Welding course 2nd thoughts

[Agent]

I'm booked on a city and guilds that I'll be starting in Nov doing mig welding, I've got a mig as you may have seen by pics in other posts I've made.
The college said you can swap to TIG but only after the first week of the course, I'm really in 2 minds now as to whether to do mig or tig. I'm of the mindset now that I can practice mig welding at home, but tig I've got no experience in and I think by the looks of it you can go further in TIG with better pay.

Am I likely to learn a lot a out mig that I can't necessarily find out myself by practice at home?
Also I like the idea of tig more with the wider range of materials that it can be used with.

Errrm yea

 

[Jim Davey]

You really need both, FCW MIG is big these days, but so are MMA and TIG. Of the two you are thinking of I'd say it's easier to pick up mig with minimal training input.

 

[Agent]

Thanks bud. Yea that's what in thinking, MIG will deffo be easier to learn myself, I know the basics and have a MIG and been practising. I think TIG is an art that I'll need help learning.
In the jobs that require tig and mig in the same job role I'm wondering if you would need anything other than to complete a weld test, obviously for one of the two types I'll have a city and guilds

 

[agrimog]

hate to burst your bubble Agent, but no company is going to employ a welder who has just completed a college course and has no experience in the "real" world, any company looking for welders these days want the applicant to be able to hit the ground running and not have to be shown the ropes and waste time, by all means do your mig course, then try and find a small company who will take you on in a sort of trainee role, and gain some experience

 

[Agent]

Thanks for your reply, although if that is the case it'll be interesting to see where welders gain their experience if no one will take you on without experience. That wouldn't really work. I see what you're saying but in my opinion experience is whatever you want it to be and someone's telling lies somewhere along the line

 

[Karinya929]

hate to burst your bubble Agent, but no company is going to employ a welder who has just completed a college course and has no experience in the "real" world, any company looking for welders these days want the applicant to be able to hit the ground running and not have to be shown the ropes and waste time, by all means do your mig course, then try and find a small company who will take you on in a sort of trainee role, and gain some experience

Way to go with giving the guy confidence!

 

[cumbriasteve]

It is very difficult to find firms willing to go the whole hog to train and fully qualify their welding workforce, there are of course some but many of those do it through an apprenticeship role.

For the smaller firms who have work that may not require full proven qualifications the work tends to be more production line and repetitive and often won't offer the chance of further development in the skill sets.

Then of course we have the influx of persons able to weld from Europe, often willing to work at minimum rate because it's so much better than what was available in their homeland.

There are and always will be opportunity's to get that good job that accepts a certain level of skill and will assist development, contributing time and financial help for the right individual, they are just a lot harder to find and a lot more people seeking them.

 

[rtbcomp]

Way to go with giving the guy confidence!

Probably better to say how it is than build up false hopes.

Most industries these days want experienced people and very few seem to want to train them.

 

[Agent]

Way to go with giving the guy confidence!

Lol, standard procedure mate. I had the same thing 4 years ago when I enquired in to locksmithing, 'it's dead on it's feet, there's no work, the poles are working for £10 a job'
4 years later I've made thousands and done hundreds and hundreds of jobs self employed with 3 websites, I'm not trying to brag cos at the end of the day I want to get in to another trade and wouldn't need to if I was rich lol.

I only really wanted to know if any one thought a qualification in TIG is going to be more useful along with MIG self taught experience. Rather than MIG everything, although I'm thinking I've got more chance of a little part time job in MIG rather than TIG. It's probably better to be good in one type than half heartedly average in 2 types??

 

[blenkie1]

Last place I was at had 8 welders and only 2 of us had any qualifications. Its now got no one with any papers what so ever and they are welding car transporters. Remember that the next time you follow one up the motorway. Sick of showing them what to do. Trouble was they were earning the same as me. Lots of mig work out there but it will be mind numbing.

 

[Agent]

Last place I was at had 8 welders and only 2 of us had any qualifications. Its now got no one with any papers what so ever and they are welding car transporters. Remember that the next time you follow one up the motorway. Sick of showing them what to do. Trouble was they were earning the same as me. Lots of mig work out there but it will be mind numbing.

