Posted by Phillip Jewell on
Whether you’re an experienced electrician or you’re planning to commence an apprenticeship as an electrician, a professional CV or resume is one of your most important tools when seeking new roles.
In this guide, we’ll provide you with everything you need to know to prepare a powerful CV that gets results in the job market.
- How to write an electrician CV for all residential, industrial and commercial electricians, including wiremen and outside linemen
- Two high-quality, industry-optimised electrician CV samples
- Which skills to include on electrician CVs and how to showcase your experiences as an electrician
- Advice for all workers in the electrical industry, including self-employed electricians, apprentice electricians and electricians pursuing agency work
- A 12-step infographic, detailing the electrician CV writing process
- The most effective way to list your electrical training and certifications on your CV
Electricians are in high demand, largely due to the recent emergence of green technologies. There are over 259,000 people employed as electricians and electrical fitters in the UK.
In the United States, there are over 715,400 people employed as electricians (as of 2018), according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Both the US and the UK are expected to require many thousand more electricians over the course of this decade as organisations continue to expand their infrastructure.
Despite this high demand for electricians, it’s important to prepare yourself a high-quality CV that articulates your competencies in the most effective way. In this guide, we’ll show you how to do exactly that.
One of the most important aspects of CVs and resumes is the professional profile, which often goes by the name of personal statement, CV profile and executive profile.
Professional profiles are a short introduction at the beginning of your CV. It should convey your competencies and experiences in a succinct manner. As an electrician, this might include experience with electrical installations and repairs, knowledge of regulations, certifications you have obtained and a knowledge of safety processes.
The professional profile is your chance to make yourself stand out from the crowd, so try to focus on what makes you unique. For example, if you’ve played a key role in the delivering complex electrical projects within strict time restraints, ensure your professional profile highlights this.
Here is an example of an electrician’s professional profile:
Diligent, result-oriented Electrician, with over 12 years’ experience executing electrical repairs and installations. Recognised for completing challenging projects in line with timescales and specific requirements, despite the demand of deadline-driven environments.
Possesses a proven track record of mitigating accidents by adhering to safety standards and employing a safety-driven approach to projects. Expert in all aspects of wiring, troubleshooting, testing & inspection and system installation.
In this professional profile, notice how we have detailed the candidate’s most important skills – electrical works, safety and an ability to work to deadlines.
Depending on the country you are in, you may need to include a photo at the beginning of your CV. As a general rule, CVs for applications in European countries – except the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands – should include a photo. Photos are not generally expected on CVs in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
For more information on whether or not you should include a photo on your CV or resume, take a look at our article on the topic.
An important part of electrician CVs is the key skills section. This is where you can showcase a number of your skills that enable you to perform to high standards as an electrician.
Rather than focusing on more generic soft skills, highlight hard skills that are fundamental to daily operations. These may include electrical installations, knowledge of regulations and electrical techniques.
Electrical installations, electrical repairs, testing & inspection, health & safety, quality control, system installation, wiring, following blueprints and diagrams, system optimisation, regulatory knowledge, troubleshooting, telecommunications electrical operations, cable installations, mechanical acumen
Other important skills for modern day electricians include an ability to use modern technology.
As Zachary Valdez – regional safety manager at Sturgeon Electric Company – stated in an interview with ECM Web, knowledge of iPads, laptops and new generation technology is important, as well as an ability to quickly learn to use new technologies.
When it comes to soft skills, it is more effective to draw attention to these in your career summary, while writing about your work experiences. This is because many soft skills are generic, and recruiters see them included on the majority of CVs.
When highlighting soft skills in your career summary, you can back up the skills with specific examples of times you have utilised them. This almost proves that you possess these skills.
Here is an example. Instead of stating that you possess good time management skills, you could write in your career summary about the multiple projects you have juggled simultaneously by effectively planning your time.
This would much more effectively communicate your time management skills to the reader.
So, now that we’ve covered how to convey your soft skills in your CV, it’s time to learn which soft skills are the most important for electricians to demonstrate.
One of the most important skills for electricians is mechanical acumen. This refers to an ability to quickly get to grips with mechanical tasks and easily understand the processes involved. Great electricians are usually curious about mechanical processes and enjoy the process of making things work.
This might seem an obvious skill that most electricians will possess. However, it’s important that mechanical acumen comes across in CVs for those with less experience, especially those who are seeking apprentice electrician jobs.
How Do You Show Your Mechanical Acumen in Your CV?
One of the best ways of communicating your mechanical acumen is through your professional profile. Here, you can write about your interest in electronics and the way you enjoy stripping things down and putting them back together.
For electricians, solving problems is a key aspect of daily life. Being able to logically evaluate situations, weight up the pros and cons of solutions and come to beneficial decisions is an invaluable skill. Whether it’s using gadgets to troubleshoot or manually assessing electric systems to identify the cause of issues, good electricians are adept at providing swift resolutions to problems.
How do you show problem solving skills on your electrician CV?
To understand how to articulate your problem-solving skills, think about what about what your problem-solving skills encompass. Very often, problem solving skills include a combination of electrical knowledge, an investigative approach to problems, strong decision-making ability and an understanding of the most appropriate solutions.
If you can highlight these four points while demonstrating your problem solving skills, you’ll come across as a highly effective problem-solver.
Here is an example:
‘Resolved continuous, costly power outages across the site after identifying aged, corroded wire in the site’s main building; implemented new wiring at half the cost of one power outage, which resolved the problem and ensured the site met safety standards.’
Electricians are required to communicate with a wide range of people during the course of their careers, including clients, colleagues, project managers and other trade professionals.
