hello all,
i searched for this question for a while and couldnt find any one. my brother is trying to get into the industry. he doesnt have any experience. he hangs garage doors in the south east. a local plant is going to have an outage fairly soon. would it be a good idea to try and work an outage in hopes of getting an nlo job? has anyone made that transition? if he works the outage he will have to quit his job and he has a family. he could work outages if he doesnt get into the plant right after the outage is complete. would it be easier to wait and apply for nlo positions for him waiting to get lucky?
Working outages is a great strategy for getting into a plant as a full time house employee. That is how I got my current NLO spot. I was working an outage as an RP tech and met somebody who knew somebody, etc. It helped I was ex-Navy, but the strategy is still sound. It may take a few outages to build a air of familiarity, but try and work all the outages for the same company, work hard and smart, and word will get around.
I would try that route too. I know of quite a few utility employees who got into the business by doing outage and other contractual work. I know of people who started in the decon and the HP areas and made the transition to utility in the HP, operations, and crafts sectors.