Lol, that ain't ideal, I'll make sure I don't hang about behind one of those things then. Yea I can appreciate MIG especially is likely to be repetitive and boring. At least it shows companies do take people on with minimal experience though I suppose.

 

[octo0072000]

Lol, that ain't ideal, I'll make sure I don't hang about behind one of those things then. Yea I can appreciate MIG especially is likely to be repetitive and boring. At least it shows companies do take people on with minimal experience though I suppose.

this lot by chance been there a few times for repairs on HSL stuff a few years ago at least ten place was a dump then by the look of the name change must have done bust again by the looks of it
Transporter is a trading name of Hunwick Engineering Ltd


http://www.hunwick-transporter.com/

 

[jonnyBMX]

here's something to think about... if all new employers will only employ people with "on the job expirience" what happens when people with expirence run out.. i.e in a few years (probably quite a long time) there will be no one left with expirience if in fact employers arent willing to take them on now what do they do when all current welders retire... and i can see why they dont want to take people without the expirience

saying that Im an electrical engineer by trade but I completed a city and guilds welding course in MIG and MMA and in both disiplines the course in no way prepared me for actual welding jobs, they tought me the basics of welding but the magority of the time that i weld with MIG is on cars... not nice sheets on metal on a welding bench

 

[rtbcomp]

here's something to think about... if all new employers will only employ people with "on the job expirience" what happens when people with expirence run out.. i.e in a few years (probably quite a long time) there will be no one left with expirience if in fact employers arent willing to take them on now what do they do when all current welders retire... and i can see why they dont want to take people without the expirience

......

"They" have been banging on about this for ages. Trouble is people don't stay with one company anymore, would you train a guy for 5 years to have him snapped up by a competitor?

 

[octo0072000]

sounds like more company's need to look at training but on a contract that if they train you you have to stop with them for X no of years.
quite a few HGV now LGV transport co;s used to do this we train you but you have to stay 5 years, but the company can sack you if they want if you are not suitable at there cost.
if you want to leave you have to pay for your training on a pro-rata scale
for how many years you have been there

 

[Agent]

here's something to think about... if all new employers will only employ people with "on the job expirience" what happens when people with expirence run out.. i.e in a few years (probably quite a long time) there will be no one left with expirience if in fact employers arent willing to take them on now what do they do when all current welders retire... and i can see why they dont want to take people without the expirience

saying that Im an electrical engineer by trade but I completed a city and guilds welding course in MIG and MMA and in both disiplines the course in no way prepared me for actual welding jobs, they tought me the basics of welding but the magority of the time that i weld with MIG is on cars... not nice sheets on metal on a welding bench

This is the point I was trying to get across, if no one will touch anyone without experience then one day there'll be no welders with experience. Same in every job now, they ask for experience, if no ones got it then they'll go for the next best thing which will be someone with a welding qualification, it just might mean waiting for a break rather than being nber 1 choice.

 

[AdamB]

There are a few companies which are willing to train up welders on apprenticeship courses, well here in Oxford anyway. I know of at least two companies that offer welding apprenticeships, although they mainly do vehicle exhaust systems including manifolds.

 

[jonnyBMX]

Still a foot in the door for much needed experience

 

[AdamB]

It is indeed a foot in the door. I did actually apply for an apprenticeship with one of the companies, although with me still studying at uni they wasn't too keen to let me go back after I had completed the apprenticeship.

That said, the opportunities are there for some people. I think it's the bigger more well known companies that are willing to take people on and train them up.

