If you’re planning to enter the professional sector without wasting four years or more in college, being an electrician can be a good career choice.
The need for well-trained, professional electricians is always increasing, and you don’t need an academic degree to become an electrician. You can enroll in any well-recognized electrician training program to kickstart your career as a professional electrician.
However, before you make such a huge career decision, it’s best to take a closer look at the challenges of being an electrician and compare them with the rewards. And today, we’ll highlight the challenges and advantages of being an electrician, so let’s dig in!
Challenges Of Being An Electrician
1. It Takes Time To Become A Full-Time Electrician
Even though attending and completing an electrician training program is the minimum requirement for becoming an electrician, it’s not enough to help you become a full-fledged electrician. You need to enroll in classes at a trade and vocational school if you want to start a career as an electrician.
On top of this, you have to work a few years as an apprentice under a professional electrician to learn all the necessary details about the craft. You’ll get first-hand experience of how professional electricians work and learn everything about being a full-fledged electrician.
Although you might not be assigned to do any dangerous jobs as an apprentice, you’ll have to do a lot of grunt work. You might get stuck doing odd jobs that professional electricians don’t usually do. So, you have to initially face a rough couple of years to establish your career as a full-time professional electrician.
2. Hectic Work Hours
As you might know, you won’t have any fixed working hours as an electrician because it’s not like a regular 9-to-5 job. You might need to respond to a late-night emergency call and stay out for the entire night to fix the electrical fault in someone’s home.
When you become a professional electrician, you essentially offer indispensable services to the public. They rely on your expertise and professional guidance to fulfill their electrical needs. So, to gain their trust and offer top-notch solutions, you might need to compromise the work-life balance at times.
Furthermore, bring your A-game and put your best foot forward every day, even after working for long hours. You cannot afford to make any mistakes while handling electrical lines and appliances because you will want to avoid injuries and accidents at all costs.
3. Physically Demanding Job
Not all electrical jobs are physically demanding, and some are relatively straightforward. For instance, changing the old light bulb in your kitchen isn’t a hectic or backbreaking task.
But as an electrician, you need to tackle a range of electrical jobs that can be quite physically demanding. You might need to crawl through someone’s basement or climb tall ladders to detect and fix electrical faults.
As a young electrician, it might not seem like a hectic task because your body is agile and your health is good. But the story will be quite different when you reach the 40-year mark when your body begins to lose its natural flexibility. Climbing up tall ladders or crawling down basements can become a huge problem then.
Your back, shoulders, knees, and feet will take a heavy toll over the years if you continue to work as a full-fledged professional electrician. In fact, you might even get electrocuted once in a while, so be prepared to handle several physically demanding electrical jobs throughout your career.
4. Risky And Dangerous Job
It doesn’t matter how well you are trained as an electrician or how correctly you follow all the safety guidelines. There’s always a certain degree of risk associated when you work with electricity.
If you make even the slightest mistake while setting up a new electrical panel or installing new electrical wires in a residential or commercial property, you can get electrocuted. Hundreds of electricians die every year on their jobs due to severe electrocution, so you must understand the risks of the profession.
Advantages Of Being An Electrician
1. No More Student Loan Debt
Although being an electrician has certain risks, it’s not all doom and gloom. Since you won’t need a college or university degree to kickstart your career as a professional electrician, you can save thousands of dollars on hefty student loans.
Enrolling in the electrician training program won’t cost you nearly as much as attending college.
2. Several Job Opportunities
Once you complete the training and apprenticeship, you can start working as a full-fledged electrician immediately because there are several jobs for professional electricians.
You can work for big companies or start your own electrical repair business. Also, you can work on residential, commercial, or even industrial electrical lines.
3. Good Salary
You can get a good salary once you become a full-fledged electrician and start working full-time for a company. It’s best to check the salary packages offered by different companies and choose the best package while searching for a job.
On the other hand, you can start your own business, which can be much more lucrative than working for a company. It might take a lot of work, but you can make a fortune if your electrical repair business becomes a hit with the customers.
Final Thoughts
With that, we come to the end of our informative guide about the challenges of being a professional electrician. After going through our article, we hope you have a better idea of the risks associated with this profession. The initial years will be rough, and you might need to do a lot of grunt work as an apprentice.
Moreover, the job of a full-fledged electrician can be physically demanding with no fixed working hours. But, on the bright side, you won’t have to worry about student loans and can kickstart your career without a college degree.
Carefully weigh out all the challenges and advantages of the profession before making any final career decision. Take care and see you next time!
