Time To Make Apprenticeships Cool Again
Bill Floyd
I don't know if you've noticed but lately there has been a lot of talk about bringing back apprenticeships as a career path. Duh? Somehow, somewhere along the way colleges convinced us, or we convinced ourselves, that universities were the only track toward getting our children the jobs they needed to be successful in life. Doing skilled blue-collar work was somehow beneath us. Kids who didn't go to college were often thought of as failures. Well here's the real story.
For years now the trade associations have been screaming that our electricians are getting older and that there are not enough young ones in the pipeline. NAED set up a special website to attract millennials into our field. Even as jobs were hard to find, so were the good people needed to fill them. John Ratzenberger, better know as Cliff Claven from the TV Show Cheers, started a foundation (http://www.nutsandboltsfoundation.org/) where he promotes the necessity of finding welders, machinists, and other trades people who can accomplish the work our country really needs and make a very good wage in the process. Mike Rowe, Americas' Dirtiest Jobs, offers the same message. I recently heard a discussion on television where the person being interviewed dispelled blue-collar workers as being second class wage earners when he said, "our family plumber owned the building where my father's cardiolgist had his office". I suspect it’s a fact that there are more out of work or "underemployed" (whatever that means) liberal arts majors than there are welders, pipefitters, or masons. I also suspect that trades people are happy about the four years of enormous tuition debt they have avoided.
I still go to meetings where the attendees are obsessed with recruiting college graduates for their companies. They are eliminating far too many candidates who may have the aptitude, desire, and ability but never had the opportunity, direction, or desire to go to college. These are folks who may have bloomed later in life or went into the military or to a trade school.
We need to make apprenticeships and internships and any other on-the-job learning opportunities cool again. Its time to shake the elitist attitude that if the last four years were spent getting dirty and street smart instead of in college, that candidate has nothing to offer. Tell that to the plumber who owns the cardiologist's building or to Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. They all started at the bottom and they did alright don't you think?
Stay tuned for the next round of innovation from ElectricSmarts and NetPak.
To reply to this article or contact the writer bfloyd@electricsmarts.com
For years now the trade associations have been screaming that our electricians are getting older and that there are not enough young ones in the pipeline. NAED set up a special website to attract millennials into our field. Even as jobs were hard to find, so were the good people needed to fill them. John Ratzenberger, better know as Cliff Claven from the TV Show Cheers, started a foundation (http://www.nutsandboltsfoundation.org/) where he promotes the necessity of finding welders, machinists, and other trades people who can accomplish the work our country really needs and make a very good wage in the process. Mike Rowe, Americas' Dirtiest Jobs, offers the same message. I recently heard a discussion on television where the person being interviewed dispelled blue-collar workers as being second class wage earners when he said, "our family plumber owned the building where my father's cardiolgist had his office". I suspect it’s a fact that there are more out of work or "underemployed" (whatever that means) liberal arts majors than there are welders, pipefitters, or masons. I also suspect that trades people are happy about the four years of enormous tuition debt they have avoided.
I still go to meetings where the attendees are obsessed with recruiting college graduates for their companies. They are eliminating far too many candidates who may have the aptitude, desire, and ability but never had the opportunity, direction, or desire to go to college. These are folks who may have bloomed later in life or went into the military or to a trade school.
We need to make apprenticeships and internships and any other on-the-job learning opportunities cool again. Its time to shake the elitist attitude that if the last four years were spent getting dirty and street smart instead of in college, that candidate has nothing to offer. Tell that to the plumber who owns the cardiologist's building or to Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. They all started at the bottom and they did alright don't you think?
Stay tuned for the next round of innovation from ElectricSmarts and NetPak.
To reply to this article or contact the writer bfloyd@electricsmarts.com
