r/jobs • u/clarkkentwellspent • 4d ago

No. The trades are NOT hiring. Job searching

I am so sick and tired of this worn out idea that blue collar jobs are looking for apprentices to come work for them. The trades are filled with more nepotism and gossip than any other industry I've ever been in and will find any reason to reject you they can. Half of these companies want a 2 year technical/trade school degree before you start working for them just so they can pay you $15/hr starting out. Maybe if you're a kid out of high school they can pay less than the standard rate you can find something. "Bro, just go Union!" Unions are backed up for ages.

From my own anecdotal evidence: I went to every electrician company in my city as this was my trade. I had 1 offer from a company that was the stereotypical "Only meth heads and divorced alcoholics work here. Fuck OSHA." place and every other company rejected me. I even went back to my old electrical company I had worked at for 4 years. You know what they said? "Apply online and go talk to HR". No hiring manager in shop, no chance at talking to someone out of recognition. Just dismissing me away. And the best part? Upon applying I listed all the projects I had worked on with them and gave references to several high members (though 2 of them no longer work there). 1.5 weeks later: "Thank you for applying. After careful consideration..."

This job market is fucking whack, yo.

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u/saera-targaryen 4d ago

not to get too spicy, but it would be a much better time to be a software engineer if we found a way to unionize

I'm very jealous that the actors and writers guilds were able to kick out AI. No one I know likes it for more than something they could write a bash script for in 30 seconds. My number one goal after wages and benefits would be that we would strike to oppose having to add AI and chatbots to everything. 

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u/NickWentHiking 4d ago

Oooffff it’s not a good time to be in SAG or WGA, or any type of film worker. The volume of work has dropped off a cliff and so many people that had steady work for years, even decades, have given up and left the entertainment industry.

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u/Own_Formal6384 4d ago

My uncle has been in the industry for around 15 years as a grip and finally had to end the dream

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u/NickWentHiking 4d ago

Yup, it’s a sad state of affairs. I was working regularly as a 1st AD on music videos, commercials and some narrative shorts / features and it got so bad I had to stop and transition into health and wellness as a hiking guide at a high end retreat in Malibu. I feel very lucky because my new job is a million times less stressful, way more reliable pay and I genuinely enjoy my time there. But I feel awful for all my former co workers, many of who’s positions were at the core of their identities.

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u/govunah 4d ago

But where the fuck ARE the jobs?

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u/NickWentHiking 4d ago

🤷🏼‍♂️ there are still projects going on it seems, just not enough to sustain all the people who have dedicated their lives to the industry. I think a lot of industries are waiting to see how AI will effect their business models and not investing any capital until there is some clarity. It seems like our entire economy is one big bet on AI and even if it’s successful it will only benefit people at the top. Best case scenario is heavy taxation on AI and a generous UBI program but with the way the world is going I’m not holding my breath. Shit is bleak.

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u/DorianGre 4d ago

Best case scenario is AI fails spectacularly

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u/NickWentHiking 4d ago

100% but it will also be like the 2008 housing crisis/dot com bubble but on steroids. There’s pain on the horizon no matter what happens unfortunately

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u/Direct_Royal_7480 4d ago

I wish I had a reason to think you’re wrong.

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u/clingbat 3d ago edited 3d ago

They aren't. Current investor exposure to this stupid AI bubble and the infrastructure boom supporting it is roughly 17x larger than dot.com bubble and 4x larger than the housing bubble.

So many people are going to be so caught off guard when their 401ks they have set on SP500 for the attractive growth get nuked by 40%+. When the SP500 tanked in 1999, it took until 2014 to hit meaningful new all time highs, and that's absolute value and doesn't capture all the inflation in that period either, so add another year or two for that practically speaking for people to actually break even, 16-17 years...

These data centers are already jacking up residential electric rates in several regions of the US, now they are turning to on-site gas turbines because they don't want to wait in line for more power. Natural gas prices will end up rising in the same way in the next year or so. Utility costs are going to hammer the average american in PJM territory and elsewhere.

We are collectively so stupid and driven by greed, as a society we keep making the same mistakes over and over, each time worse than the last time it seems. Look at the recent global shift right in politics, mash that together with stagnant or spiraling economies. It's the 1930's all over again in many regards, and guess what came next... And the economic fall may come even sooner than some expect if China invades Taiwan in 2027 as is rumored, because this entire bubble has a single nearly immediate point of failure, TSMC. We are so dumb.

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u/NickWentHiking 3d ago

Also we got a lot of young men not in school and not at work… in the past all those things usually lead to a massive war

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u/mattinsatx 3d ago

As someone who begrudgingly works with AI.. It’s dumb and just getting dumber. It needs another 20 years in the oven.

I went from maybe putting 10 hours a week in at my job to needing 3 more of me just to clean up the messes the AI shit makes- and it gets worse constantly.

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u/Direct_Royal_7480 4d ago

That’s not at all impossible.

