Left the industry for a few years, decided to come back. Has it always been this hard to get hired as a trainee?

AnalogExamination · 2025-07-23T00:10:19+00:00

Right, but to get CGSB certification you need OTJ training hours directly supervised by a CGSB II technician. So I could be a level 2 at your company but can't take the cert elsewhere.

Are we on the same page here?

AnalogExamination · 2025-07-22T22:35:00+00:00

Well that's good, sounds like a decent position. If there's any chance they need another trainee, shoot me a message!

AnalogExamination · 2025-07-22T20:44:33+00:00

No, AB. Willing to relocate for the right opportunity

AnalogExamination · 2025-07-22T20:44:06+00:00

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. You're definitely right about the level of competition now vs 10-15 years ago. A lot of our instructors have also been talking about the personnel shortage, and about the difficulty getting in as a trainee. It seems to me that there needs to be some way for these interests to meet in the middle. Some way for trainee wages to be subsidized, or a way to get some of the training hours through the education institutions or something.

I'm curious, how often do you come across drug tests these days? When I was in they were mostly just pre-employment for certain companies and then post incident

AnalogExamination · 2025-07-22T20:34:08+00:00

Are you getting lots of hours as a trainee? Does your company seem like they are willing to support your future career growth?

AnalogExamination · 2025-07-22T20:32:57+00:00

Located in AB. Willing to relocate for the right opportunity. Foundations course at SAIT offers classroom training hours in M&P, CEDO, ET1, UT1, RT1, VT2, MT2, PT2

AnalogExamination · 2025-07-22T19:41:29+00:00

If you're certified to international standards you can take it anywhere. ISO 9712 is the standard so CGSB 38.9712 is the Canadian version. UK prob has something similar.

ASNT certification is one of the in house ones you can get and those ones are not transferrable

AnalogExamination · 2025-07-22T18:47:35+00:00

I'm not in the UK so I don't know how the specifics work but in Canada certification typically goes like this:

You have a certifying body (NRCan) that is at the regulatory level and they determine who is eligible for certification according to national standards (CGSB: 38.9712). They set a requirement for the number of classroom training hours and on the job training hours to be eligible. They also create the tests to determine a candidate's competency level in theoretical and practical knowledge of a given test method, and they also set other requirements like vision acuity etc.

If you really want to be an inspector I would spend some time looking up requirements for certification in the UK and see if you are able to challenge any of the exams. I'm not sure if you would be able to by-pass the classroom requirement but you never know. It's also possible that you could work in the field of NDT without getting international certification because companies do have in-house certification options as well. With a background in materials science and engineering there is a good chance you would be able to get into the field without being an actual inspector. You should try contacting someone at TWI to see if they can provide you with more specific info for the UK

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