You’ve decided to look at a career in the trades. Maybe you’ve decided that college is not for you, and maybe you’ve also had made some distinctions about the choices available to you. HVAC schools and Refrigeration Schools are NOT created equal. Instructor qualification and hands-on experience are the key differences. Working in any trade probably requires physical strength and the ability to make rapid decisions. If you’re older and consider moving into a new career, reflect on your career move’s physical strength requirements. All of us need to pay attention to other aspects of our lives, such as driving records and other background check issues. If physical agility is a negative for you instead of a field technician, consider wholesale supplier fulfillment, service manager, customer service, technician dispatch, and the like. There are usually dozens of possibilities for anyone entering a career-based trade.
Trade schools can bankrupt a student if it does not work out. Bad fiancial decisions are easy to stumble into. Proceed carefully and check your facts.
What employers want
The trades usually require a basic understanding of what is involved and how it’s done. If you apply for positions requiring these things, you probably won’t have much of a chance of being hired. A worthy note is that employers receive many applications from candidates that ‘want a chance’ but don’t have the basic skills. Employers are usually sympathetic and recall the ‘guy who gave me a shot’ when they started. The economic reality is that with the business climate of 2021 mid-pandemic and beyond, employers need to do (at least) the same volume at a higher profit margin to stay in business. Quality new employees are hard to find and are generally not profitable for a few years. You can see how the math works out (it doesn’t).
How to Prepare Yourself
Now that we know what employers want, there are relatively safe pathways to prepare yourself for the career transition. In short, you should have the necessary academic skills to function in the trade. Better yet, you should possess academic skills as well as having some hands-on training. Not every trade is suitable for this pathway, but you get the idea. Where can you find the academic and hands-on training? Experts don’t always agree on the best path to take and vigorously defend their positions, but we’ll outline some of them here and let you make your own decision.
Online academic training
Online training provides a direct benefit of learning a trade’s academics in (probably) the shortest timespan possible at a minimal expense. Some programs include an Instructor-led program, which is the optimal setting for new students. That’s the upside, but the downside is that online programs lack any hands-on training that employers desire but can’t always get.
Online program completion results in two types of proof of completion. The first is a certificate of completion listing your courses, passing grades, and completion dates. The second is certification by one of several certifying entities, also known as an industry-valued credential. If this concept is hard to grasp, consider it similar to getting your student driver’s license. Employers rightfully and suspiciously view a new student-technician with one of these certifications in the same manner as a student driver. Passing a certification exam is not a testimony to how you could perform in the field without experience and under real circumstances.
An industry-valued certification alone is not your ticket to assured job placement without on-the-job experience
Students who arrive with a certificate of completion seeking work-study positions have a much better chance of being hired since employers view your arrival as looking to build a career and (hopefully) are dependable and trustworthy. Back to certification now. Eventually, employers want you to be certified within a year or two of being hired for a host of reasons, including customer confidence.
Consider This
- Is a quality Instructor provided to the student?
- Is qualified Instructor-Led Training (LET) available?
- Is the program based on a community college standard of heavy theory and conceptual facts?
- Is the program ideally based on job and task-specific training needed by employers?
- How long will it take for the program completion?
- Is the training delivered with engaging content and NOT just reading?
Private Trade Schools
The significant upside to private trade schools is academics and hands-on training in a single location. The quality of both of these aspects varies significantly between schools and, you should carefully check locally for reviews from students and employers. Also, check for local ‘help wanted’ ads and job boards to see for yourself what the pay structure and opinions are. If you see something like “students from ABC school should not apply,” consider those findings when making your choice. Given that the tuition is big money with student loans frequently in use, the commitment from you is significant, and the consequences of not being hired are ugly.
Hands-on training is something essential to consider. If the school’s equipment is from outdated donations or heavily worked on equipment that students tinker with every day, your training might not match an employer that works only on new equipment or makes new installations. If the school has a mix of new and old equipment, that would be a match for an employer using that mix of equipment and not specializing in new work.
Consider This
How long will the program take to complete?
- How much does the program cost, and how will you pay for it?
- Are the Instructors experienced and certified or credentialed?
- What kind of equipment will you be servicing and installing?
- What kind of positive local school reviews from employers can you find?
Community College and ROP Programs
These programs are usually the least expensive to attend because they are wholly or partially publicly supported (think taxes). The program is sometimes called ‘not for credit,’ and others are ‘for credit’ programs. ‘For credit’ programs award college credits that might be transferable to other degree programs. ‘Not for credit’ does not award college credits, as the name implies. In summary, it is comparing a degree to a completion certificate.
Is a college degree necessary for working in the trades? As with any group of experts, the opinions are split with the community college staff, indeed declaring that a degree is always the better option over a trade school or direct technical training. A great test of these opinions is to (again) review the local job postings and online job boards for your specific local area or one to which you are considering relocating. The employers always state their minimum qualification, so review them for income and any training (including degree) requirements before deciding on your pathway.
Let’s get back to the expenses and costs of the Community College programs. Comparing the cost of private programs versus the public programs (probably) always demonstrates the Community College programs as the clear winner of being the least expensive. Conversely, side-by-side comparisons of the (least) time to complete the programs almost always demonstrate the private program as the best choice. That’s a lot to take in, so stop and spend some time thinking about it before you decide.
Consider This
- How long will the program take to complete?
- Are the Instructors experienced and certified or credentialed?
- What kind of equipment will you be servicing or installing?
- What kind of positive local school reviews from employers can you find?
- ‘Online colleges’ are a hybrid of online schools and colleges usually without any credits awarded upon completion.
Reviews about “I loved the course” are not the same as “I loved the course, and it helped me find the perfect job.” These are the extreme ends of the possibilities, but it is best to find reviews in the middle range of the end goal; employment or advancement.
So, there are choices when it comes to receiving training. The kind of training depends on what you want for yourself. If we can help you decide, please contact us at: team7@etech.us.com
