Mikayla finds her spark

For many school leavers, graduation is a double-edged sword – a time of excitement at leaving their school days behind and taking those first big steps into adulthood, mixed with the anxiety of what’s next? We’re constantly asked throughout childhood, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”, but what happens when the answer is, “I don’t know?”.

While Mikayla Jodvalkis is living her dream now, finding the right path for her was a process of elimination that has led her in a direction she never expected. She knew she wanted to be able to travel – that she wanted a good work/life balance and a job that was active. So naturally, she first ventured into hospitality, working for a snow season down south and spending a year travelling around Australia funded by casual work in cafes and restaurants, before deciding the industry wasn’t the right fit for her.

“It was just a tense environment to work in, and I found myself thinking, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore’. I was really just looking for anything to get out of it,” she says.

Upon her return to the Sunshine Coast, Mikayla then took on a job doing water deliveries to local businesses, but found herself feeling unfulfilled.

She was considering her next move when she caught up with a friend and found herself inspired by his lifestyle.

“The more I saw my electrician friend and how chilled out he was with his work, the more it looked like a great option for myself. So when he offered to let me come work with him for a week, I thought, ‘why not?’,” she said.

“I’ve always been pretty mechanically-minded—I grew up on a farm out the back of Yandina and Dad always had us fixing cars and machinery—so hands-on work wasn’t a foreign thing to me. So, after shadowing him on the job and finding I liked it, I thought I’d look at getting an apprenticeship and see how it goes.”  

Mikayla was delivering water to a business next to All Electrical Work when she had a lightbulb moment that would set her in a direction she’d never realised was an option.

“A woman I did deliveries to had mentioned she’d heard All Electrical Work was looking for an apprentice, so when I found myself next door, I took it as a good sign and decided to walk in and introduce myself,” Mikayla said.

“I was signed to do my training with TAFE Queensland (Certificate III in Electrotechnology Electrician [UEE30820]) at the end of that year, officially started in the January, and then two weeks later they asked if I was happy to do some ‘away’ work. I had no idea what it was or that it was even something electricians did, but I was a new apprentice trying to impress, so I was like, ‘sure!’,” she laughs.

“Next thing I know, I’m on tour with Red Hot Chili Peppers and Post Malone.”

Unbeknownst to Mikayla, in addition to working on more stereotypical electrical jobs like industrial controls, commercial developments, and residential constructions, her new employer undertook a vast range of contract work, including for the companies behind the Australian tours of some of the world’s biggest artists.

Now entering the fourth and final stage of her apprenticeship, Mikayla spends several months each year travelling across Australia, working in a team alongside two-to-four other electricians to set-up, pack-down and ensure there are no technical issues at concerts for the likes of Harry Styles, Pink, Foo Fighters, Green Day, The Weeknd, and Cold Play.

“It was definitely an intense switch from what I thought a career in electrical was going to be; it was a lot more high pressure and a lot more demanding. But it just fit,” Mikayla said.

“Because it is such a high intensity job, everything is taken care of. We have a lot of equipment that we have to get down in a relatively short space of time, so we have accommodation either at the stadium or near the stadium and catering is taken care of, so I don’t have to think about grocery shopping or paying for fuel – which, as an apprentice, is pretty helpful,” she laughs.

“It’s a pretty cool gig, and it’s opened up some great opportunities for the future, but at the end of the day, we’re there to do our job, so we have to be focused.”

Outside of touring season and away contracts, Mikayla works across a range of areas, in addition to completing her training blocks at TAFE Queensland’s Nambour campus, which with the assistance of her supportive teachers, are scheduled around her ‘away’ jobs.

“I love the diversity. When we are at home, we don’t just focus on a single thing. We do everything from working in factories to work on greenhouses at farms, to domestic and industrial work – just about anything you can think of. So, every day of every week is very different to the last,” she said.

“Then there are other ‘away’ work opportunities that come up — we’ll get sent overseas to work on a contract, or we’ll fly out to other parts of Australia to work in mines for a bit, so there are a lot of different avenues.”

These opportunities have included working on a long-term project in Fiji that required Mikayla to fly out three separate times in the first year of her apprenticeship, as well as flying to South Korea earlier this year to assist with the setup of professional golf tour, Liv Golf.

“It’s definitely been a really interesting experience. It’s nice being able to go into different cultures and understand how they approach our industry compared to the way we do over here,” Mikayla said.

Having just completed her first ‘away’ gig for this touring season—travelling across the country on Metallica’s M72 tour—Mikayla says she couldn’t be happier with her career, and encouraged others who are uncertain which path they should take to be open-minded and willing to try new things.

“Be open to new opportunities, be open to meeting new people, and if something comes up, there’s really no harm in taking it – it’s good to step into new directions,” she said. 

“I remember someone suggesting it (electrical) as a good career for me when I was 16, but at the time I didn’t think it was for me. It wasn’t until my friend told me about his work and encouraged me to actually try it that I even considered giving it a go. But I’m so glad I did.

“This was an area I didn’t even know existed, and I only found it through trying something new.”

According to Jobs Queensland, we can expect to see an increase in employment opportunities for electricians across the state of 4.6% per cent over the next five years. And while women still remain under-represented in the construction trades space, making up just 4.5% of the sector, more and more women like Mikayla are choosing to pursue trades careers, with TAFE Queensland reporting a growth in female enrolments of 44% over the last five years.

From TAFE at School courses to apprenticeships and higher level trades qualifications, there’s a pathway for every stage in your career journey.