How to Get an Electrician's License in Texas

You can get an electrician's license in Texas to work as an apprentice electrician pretty easily. Have you ever considered working as an electrician? Are you looking for a job and have no skills? What better way to get a skill than to be an apprentice and learn on the job while you get paid? If you live in Texas and want a career with stability, being en electrician may be the way to go.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A small fee ($20.00 as of June of 2009 but the fee could change)
• A driver's license
• Access to the internet

1. Follow the licensing requirements to work as an electrician in Texas.
   
   Texas is a right to work state so you will never be required to join a union in order to work as an electrician (you could join one if you want to). However, you are not legally allowed to work as an electrician (even in beginning training as an apprentice) unless you already have an electrician's license. Therefore, you have to obtain the license before you can ever be hired by any company to do any electrical work or to train to do that work. It is really a simple process to get that license though.

2. Get an electrician's license in Texas.
   
   To get your electrician's license to start work as an apprentice in Texas, simply mail in the application with the fee. This is an easy step. Go to the Texas Online website and then click on "Obtain Occupational Licenses." On that page, click on "A-Z" and then scroll down to "electrician information." That will take you to the electrician licensing page. Click on "Apply for Apprentice License online" and then on the next page click on "Apprentice Electrician Application" and fill it out. Send in the application with the required fee and the state will send you your license to work as an apprentice electrician.

3. Get a job with your apprentice electrician license.
   
   Once you have your electrician's license, apply for jobs. It will be much easier to get a job with your license in hand. You can go to work directly for electrical companies. You can also work for trade companies who supply licensed electricians and other tradesman to companies on a temporary basis. The good thing about working for a company that supplies workers to other companies is that you can be sent out to a wide variety of places and get a lot of varied experience. Apprentice electrician's can earn a pretty good wage.

4. Eventually become a Journeyman electrician and then a Master electrician.
   
   All Apprentice electricians work under a Master or Journeyman electrician. While you are working as an Apprentice electrician, learn as much as you possibly can. Use your time wisely. It takes about four years before you will have enough time to be allowed to take the Journeyman's exam. However, this is one of the few trades left where you do not have to have any college. You can learn on the job and make a good paying stable career out of it. If you take classes at night, many companies will pay for them and they will help you to hone your skills even more and pass the test. Eventually you could become a Master electrician.

Tips & Warnings

• Be prepared to wait a few weeks to receive your electrician's license in the mail.
• Go ahead and apply for jobs and let them know that you have already applied for your apprentice license.
• Working with electricity can always be dangerous.

Resources

• Texas Online

[Mitestarossa]

on 6/30/2009 Thank you for the detailed steps to get an electricians license.