Are you struggling to find local trade jobs?
Many skilled workers lost their jobs in 2020 and looking for new opportunities. Others are looking for experience, higher pay, flexibility, or just something new.
In this episode, find out how to get more work as a tradesman—and not just any work, but good gigs that also pay well.
If you’re feeling undervalued or underpaid and looking for new opportunities, there are 5 things you can do to increase your opportunity for a higher-paying job.
Main Takeaways:
Getting good experience is an excellent foundation
Never stop learning: pursue more training and certifications
Make personal connections at your job that become strong references in the future
Prepare and practice for a great interview
At the end of the day, nothing beats hard work
Timecodes:
⏰ 00:00-5:32 | Getting more work as a tradesman
⏰ 5:33-7:52 | Experience is everything
⏰ 7:53-13:39 | Invest in your skills for higher pay
⏰ 13:40-17:02 | Have strong references on your resume
⏰ 17:03-25:44 | A great interview makes all the difference
⏰ 25:45-30:03 | Nothing trumps your performance
⏰ 30:04-32:54 | How to find local trade jobs with Skillwork
Quotes:
“Nothing replaces experience.” – Brett Elliott
“Don’t tell yourself ‘I’m too old, I can’t learn it’…if you’re motivated, opportunity is there.” – Brett Elliott
“You have to invest in yourself.” – Tim Raglin
“We see so many situations where really talented individuals, guys with dependability, work ethic, attitude, the skills—and they interview so poorly.” – Brett Elliott
“A 20-30 minute interview can determine the difference between that great job to pay the wage you want…and remaining right where you are.” – Tim Raglin
“The focus should be how you can bring your skill set to their problem and resolve some of their issues.” – Tim Raglin
“A lot of interview questions are asked to try and see what’s under the cover of what you’re going to say.” – Tim Raglin
“Nothing trumps your performance. You’ve got to prove yourself.” – Brett Elliott
“Blue collar skilled trades and white collar skilled trades—these people are the true foundation of this country.” – Brett Elliott
“Hard work never goes out of style.” – Tim Raglin
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Connect with Skillwork:
- Skillwork’s website:www.skillwork.com
- Skillwork’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/skillwork
- Skillwork’s YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UCWZSf9KTuKudIm2buVFrhcw
Reach out to Rveal:
- Rveal’s website: rveal.media
- Rveal’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rvealmedia/
- Rveal’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC69p14R2ccMdyUbbmdlWCEw
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Ep33 Transcript
Tim, Brett
Tim 00:00
There are four things that we’re looking for from your reference. And so this is crucial for you to think about when you’re when you’re looking to get somebody to give you a reference. Here are the four things that they need to be able to speak to about your background.
Tim 00:22
Well, hello, and welcome to The Skillwork Forum, my name’s Tim, I’m joined my partner, Brett, as always here. And as a reminder here on The Skillwork Forum, we gather on about a weekly rhythm to talk about industry issues, emerging trends, just challenges surrounding the skilled trades. And a few episodes ago, I think it was Episode 31, we answered a question that we hear pretty routinely from the skill craftsmen that we try to recruit to our model is, “why why would I go to a travel staffing model?” So we we delved into that and explained the benefits to you as a skilled craftsmen and why you might want to pursue a company like Skillwork. And we’re going to kind of continue on that theme and answer another question that we get fairly routinely. It says, “How do I get higher pay? How do I get more pay in the trades?” So that’s what we’re going to focus on today. And we know Brett, it’s not just pay, people are motivated by a lot of different things when they go seek another job or another opportunity, right?
Brett 01:25
Yeah, no, for sure, you know, we obviously get to talk to a lot of skilled trades, individuals. And so we we hear a variety of different things. And so clearly, I mean, probably in any season, but in this this COVID world that we continue to come up come out of, you know, being furloughed or being laid off, or businesses closing, obviously, we’ve, we’ve had a lot of communication with with individuals in the last year, where just the necessity to go find another job because of you may have lost your job, or the business has closed has definitely been an issue.
Brett 02:07
And so, you know, another one, you know, is just for a lot of people, you know, obviously pay is always key. But there’s also, you know, there’s that just, they want a little more flexibility. You know, I’m not saying that a travel job, per se, or you know, in what we do, and placing guys on contract doesn’t necessarily create you more flexibility, obviously, to be home more necessarily while you’re out. But it does create a lot more control for you what we call work plus freedom. So you get to choose where and when and kind of the kind of how you want to work and those kinds of things in that in the midst in between done there, we do create a lot of flexibility for some time off as well.