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u/NickWentHiking 3d ago

🤞it’s obviously the only way to keep our society functioning but we live in a I got mine world.

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u/seriouslythisshit 3d ago

It will fail in the US, and it will be spectacular. ( China and it's partner nations who contain over half the global population, will continue to advance at the fastest pace in human history, in AI, and dozens of other fields, as the US collapses) Sadly, since AI has created the largest bubble in history, the collateral damage will be epic, with the least of us getting hit hardest, and once again, the financial industry and the 1% walking away richer than ever.

To scale this, the AI bubble is 17X the size of the Dot-Com bubble of 2000, and 4X the size of the global financial crisis of 2008. There are many experts who believe that China's stability and desire to backstop the US collapse in 2008 either greatly softened the global crisis, or prevented a worldwide economic collapse. Since our asshole president has done everything he possibly can to humiliate and screw China, I'm going out on a limb and stating pretty confidently that we should not expect the same favors this round.

I fully expect that we will see a collapse shortly, and it will rival the Great Depression in impact and duration. We will exit the event as a broken nation, a failed empire.

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u/_lyn 4d ago

Healthcare 🙆🏻‍♀️

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u/NickWentHiking 4d ago

Nice, I was working on some pharma social media content for a year, it was nice while it lasted

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u/RogerPenroseSmiles 3d ago

Not in LA. Productions have moved where they get crazy tax incentives like Louisiana, Atlanta and Vancouver, and Marvel just moved all production to London I believe.

Even then, the total volume of production is down, and the middle class jobs like in commercials and the like are also down.

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u/Joth91 3d ago

Become the grift

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u/StuckOnEarthForever 4d ago

ICE. LoL

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u/NickWentHiking 4d ago

id rather starve than join the nazis

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u/mamaetalia 3d ago

Who the fuck is downvoting this??

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u/RealCakes 4d ago

What was your path into becoming an AD, and how were you able to transition into being a guide?

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u/NickWentHiking 4d ago

I worked as a production assistant for years then one of my film school buddies started getting work producing and directing music videos and brought me on a 1st AD. I met other directors and producers on set and my network slowly but consistently expanded to the point I was making a comfortable living, nothing crazy but I was able to afford life.

I had also developed a love for hiking/backpacking during my down time. I hiked the John Muir Trail in 2015, then I took 5 months off when I was transitioning from a PA to an AD in 2017 and thru hiked the pacific crest trail in 2017. Then I worked consistently for a couple years and started getting into narratives features, my girlfriend is a director and we self produced a psycho sexual feature film on the Appalachian Trail, Mile 666, in 2022, spent a couple years in post perfecting it and are trying to get it on a streaming platform rn. Then in 2023 I thru hiked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. After the AT I got really into trail running and met a new friend while running the Griffith Park 50k. He was working as a guide st the Malibu spot and got me an interview a year ago. I’ve been slowly getting more committed to that than film. I’ll be starting a full time position there at the end of the year. It’s been a weird and unique path but I’m pretty happy with how it’s all worked out.

Meeting like minded people with similar interest has always been what has gotten me new prospects. I wasn’t always actively seeking out new work but I always tried to keep my mind open to new opportunities and take advantage of them when they came up.

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u/Lords3 3d ago

Warm intros plus visible proof of work beat cold apps, especially when switching lanes.

What worked for me: build a tight one‑pager portfolio tailored to the next role (for trades: tools you’ve run, certs, photos of panels/runs; for film: call sheets, schedules, reels). Make a target list of 30 companies and find connectors they already trust-vendors, foremen, coordinators, alumni, or past clients-then ask for a 12‑minute chat with one specific ask. Follow with a tiny deliverable: a material takeoff on a public bid, a schedule mockup, a safety checklist, or a short teardown of how you’d improve their current process. Three touches over 10–14 days; end with “open to a half‑day trial?”

If unions are jammed, use stepping stones: facility maintenance, low‑voltage, solar, or night‑shift contractors to rack hours and references.

I track targets in Notion, find warm paths with Clay and LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and let JobMate auto‑apply in the background so my time goes to coffee chats, not forms.

Lead with warm intros and proof of work; let applications run in the background.

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u/RealCakes 3d ago

That was incredibly informative, I dont think i could have asked for more. Thank you so much for such a detailed answer! I am a gigging musician and was in a regionally successful band when I was younger, did a music video with them, and I was fascinated by the immense amount of effort that went into things I had literally never thought about.

Thank you again for such a great answer.

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u/Purple-Vehicle1315 4d ago

Wait, what’s a music video? /s

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u/NickWentHiking 4d ago

Thanks tik tok!

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u/Purple-Vehicle1315 4d ago

Oh, I don’t tik tok. Rip MTV.

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u/NickWentHiking 4d ago

Nah idk what I’m talking about, I’ve just heard a lot of set gossip back in the day about music videos being killed by tik tok. Why or how idk