'er any day.
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I'm happy to say that he works for me now. He's already a better troubleshooter than a 9-year guy I used to have.
 
cowboyjwc said:
Actually there is more electrical required in a 10,000 sqft house than there is in a 10,000 sqft TI.
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I was one of about 8 commercial foremen who got together to wire a co-workers home on a Saturday. All of us had at least 15 years in the trade. It was comedy, none of us had more then a clue about all the dwelling unit requirements. We had the book out a lot. :grin:

I am sure we were way over on man hours. :D
 
I made the switch from resi to commercial two years ago. I simply made it clear to the employer that I was looking to further my experience and didn't expect full j-man pay for having no practical on-the-job experience for the task at hand.

I don't find an applicant ignoring your "experience only" as demonstrating stupidity, but simply hoping the door isn't that far shut.
 
iwire said:
I was one of about 8 commercial foremen who got together to wire a co-workers home on a Saturday. All of us had at least 15 years in the trade. It was comedy, none of us had more then a clue about all the dwelling unit requirements. We had the book out a lot. :grin:

I am sure we were way over on man hours. :D
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When I was working as a maintenance electrician I had a friend ask me to come wire his house. I took one of our other guys with me who was trained as a commercial electrician (I started out doing custom homes). This poor guy was lost, couldn't figure out how you wired a three way with rope or how you knew what went where. About half way through he said "I sure am glad you know what you're doing, because I don't have a clue."

Every once in awhile he would try to do a room add or something on his own and I would get this call "John, HELP!":grin:

I was kind of thinking the same thing George. By the way thanks for the offer. This trip was a little more compressed than the last one but I'll try to get up that way one of these times.:grin:
 
George Stolz said:
I made the switch from resi to commercial two years ago. I simply made it clear to the employer that I was looking to further my experience and didn't expect full j-man pay for having no practical on-the-job experience for the task at hand.
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George:

I had a guy make a similar statement, based just on his attitude I said no come on at full rate. One of the best, hardest workers I have the privilege of working with, and now a good friend.
 
iwire said:
I was one of about 8 commercial foremen who got together to wire a co-workers home on a Saturday. All of us had at least 15 years in the trade. It was comedy, none of us had more then a clue about all the dwelling unit requirements. We had the book out a lot. :grin:

I am sure we were way over on man hours. :D
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You forgot to mention that said coworker also has a few screws loose. :D :D
 
All the major fields(comm,resi,indust) are specialties,and within these fields are sub fields.Automation,lighting,etc. A sharp person with a good general electrical education should be able to get up to speed in any of them.The trick is staying up to speed. Both the joy and the bane of our proffesion is the opportunity to learn something new every day.
 
lets see, residential, commercial, institutional, industrial, phones and Internet, plumbing, heating, wait this must be a dream for someone..at one time I was high voltage certified, hmm I guess I would need more then 2.50..I consider it a nightmare..
 
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