In the US, many parents hammer home the same plea to their school-aged children: “Go to college.”
It’s a request that Daniel Oven heard many times as he worked his way through elementary and high school. Finally he acquiesced and graduated with a degree from Roger Williams University. But at 31, Oven found himself working in a role that didn’t require a degree: as the director of marketing for his family’s business, HomeWiz.
“At first, I wanted nothing to do with the technician side of my family business,” Oven admitted. “But after I started to do marketing for my father’s company, I saw how valuable and lucrative it can be to be an electrician or HVAC technician. It brought me around to saying, ‘I should really go to school for this, and there should be more people that look at this as a viable option.'”
Howard Oven, his father and the owner of HomeWiz, raised his three children in Wells, Mass. and saw very few parents pushing their kids to work in the trades.
“They thought that the end of all means would be a college education,” he said. “All of these parents came from the perspective of education; that’s what happens in a metropolitan city.”
That outlook is what contributes to a severe skills shortage in the trades industry, he said. A recent study by the Conference Board revealed that construction faces a higher labor shortage than over 91% of other industries examined.
HomeWiz experiences the effects of the trade shortage just as much as any electrical and HVAC company, said Howard.
“We want to attract the best of the best,” he said, adding that the company is looking to hire technicians with people skills and trade fundamentals.
But unfortunately, making a hire in the trades industry isn’t as easy as posting a job listing on LinkedIn and watching the resumes flow in.
Many young adults look at working in the trades as working with their hands and breaking their backs day in and day out, said Daniel.
“But today more than ever, the trades is about thinking on your toes and working with some of the latest technology in construction,” he said. “It’s a whole other way of thinking.”
More than that, the trades represent a group of roles that are essential to the functioning of daily society.
“There will always be power outages and heating system failures,” said Daniel Oven. “There were always be a need for a company that can show up at someone’s home and help out a family fix an issue, much like you will always need a mechanic for your car.”
HomeWiz is now hiring technicians. To learn more and apply, please go to https://yourhomewiz.com/about-homewiz/career-opportunities/
