Women In Trades Wednesday-Christine Swepson

Christine Swepson is an Electrical apprentice of 1 year and 2 months. Christine’s interest for trades began whilst she worked in sales and customer service, she wanted to be an architect or vet, or to do something with her hands that was creative and meaningful, but at that time didn’t go through with it.

In 2018 Christine was working at Mercury when she saw an event for Girls in Hi viz promoting the Electrical & Telco Industry, this got her thinking more about the becoming an Electrician instead. Seeing these girls doing a trade is where Christine’s real interest began!

After this Christine explains she completed a pre trade at MIT in 2019 and then went to a careers expo where she handed in her CV to Manukau Jobs and Skills Hub. A few months later, Manukau Jobs and Skills Hub were able to put Christine through a one-week work experience and as well as this they sent her a job advert for Broad-spectrum, which she applied and interviewed for in December and got the job in January 2020. Christine explains “I am with Connexis doing my night classes at Etco. I started at the end of January, so I am still learning as I go. Every day/week can be different.”

At the moment Christine is at City Rail Link at Britomart doing lights, switchboards and terminations. She states that “I have done a lot of my firsts on this site, when I first started there, I spent a good three months only making up earths for containment bonding. I would have done over 3000 so far so I could safely say I am an expert at that!”

Christine’s family and her boredom of office work pushed her to make this a reality and she has not regretted it. When asked what challenges Christine had to overcome to get where she is now, she explains “I have a really supportive family and a positive outlook. If anything, I would probably say taking a pay cut from working full time in an office is something I’ve had to overcome but I know with time it will pay off in the end as I will forever have a life long skill that I’ll be able to take with me wherever I go and a guaranteed increase in pay”

What Christine loves most about her job is “That it will be a trade that will always be in demand, as no matter what technological advances there are there will always be a need for electricians. Since working in the industry, I have realized there are so many different areas of work I can choose to do/specialize in” and lastly “that there are so many great sparkys that I work with and I am able to learn different things from everyone in order to be better myself works quality”.

Christine’s proudest career achievement is “When I was complimented that my switchboard was beautiful and neat. Word got around, I mean I only had five cables, but I was still pretty chuffed with myself.” Christine has multiple future career goals that include “To get qualified, be a really good electrician through experience, get my inspectors license, do an electrical engineering degree and/or paper and to keep climbing the career ladder.”

Some of the things that she wished she had known when she first started are “I wished there was more on job/site practical experience with the pre trade I did. To know the must have tools and power tools that are really needed when you start out, as this stops you from wasting money on a tool you may only need once a year or never at all” and lastly “how to use certain power tools (although YouTube has helped me a lot with this one) and with on job experience and a good boss you’ll be shown how if you’re new to it”.

When asked how her career choice has impacted her life outside of work she states “I am way more tired after work definitely, I look forward to some more downtime. I am now excited and happy spending money on tools and would rather that for Christmas and birthday gifts now.” Christine has two kids, so she explains “I’ve always worked and because my hours are flexible at the moment, I am still able to have a good work/life balance”.

Christine’s final advice is “It’s all about who you know and who can help you! Apply anywhere and everywhere, put your CV into all of the places that tradies go such as ideal, carters etc. If you’re unsuccessful and doing electrical then I suggest trying a pre trade as it takes one year off your theory, so it pays off in the end. It’s definitely doable if you put your mind to it and it helps if you have the support of your family and/or partner. To remember you’re not alone, there are a lot of tradies who are parents and lastly to make sure you choose the right company that you can get work/life balance at.”

Christine would like to see more social promotion about women in trades and women in trades events such as television adverts and radio adverts to get more awareness to the public and she states “I started my trade when I was 30 and I would’ve definitely done it earlier in life had I been more informed at school or socially knew more about it.”