 

[zardoz]

Re only taking on 'experienced' workers. I too had experience of getting knocked back for jobs i could have done blindfolded, because i was not experienced enough. I have qualifications in both in Welding and Warehouse work, but for both areas I could not even get my nose round the door*.
I was on a course a few months back. Our lecturer was a Warehouse floor manager at 2 large places in the North West for 15 years. When i asked a question about Why dont companies seem to be bothered to train workers for what are the simplest jobs ? This was what he told me:

Most medium and large companies can get by with approx 5% under employment, no problem. Any slack is taken up by a bit of overtime for the other 95%. This keeps the workers happy. So companies are in no great hurry to take on any new people that they then have to train up, even if its only a half day induction like it is at a lot of places. So they advertise for "experienced workers only" and dont care if it takes a month of sundays to fill the places. When i was unemployed I constanly saw literaly dozens of jobs that i was not trained for but could have done. The only time that they will train people is either moving people sidewards or training people from within the company. Or IF it is starting to cost the company more than they are willing to spend on a bit of overtime for the workers. IE: If the shareholders bonus is looking like it might be down, or if the bosses wife wants a new Range rover this year instead of next. Only then will they cave in and take in some unemployed scruffs and train them.

Also many job agencies (I HATE job agencies) that stand between you and the companies. Wont send people for an interview unless they are 99% sure they can do the job, as they get moaned at for wasting a companies time by sending waste of space types. So, keen inteligent people like me couldnt get a look in,as we had no experience.

Warehouse work is a case in point, I constanly saw jobs advetized as 'experienced pickers only need apply', and as I had never worked in a warehouse i couldnt get a job as a warehouse 'picker and packer', which is a job a trained monkey could do (meaning no offence at all to anyone here who does the job.) I have been in Warehouses and seen pickers go round the isles, either with old fashioned pick lists or modern electronic pick guns, or voice controled pickers, then trolley the goods to the packing area where they are checked off, palletized and packed and wrapped, then moved to their correct section, either by pump truck or FLT. It would take maybe 15 minutes at most to explain all that to a new employee. Anyone who cant get to grips with how to move a pump truck, or the complexities of no 'front pickers', or one way single direction isles, or how clingfilm has a shiny and sticky side, had better get back to infant school and start again.
.


* I had one increadably annoying interview where 2 blokes spoke to me. One guy I had spoke to on the phone and had said "good CV" etc and another one who hadnt even looked at my cv till i walked in the room, and straight away decided that i was not experienced enough. He was supposely the 'head of Enginnering' and when i asked to be given a weld test (which I had been told by bloke 1 that i was supposed to be coming in for) He huffed and puffed and said he would ask me a few questions to "see if it was worth it!" So he takes out a book (I s**t you not) and procedes to ask me qustions out the back of it The answer to the first question about welding processes was 'Arc welding' which is what i said. The engineer says "no thats wrong, the correct answer is MMA welding" I say "MMA stands for Manual Metal Arc welding. Arc welding is what it is commonly called in britain" Bloke 1 almost bursts out laughing, concealing it very badly and bloke number 2 says (this is unreal. I thought i was on game for a laugh or candid camera) "No i can only accept the answer that is written down" I now start to belive someone must have slipped acid in to my coffee or something, as the engineer says again that I 'dont have the experience they are looking for with welding thicker steels' and he dosent think a weld test will do me any good, as it will "just dent my morale when i realise i cant weld the thicker steels that are used in the test and might hurt my Interview confidence" I now realise that I have more chance of cycling to the moon on one of Chunkos bikes than getting a job there. So i get up and walk out with the parting shot that "Actually i never had any problems welding thick stuff. Its the thin stuff that you have to take your time over"
As I go back down the stairs i can hear bloke number 1 saying "What the bloody hell was all that about?"

I should have tried to listen, but as I was in a state of shell shock i staggered out to my car. I had to sit there for 10 minutes before i could drive away. By the time I got home my shelshock had turned to (still puzzled)anger. I was fuming.

Fantasy Island: I swear if we lived in America i'd have gone out and bought one of those sweet M134mini guns like that guy in the movie Predator had. I would have left his car in pieces small enough to fit inside a matchbox. Then just sat there and filmed his face for Youtube, as he discovered it in the car park, with everyone elses vehicles totaly untouched

Rant mode over. (Grrr!)

PS: belive it or not this was not my worst ever interview