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Job Description

Overview

Crash Champions is a rapidly growing brand in the collision repair industry, operating over 650 locations across the U.S. The Automotive Body Technician Apprentice role offers a hands-on apprenticeship with potential earnings exceeding six figures, focusing on developing skills in collision repair.

Responsibilities

  • Learn the industry standard of the manufacturer’s original specification with high quality controls.
  • Create a complete repair plan, vehicle disassembly and reassembly, plastic bumper repair, and minor panel dent repair.
  • Repair more complex dents by working and reshaping sheet metal, application of body filler, and advancing to two-sided plastic repair.
  • Learn the basics of structural damage identification and how to access repair procedures.
  • Properly set-up and anchor structural repairs, as well as three-dimensional measuring of the vehicle structure.
  • Learn the various methods of welding/joining materials and tools.
  • Fine tune body filler and metal repairs, with the addition of stud-gun and other metal straightening tools and techniques, cutting and replacing small structural components.
  • Proper set-up and techniques for MIG welding on steel vehicles, to complete the I-CAR Weld Certification.

Requirements

  • 18 years of age.
  • Ability to work full-time, 40 hours a week.
  • Lift up to 50 pounds.
  • Ability to stand for long periods of time.
  • Have a valid driver's license.
  • Regularly position or move self to fix and repair over and under vehicles.
  • Ability to effectively communicate and take direction from superiors.
  • Ability to read and understand a work order.
  • High School Diploma/ GED preferred.

Benefits

  • Health Insurance
  • Dental
  • Vision
  • Group Life Insurance
  • Disability Insurance
  • 401k
  • PTO

Benefits

Health Insurance
Dental
Vision
Group Life Insurance
Disability Insurance
401k
PTO
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How this job compares in Chicago, IL

Pay in context

At roughly $20/hr, this posting comes in about 47% below the $37/hr median for welding jobs in Chicago, IL, where the middle half runs $32–$46/hr across 69 postings with published pay. Put another way, it pays more than about 3% of the comparable postings we have wage data for. That gap is worth raising directly — in a market this size there is normally room to negotiate toward the median, particularly if you already hold the certifications the posting asks for.

The local market in Chicago, IL

We're tracking 99 other active welding openings in Chicago, IL right now, from 52 different employers. 27 of them were added in the last week. Across Illinois as a whole we're tracking 338 other active welding openings from 202 employers. A metro this active generally means you have real leverage — employers here are competing for the same welders. Browse every welding job in Chicago, or widen the search to Illinois.

Crash Champions currently has 8 other openings live in Illinois, which is usually a sign of either steady growth or steady turnover — worth asking which in the interview.

The most active employers in Illinois at the moment, by number of open welding reqs, are Gerber Collision & Glass (14), S&C Electric Company (11), and Venteon (10). Volume like that usually means either a genuine expansion or a staffing agency working several client sites — worth knowing which before you apply.

Within Illinois, the best-paying metros we track by median hourly rate are Downers Grove at $46/hr, Chicago at $37/hr, and Elk Grove Village at $34/hr. Chicago is among them.

What you'll be running

This posting calls for MIG. MIG (GMAW) feeds a continuous wire electrode through a shielding-gas nozzle. It lays down metal fast and is forgiving on clean material, which is why it dominates production and light fabrication work.

See all apprentice welder openings if you want to compare this against similar roles.

Similar openings near Chicago, IL

Pay figures are medians computed from live postings in the Welding Pros index, not from survey data, and they move as employers post. Automotive Body Technician Apprentice figures were last recalculated when this page was built.