Experience Requirements Overview

  • Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed
  • Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.
  • Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.
  • Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.

Education, Training and Experience

Required Level of Education: Bachelor's Degree

Related Work Experience: Over 6 months, up to and including 1 year

On-Site or In-Plant Training: Up to and including 1 month

On-the-Job Training: Anything beyond short demonstration, up to and including 1 month

Detailed Work Activities

  • Create electrical schematics.
  • Document technical design details.
  • Confer with technical personnel to prepare designs or operational plans.
  • Evaluate designs or specifications to ensure quality.
  • Review technical documents to plan work.

Work Values

Achievement

Occupations that satisfy this work value are results oriented and allow employees to use their strongest abilities, giving them a feeling of accomplishment. Corresponding needs are Ability Utilization and Achievement.

Working Conditions

Recognition

Relationships

Support

Independence

Tasks

  • Review work orders or procedural manuals and confer with vendors or design staff to resolve problems or modify design.
  • Draft detail and assembly drawings of design components, circuitry or printed circuit boards, using computer-assisted equipment or standard drafting techniques and devices.
  • Draft working drawings, wiring diagrams, wiring connection specifications, or cross-sections of underground cables, as required for instructions to installation crew.
  • Assemble documentation packages and produce drawing sets to be checked by an engineer or an architect.
  • Review completed construction drawings and cost estimates for accuracy and conformity to standards and regulations.
  • Consult with engineers to discuss or interpret design concepts, or determine requirements of detailed working drawings.
  • Confer with engineering staff and other personnel to resolve problems.
  • Measure factors that affect installation and arrangement of equipment, such as distances to be spanned by wire and cable.
  • Design electrical systems, such as lighting systems.
  • Draw master sketches to scale showing relation of proposed installations to existing facilities and exact specifications and dimensions.
  • Locate files relating to specified design project in database library, load program into computer, and record completed job data.
  • Examine electronic schematics and supporting documents to develop, compute, and verify specifications for drafting data, such as configuration of parts, dimensions, or tolerances.
  • Compare logic element configuration on display screen with engineering schematics and calculate figures to convert, redesign, or modify element.
  • Review blueprints to determine customer requirements and consult with assembler regarding schematics, wiring procedures, or conductor paths.
  • Study work order requests to determine type of service, such as lighting or power, demanded by installation.
  • Explain drawings to production or construction teams and provide adjustments, as necessary.
  • Reproduce working drawings on copy machines or trace drawings in ink.
  • Generate computer tapes of final layout design to produce layered photo masks or photo plotting design onto film.
  • Determine the order of work and the method of presentation, such as orthographic or isometric drawing.
  • Visit proposed installation sites and draw rough sketches of location.
  • Key and program specified commands and engineering specifications into computer system to change functions and test final layout.
  • Copy drawings of printed circuit board fabrication using print machine or blueprinting procedure.
  • Select drill size to drill test head, according to test design and specifications, and submit guide layout to designated department.
  • Plot electrical test points on layout sheets and draw schematics for wiring test fixture heads to frames.
  • Write technical reports and draw charts that display statistics and data.
  • Supervise and coordinate work activities of workers engaged in drafting, designing layouts, assembling, or testing printed circuit boards.
  • Train students to use drafting machines and to prepare schematic diagrams, block diagrams, control drawings, logic diagrams, integrated circuit drawings, or interconnection diagrams.
  • Prepare and interpret specifications, calculating weights, volumes, or stress factors.
  • Supervise or train other technologists, technicians, or drafters.
  • Use computer-aided drafting equipment or conventional drafting stations, technical handbooks, tables, calculators, or traditional drafting tools, such as boards, pencils, protractors, or T-squares.

Work Styles

Integrity

Job requires being honest and ethical.

Achievement/Effort

Persistence

Initiative

Leadership

Cooperation

Concern for Others

Social Orientation

Self-Control

Stress Tolerance

Adaptability/Flexibility

Dependability

Attention to Detail

Independence

Innovation

Analytical Thinking

Data Source: This page includes information from the O*NET 28.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. This page includes Employment Projections program, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.