A love of playing with electrical gadgets led Dylan Johns to pursue a career as an electrician. Now, he gets to work on all sorts of fun projects as part of his job.

Dylan Johns always enjoyed dismantling electronics and using the various bits and pieces to build things.

As a teenager, he would pull apart broken VCRs and whatever else he could find and use the components to make sculptures and other creations.

Towards the end of high school, Dylan decided to do a pre-apprenticeship Certificate II in Electrotechnology (Career Start) through Chisholm.

The electrical pre-apprenticeship gives you a head start on the competition when employers are looking for new electrical apprentices.

Students gain insight into the electrotechnology industry and develop skills in domestic and commercial electrical work.

Early on in the course, Dylan knew he had made the right choice. He went on to do his Certificate III in Electrotechnology Electrician apprenticeship, equipping him with the skills needed to work on a variety of electrical installations, including commercial, residential and industrial wiring applications.

“Studying at Chisholm was pretty fun,” says Dylan. “They showed us what we needed to learn and we’d go at our own pace, which I really liked.”

Dylan found the teachers at Chisholm to be very supportive and he thrived as a result.

“I could call them up when I needed help with something, which was great,” he says. “My favourite part of the course was learning about components and building a light from scratch. I was able to build my own circuit board, capacitor, put all the components together, solder them up and build the light from the ground up.”

Partway through Dylan’s apprenticeship with Colin Docking Electrics, tragedy struck. His employer’s wife (and business administrator) passed away in Dylan’s second year, then his employer passed away in his fourth year.

Despite the difficult situation, Dylan continued his apprenticeship through the supervising electrician, Jason Liversidge Electrical.

Working as an electrician, Dylan loves that each day on the job is different.

The day before work, or on the morning of, he is messaged the location of where he needs to be.

Dylan heads there with his tools and greets the team, then they discuss what needs to be done and Dylan gets to work.

“Some days it can be a new job putting in wires, getting it all ready and fitting it off,” says Dylan. “Other days, it’s a little extension on an existing house, just trying to figure out where all the wires are going or getting the new ones in place. Other days, it’s just changing over points or adding a new one, which can be tricky, depending on what you’re working with.”

Dylan’s favourite thing about being an electrician is watching the transformation as it all comes together.

“Seeing a skeleton of a frame and then getting to the final product and seeing all the lights working and all the points in place is really rewarding,” he says.

Dylan shone during his time at Chisholm, achieving outstanding academic results, including 100% or close to on several of his final exams. He was nominated as Apprentice of the Year at the 2022 Chisholm Education Awards.

“My advice to others is to go at the pace you’re comfortable with and you’ll get there in the end,” he says.