Skills USA

Contractor Skills
By: Todd Hawkins, IEC Atlanta/GA Associate Executive Director             

Recently, IEC hosted the Skills USA Georgia Industrial Motor Control Contest at the Georgia World Congress Center.  Thank You to these individuals and companies for supporting this annual with staff to judge the event:

Mike Gunter – IEC Atlanta and Georgia Chapters

Justin Haggard – Capital City Electrical Services

James Wesley – MetroPower, Inc.

Travis Worn – Pat Murphy Electric, Inc.

Skills USA is a club that primarily operates in public schools and colleges.  Skills USA helps young people develop skills in automotive, culinary arts, law enforcement, woodworking, and many of the skilled trades.   The talents they learn in Skills USA make these individuals prime candidates to work for IEC Member Contractors.

For instance, the February event displayed Skilled Trade Contests in Plumbing, Cabinetry, Electrical and Masonry to name a few.  Since these students already have acclimation to working in the trades it makes for IEC Members to convince them to choose electrical construction as their career choice. 

IEC Atlanta & Georgia Chapters continuously seeks more individuals to work for member companies.  Specifically seeking individuals that already have some connection to working with their hands, show a desire to work as an electrician or have some amount of trade training.  Finding this type of person helps IEC members because in many cases these individuals already understand the work environment and have relatable skills.

We need to move applicants to hired status. From January 1 – February 28, 2022 IEC received approximately 72 applicants to the apprenticeship program.  These are individuals that expressed a desire to work for member companies.  The key is moving quickly to start the hiring conversation.  To do this, contractors are urged to review the out of work list regularly, send a text message to people you are interested in talking to and inviting them to an interview.  Virtual interviews can work as a first step. 

For those Contractors that need to hire experienced people before hiring more green ones, Ladder service comes with your membership.  At this time Ladder shows 2396 active candidates seeking jobs with IEC Member.  A deeper dive show IEC companies have 10 or more active candidates per week. 

IEC looks forward to finding more interested workers for member companies, seeing those candidates go to work for you and finding ways to help you retain those new workers along the way.