Tim 02:49
Yeah, so I mean, a lot, these are some of the reasons that you may be looking and thinking about another opportunity. Brett mentioned a few that are pretty routine, sometimes people are just stagnated or bored in what you’re currently doing, you’re not being challenged, you’re looking for an opportunity to grow, that’ll sometimes motivate you to look for another opportunity. Or maybe it’s just, I need to expand my skill set, I need to get more experience and maybe we’ll talk about a little later and and maybe an area where there’s more opportunity for me to not only seek more pay, but but kind of move into a different area of the country or, or a variety of things, but a lot of times people just looking for an opportunity to grow.
Brett 03:30
Yeah. And then obviously the you know, a big one for a lot of people is the culture is is you know, how, how toxic is the environment that they’re in? I was talking to a gentleman last week that I won’t mention the company. And so, but he was making upwards of $36 an hour. And so it wasn’t a pay issue. No, it was an absolute toxic environment, right. And he said he was willing to, he wasn’t gonna go work for $20 an hour, but he was he was looking to make a move, even if he had to make a little bit less money. So sometimes it’s just the environment, it’s just not a good environment, whether it’s the overall culture or just as an individual, you feel disrespected or undervalued.
Tim 04:21
Yeah, and we’ve talked about a lot of those things. And, you know, we just want to before we delve into this last point about, you know, how do I make, I want to, I want to get more pay, I want to increase my wage and how do I do that we want to just mention these other things. So we recognize it. It’s not always just pay, but it’s always a factor in the example you just gave. He wasn’t just going to go work for anything. Money was a factor, but it wasn’t maybe the driving factor. So today we are going to focus on on that. So you’re out there right now and you feel like you’re skilled craftsmen you feel like you’re being undervalued or underpaid, and you’re looking for an opportunity, like all of us are, how do I increase that I want a better standard, why if I want more opportunity for my family. So, as a skilled tradesmen, how do you get higher pay? We’re going to cover five things it’s not an exhaustive list, but we think are things that we see routinely, that give our skilled workers the best opportunity to get a higher paying job. And sometimes we encourage our skilled workers to pursue some of these things in order to get a higher paying job. So these are some of the things that we’ll cover today to help you. So if you have a pen or pencil, take notes, and maybe maybe you can take one of these to help you get that opportunity to expand what you’re bringing home every day.
Tim 05:33
So the first thing we’re going to talk about is really, we hit on a lot is experience. You know, experience is crucial, you need to make sure that you’re properly leveraging the experience you have, and all the work opportunities you’ve had. So make sure those are clearly articulated. And I guess those all get culminated in a resume. A resume is kind of an old school document, but it really is still very much in use today. Even a company like ours that uses a lot of advanced technology to place and find and recruit skilled craftsmen is still the resume. That’s your calling card. So make sure that your experiences are really clearly concisely documented in a resume, it’s results-oriented and the skills that you have are highlighted and by all means, please, while we’re on resume, you know, no spelling errors, make sure somebody else has looked at it, that sort of thing. So as far as experience goes, though, and leveraging your experiences on emphasize what you’ve learned along the way, make sure you don’t take for granted some of the jobs you’ve had, that you just assume everybody will understand. Don’t do that, make sure that you clearly articulate your experiences, your track record, especially showing levels of increased responsibility or exposure to different skill sets, and get creative- translate maybe a career from a different domain into what you’re trying to do today. An example we have oftentimes military, guys coming out of the military, you know, maybe you were a Navy jet mechanic, or maybe you worked on a flight deck of an aircraft carrier that maintained all the gear that was used to support the aircraft flight operation. So take that experience that you’ve done, maybe you’ve learned how to troubleshoot, problem-solve under pressure. Certainly, if you’ve been in the military, you definitely know preventative maintenance measures they are I don’t think anyone does it to the degree that they do in the Navy, because you’re in a corrosive environment. Maybe you’ve while you were in the military, you lead a small team, or in a different company, you lead a small team, make sure you highlight that, all that translates well into some of the opportunities we have. So first thing, make sure you highlight your experience and make sure that it’s well documented in your resume.
Brett 07:53
Yeah, that’s, that’s very true. I mean, nothing, nothing replaces experience. I mean, you know, we can get all the, all the education, all the certification, we’re going to talk about that here in a second. But then applying it and find that experience. I would encourage to, along with that Tim is for especially maybe people earlier in their career, you know, seek opportunities, not always necessarily immediately for the most money, but for the opportunity where you can really gain experience, get mentored, get trained, it will pay dividends down the road, when you you have been given that opportunity to be more of a troubleshooter, know electrical, because you you you took an environment, you put yourself in an environment where that opportunity was there, so. So onthe certifications, and the training, and the education.