Can you not wing it anymore getting into the electrical industry? I never did the official college course back in the mid 90's when I started. I kind of knew what I was doing due to my dad kind of knowing what he was doing and I kind of re-wired my first house so it at least all worked. When I went for a job interview at a local sparks desperate for electricians I just told them I had done several re-wires and I knew what I was doing. As long as you are intelligent you can pick it up as you go along and after 5 years and my boss paying for an expensive 16th edition and 2391 course for me I was their qualifying manager.
Not long after that I became self employed and then you really do have the licence to wing it. Even recently we needed the CSCS card to do a job on site but they accepted the screen shot of the booked and paid for H&S course they let us on site as they needed us quickly. Do you think we actually bothered turning up and doing the course? Of course not, who's got time for that, We did the job, got paid and the CSCS thing would have ran out by now anyway, everyone was happy - we winged it.
I know part P has probably kyboshed a lot of that now but is it so difficult to do something similar in the industrial side of things, I cant believe someone would blow their life savings on getting a job, its got scam written all over it, they should be paying you.