IREC’s Solar Career Map: Beyond the Rooftop Installer
IREC’s Solar Career Map is a dynamic 21st century tool that charts a course for promotion or advancement through growing opportunities in the modern solar industry. Full of valuable data about the knowledge, skills and credentials needed to perform 40 solar jobs – from entry and mid-levels to advanced and across four industry sectors – the map identifies more than 60 possible routes to get there. An incredibly comprehensive and thoughtful tool, the video-enhanced map also breathes life into these occupations through the faces and stories behind this expanding solar workforce.
Five complementary videos showcase solar professionals who speak about their work, their backgrounds and skills and their unique path to the solar workforce. Together with the extensive information presented in interactive formats, the map shows job seekers and employers, school and career counselors, training providers and other workforce professionals the depth of opportunities a solar career can offer.
The necessity for integrated solar training in a variety of related fields is clearly demonstrated, as are opportunities for special categories of workers, including our military veterans.
With the recent extension of the Investment Tax Credit, the Paris Agreement, and release of the Solar Foundation’s 2015 solar jobs census, the Solar Career Map couldn’t be more timely and relevant.
The Solar Career Map – created with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative – emerged from a simple vision: high-quality work and high-quality jobs are the key to building a robust, high-quality solar industry. Like any good map, it not only shows the possible destinations, but how to get there.
“There’s a place for everybody in solar,” says Kelly Larson, Kelly Larson Electric, in one of the five companion videos.
Watch the videos.
