need to get a job but pretty bad work history

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Am I just wasting my time starting over in a new career for Electrician taking classes for journeyman electrician license but no experience in the field. Jobs are booming but no way of getting in. I am also 38 and not the alpha male type covered in tattoos so I probably dont have the personality for the trade.
Sorry to be so negative but it seems like everyone trys to screw me over. This long period of unemployment has been devastating both financially and personally.

I'm 33 and looking at going back to school to get a job doing tech support. I've had a long stretch of unemployment too 7 years and no luck getting hired anywhere. It's been pretty devastating to me too. I've been severely depressed over not working. I've been applying in a different city in the hopes of getting hired...and have heard back nothing.

I'm 31 and am trying to break into the workforce as well. I have a bachelor's and master's degree in meteorology that are essentially useless, so I went back to community college to learn computer programming in Java and C++. I finished up my courses in May and am now applying for some jobs. Problem is that you need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience.

A lot of the software engineering/developer jobs have a long laundry list of requirements that I don't have. I will apply to ones where I have at least some of the skills, but that doesn't leave me with a large pool of jobs to draw from as I am in a fairly rural area. Many of the jobs around here are either blue collar or tourism/hospitality related.

Moving isn't much of an option for me right now as relocating requires money that I don't have. I really need to find a job locally and accumulate the money necessary to get a place of my own.

I am working with my state's voc rehab agency and am hopeful they may be able to help place me into a job. I haven't been actively looking for a job that long yet, but I still have some lingering doubts about my overall employability. If I don't get a job within the next 6 months or so, I'm probably screwed. In fact, I may be screwed already as I have virtually no work history and a funky resume.

You are correct to be concerned. Every academic institution seems to sell pie in the sky views of how great things will be after you finish but the real question is how well does it turn out for their graduates.

I'd think being able to do the job well will count more than personality, but you are correct. It seems across the board that it's who you know that gets you in, not what you know.

The only advice I have is the same I'd give for anyone else. Start contacting prospective employers to find out what they need and see if any are willing to get you into a position once you get your license. If it's clear that there are no jobs to be had or that you are not the kind of person they would want to hire, I'd question spending the time and money for a skill you'll never be able to use.