Depending on the type of work you perform as an electrician, you may or may not have significant interaction with clients. Electricians who maintain factory machinery will rarely come into contact with clients, whereas if you’re an electrician who provides services to homeowners, customer engagement will be a part of your daily life.
However, communication is a vital skill for electricians in all roles. If you’re not communicating with clients, you will be communicating with colleagues or site professionals. As such, electricians need to utilise their communication skills to ensure operations run smoothly and effectively.
Showing your communication skills on your CV is a great way of impressing recruiters.
But how do you show communication skills on your electrician CV?
To showcase your communication skills, highlight successes that your communication skills played a part in achieving or your responsibilities that required use of your communication skills. Examples may include chairing meetings, leading safety briefings and delivering presentations to clients.
Another effective way of drawing attention to your communication skills is to highlight any extra-curricular activities that you’ve taken part in that required use of your communication skills. For example, if you’ve participated in public speaking competitions, touch on this.
Time management is one of the most important skills for electricians. Finishing projects within timescales is vital as electrical installations and repairs are often priced based on the estimated time involved.
How do you show time management skills on your CV?
Draw attention to achievements that came about as a result of your time management skills. This may involve completing projects ahead of schedule or juggling multiple projects simultaneously. Show how you prioritised your work, established milestones and employed necessary resources to achieve your objectives.
The key is to demonstrate your ability to plan, prioritise and manage your time to achieve positive outcomes. If you do this, your time management skills will shine on your CV.
Electricians must be able to adapt to the changing landscape of their industry. As the world continues to change, they will need to learn to use new technologies and tools.
In the future electricians may be much more focused on renewable energy and smart technologies than they are now. This will require many electricians to adapt.
As such, adaptability is a vital skill for electricians. If your CV demonstrates your ability to adapt to changing environments, you’ll impress recruiters and optimise your job search.
How do you show adaptability on your CV?
The easiest and most effective way of articulating your adaptability is to describe times that you have changed something to achieve positive outcomes; this is what adaptability is all about.
Here is an example:
‘Sourced and obtained new, more efficient technology to replace outdated testing devices that weren’t providing accurate, timely results.’
Note how, in this example, the candidate shows that she identified a problem, then changed (sourced new technology) to solve the problem. This shows that she is capable of adapting.
By showing these five skills on your electrician CV, you’ll improve your chances of impressing recruiters and employers. To see how we showcased these skills in an electrician’s CV, take a look at the electrician CV sample in this guide.
Include your work experience in reverse-chronological order. Start with your most recent role and progress towards your less recent roles.
Ensure to add your job title, company name, location of employment and dates of employment. Use bullet points to draw attention to the key information and make sure to include your key achievements. Remember to use this section to showcase your soft skills, as we explained earlier in this guide.
If you’re seeking roles as an apprentice electrician, include your education and training before your career summary. This will make your training or education as an electrician the main focus of your CV.
Take a look at the electrician CV templates in this guide to see how we formatted and presented the candidate’s work experience.
This section is an important aspect of electrician CVs. It is often longer and more detailed than the training sections on other professionals’ CVs. Electricians complete a great deal of mandatory training, and it’s important that these are highlighted.
Electrician’s training may be related to electrical techniques, regulations and safety.
In the final section of your CV, add any additional information that is relevant to support your applications. This might include licences, clearances, languages, voluntary work and IT/technology proficiency.
As an electrician, this section is usually a good place to include your certifications and licences.
As a self-employed electrician, you’ve likely undertaken a large number of different projects for different clients and employers. Including all of this on your CV may result in your CV extending to multiple pages.
It goes without saying that including all of your self-employed electrician jobs on your CV is not always necessary. Not only will this make your CV too long, but it will also make for a poor reading experience.
Instead, we recommend focusing on a number of key projects that you have worked on. This will articulate your skills and experience as an electrician, without making your CV boring and long-winded.
Self-employed electrician’s CVs should be formatted in the same way as employed electrician’ CVs, as we have described in this guide. The only exception is the career summary.
In this section, include your job title as Self-Employed Electrician and add the dates of your period of self-employment. Due to the nature of your work, in most cases you won’t include a company name. However, if this period of self-employment involves working on one key project, you may want to draw attention to this in place of a company name.
Then include your responsibilities and achievements as an electrician, just as you would if you were an employed electrician. Touch on key projects you worked on and how you helped clients achieve their goals.
Here is an example:
Alternatively, you can divide your career summary up into sections dedicated to a number of the key projects that you completed during your period of self-employment.
If you choose to do this, list your responsibilities and achievements under a heading that details the name of the project.
View our guide on CV format, which includes 12 CV examples.
Distribute your CV to potential employers, along with a professional, well-written cover letter. Use job boards to search for your ideal role.
If you’re a self-employed electrician, take photos of your work and provide them to potential clients along with your professional CV. Attend events and network with people who could potentially put work your way.
There are various websites that provide valuable resources for electricians, including advice on employment and training. These include Sparks, a site that offers learning materials for those in the construction industry. There are also forums that enable electricians to engage with like-minded professionals and search for job opportunities, such as Mike Holt’s Forum.
Hopefully this guide will help you prepare a powerful CV. Use the electrician CV templates and examples that we have provided in this guide to enhance your job search.
Or view our guide to electrician job interview questions, which includes 20 common electrician interview questions.
If you feel that you could benefit from further assistance, feel free to check out our ultimate CV writing guide. Or get inspired with our guide on CV layouts, which includes 10 great CV layout ideas.
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Image credit: AB Sydney Electrical
