Depends on where you are in the world. Here you have to have a portfolio and working experience among other qualifications before you can take the assessment. You’re not an electrician until you’re on the register after all that.
Comment on Anon is 23
CameronDev@programming.dev 3 hours agoAn electrician certification doesn’t mean a whole lot either. Both are just paper. Degrees with work experience and trades with apprentership time hold a little more value, but its still hit and miss.
brap@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Where aren you that a trade doesn’t require 4 years of schooling and on the job training?
Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 hour ago
I’m in the US and I never got any formal education in my trade (HVAC-R). Most of the techs here didn’t. The few techs we’ve hired who did go to trade school came out of it with practically no knowledge which couldn’t easily be taught on the job in a couple months. It seems like, for HVAC at least, the tradeschool programs teach enough that maybe you could manage some light residential work, but they barely touch on refrigeration, let alone the heavy commercial and industrial refrigeration we often do. When evaluating candidates, a tradeschool cert means less than a year of experience in some sort of maintenance position.
The same seems to be true of many other trades. At least in my state no certs are required or even beneficial to become a licensed plumber or electrician. Those liscenses are all based solely on years of experience. Technically you can become a master electrician solely with an electrical engineering degree and 0 years of experience but if you have that degree then you probably have better jobs available to you.
velma@sh.itjust.works 1 hour ago
No certs necessary for locksmithing and security either.
CameronDev@programming.dev 1 hour ago
Australia. And yes, you have to do on the job training, but that doesn’t mean anything. The quality of the work experience is highly variable, so you could spend all of it learning, or all of it buying coffee and sweeping floors.
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
That’s just how it works though?
Not every tradesman is going to working panels, some just wire plugs instead, people specialize and are payed differently depending on the tasks. Very rarely do you find someone who does the entire trade regulary. They’re not going to be as good or fast as the ones that specialize, so it’s a delicate balance.
CameronDev@programming.dev 1 hour ago
My point is that by the time you have the paper, in either case, there is zero reliable proof that you can do either job. Real world work experience (successfully ran a sparky business, or successfully held a job for a few years) counts far more than the paper does.