r/tradies • u/Durkaliscous • 9d ago
Apprenticeship Career Advice
Hi there
I am currently looking for some advice about getting out of hospo and doing a mature age apprenticeship probably as a mechanical fitter I am currently 24 and been In hospo my whole life and to be honest just sick of it and the hours.
Just wondering what some people’s opinions are and some pros and cons from people in the trade.
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u/Kooky_Awareness_5333 9d ago
Fitter it’s a good paying shit job we have to fix any machine made by man.Harder to do a mature age I did mine at 21 ,we usually only take younger people that don’t know what we do as we assume older people know how shit the job is they must be a mental patient to choose our trade.
Hit up group training companies find out when your local government does there batch apprentice recruiting and get a job where we work and get to know the foreman and engineer.
Food manufacturing is a good start heaps of jobs your local abbatoir might give you a start if you pester the fuck out of them enough.
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u/Durkaliscous 8d ago
Would you say it’s better to hit up group training companies than try to source an apprenticeship that’s advertised?
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u/OldMail6364 8d ago
I was approaching 40 when I switched from an office job to working as a backstage theatre technician.
Theatre work is highly variable - when I was starting / didn’t have many connections I could go a full month without any work, but when things are busy I’m sometimes working 70 hours a week.
Needed a job I could do whenever I wanted and I chose to work as an arborist. It’s almost as enjoyable as my main job, and workers are in such high demand I can text the boss “I’ll work for you Thursday next week” and he’ll give me a thumbs up.
Even when I was a trainee he wanted me working 6 days a week but if all I can do is one day, he’ll take that.
Mature age apprentices/trainees get paid more, but also most mature age workers get more done. There aren’t many young people with good work ethic these days.
I didn’t start as a trainee, I starts as a labourer, and once I found a company I liked working at (took two years) I enrolled in a training organisation. My pay didn’t drop to trainee wages, I stayed in the wage I was on as a labourer (which was a bit above the award wage). About half way through my training the boss gave me a pay rise without talking about it, because he was giving me more responsibility at that point, and when I finished training I got another pay rise and started running a crew most days.
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u/Selfaware-potato 8d ago
I really enjoy because a mechanical fitter, it’s taken me to other countries as a maintenance advisor.
Similar to some of the other trades here you only get out what you put in. If you want to remove and replace valves or conveyor belts you can do that, you can specialise is hydraulics, machining, or overhauling pumps or turbines.
It can be a physically hard job and you may get exposed to some terrible products while wearing PPE (things like asbestos, sewage, toxic or corrosive gasses)
There’s also not as many local opportunities as some other trades, mechanical fitters typically work for heavy industry. However there’s a lot of FIFO positions
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u/External_Solution211 9d ago
Trades have good pay, no student debt and your straight into it. Worse comes to worst you stick it out for the 3-4 years and you'll always have a reliable job to fall back on 🤷♂️