Career Development

The construction industry is a very exciting place to work and build your career - it is also one of the least structured when it comes to career development due to the highly fragmented nature of the industry.

It is an industry where most of the talent is employed by companies with 1-10 employees therefore they do not have the structured HR programs in place that industries with a few larger companies have.

Outside of an apprenticeship program or engineering school there is little in the way of structured career development.

The answer is that we need to take responsibility for our own career development. In some ways this may seem self-serving and some people may even consider it disloyal.

There is some truth to that if you look at the short-term view but we are in a position where there will be shortages of over ONE MILLION skilled construction personnel in the next 5 years. We are in this position in large part because of that thinking.

We cannot wait for the industry to come up with a solution because it is too fragmented. Waiting on government has never been a good strategy.

In this section of the website we provide a lot of information that can be useful to those looking to develop their careers in the construction industry.

This section of the site is written from my personal perspective and is geared towards electricians though anyone in the construction industry will benefit.  You can learn more about my career in the About section of this website or on my personal site at www.d-brown.com

I am providing this information because of my desire to give back to the industry that has given me so much.

Please e-mail me with any suggestions for this section and look for more features and information on a regular basis.

Marketing Yourself For The Best Career Opportunities

If you are taking the time to read this you have probably worked very hard to build your skills in the construction industry. There are a couple of things they don't teach us when we are apprentices.

One is how to run a job - we learn the craft very well and then we are left almost totally on our own when we get that first job to run.

The second is how to develop our careers and market ourselves effectively.

Being an electrician is one of the most demanding and rewarding jobs. Our industry is technically challenging, very diverse and constantly changing. I see electricians positioned right at the convergence point where IT systems and normal building trades come together. In the future all systems in our homes and our buildings will be computer controlled and it will be electricians installing and maintaining these systems. It is more rewarding than most jobs because we get to see daily results of what we do and are constantly motivated with a "can do" attitude to complete each and every project.

Question Yourself About Your Career

Whether you are a few years into the trade or have 20 years in ask yourself the following questions and answer them genuinely:

• Am I being challenged as much as I could be in my current job?
• Is my current job providing me the opportunities to learn the skills that will keep me employed for the next 5-10 years?
• All successful companies market themselves. What am I doing to market myself?
• Is word of mouth enough or should I be more proactive?
• Am I taking the steps today that will prepare me for where I want to be and what the market will need in the next 5 years?

These are realistic questions and deserve some deep thought. Most craftsmen (and women) spend most of their time thinking about and building things or solving technical problems. Their tendency is to not think as much about their career as they do about perfecting their craft.

Taking this route can lead to career stagnation and actually impede the perfection of your craft and your personal development.

You should look at yourself as an independent contractor who provides highly specialized services to a contractor and works as part of a team to build a project. Does this seem outrageous? Why? Electricians are really no different than the hundreds of independent contractors and actors that come together to make a movie. Some stay for the whole project, some move on to the next project with the same movie studio and some only show up for crunch time. In that industry everyone knows that this is the game and they market the heck out of themselves while continuously honing their skills and building their résumés so that they get work on better and better projects.

I am not advocating any disloyalty to a contractor but there are very few contractors out there that provide the diversity in work, career advancement opportunities and steady work for a whole career. You will likely need to change employers 5-20 times or more in this industry depending on the economy, your skills and the contractors you work for.

This site is designed to provide you the tools to accurately document what skills, certifications and experience you have and then put those together in professional career documents you can use to market yourself and advance your career.

This is the only source on the web where you can use the tools to build yourself a professional résumé and other career documents that will showcase your skills and help you advance your career.

We will gather the relevant information from you and within 72 hours we will e-mail you your résumé in Microsoft Word format which is fully editable so that you can make minor adjustments and update yourself.

Electrical Résumé Builder Worksheet

As part of my efforts to constantly give back to the industry that has given me so much I have developed a website to help with one of the most important career skills - effectively presenting yourself with a professional résumé.

This is your personal marketing document and often the first impression potential employers have of you. We have provided many tools to help you develop this critical piece of information including a free résumé builder template that will prompt you though the process of putting together a professional electrical résumé.

The 5 Components of a Good Résumé

The résumé we develop will be broken down into five basic components as outlined below. The tool is designed specifically for electricians and apprentices working in the electrical contracting industry.

The form on the next page will prompt you through entering the raw data for each one of these sections. When the completed form is submitted to us we will review it, make minor edits and return it to you as a professionally formatted Microsoft Word document and Adobe PDF file that you can use for furthering your career.

We may have some questions for you about the content of your résumé so make sure we have a valid e-mail address.

• 1. Contact Information: This will be prominently displayed at the very top of the résumé. Make it easy to contact you in whichever way the potential employer feels comfortable whether it is by fax, phone, e-mail or regular mail.
• 2. Areas Of Expertise: This is a quick summary of your skills in a list format organized so that a potential employer can quickly see where your skills and experiences are. Are you good with motor controls? Can you use a computer? How about PLC programming? These are also good search keywords if you submit this résumé to some of the electronic job boards like Monster or send it to a recruiter who will scan it into their database.
• 3. Standout Accomplishments: Directly following the quick list of your areas of expertise will be 3-5 key accomplishments with a couple of sentences describing the situation and the results. Have you worked on a fast-track project and because of a time saving idea you had the job came in under budget and early? Contractors have a job to do for their clients. They need people on their team that can produce results. This is the section where you showcase the results you have produced. This is very important because no matter what certifications you have or how long you have been in the trade you will not advance your career very quickly if you cannot show your current or potential employers how you have improved quality & safety and saved time & money.
• 4. Education & Certification: This is a quick list of your educational history including any trade classes, seminars, code updates, state certifications, etc.
• 5. Employment History: This is a brief section listing out the employers you have worked for throughout your career. In this document they can be edited if there are too many. It is more important to showcase your skills and accomplishments than it is to showcase how many contractors you have worked for. Notable exceptions: If you have worked for only one or two contractors it shows that you are obviously very skilled and loyal - this is a definite plus. Also notable is if you worked for an employer that is highly regarded in the industry. If you were off work for a few weeks and roped some houses for your buddy that owns a company it's probably not crucial to put them down.

Please think though each of these sections and make sure you have the raw material available before moving to the Résumé Builder page.

Remember that you are creating the centerpiece of your personal marketing material. You will be judged based on how this looks, what content it has in it and how it is distributed.

Take the time to do this right. It should take you about an hour to fill out the form on the next page. Click here to get started with Résumé Builder.