You are probably looking at inspection companies. Two thoughts, 1) They, of course, are looking for experience and adaptability from their technicians. They have to keep them busy all the time and that means they have to be able to do many different things. If there are many experienced inspectors available, they are less willing to take a chance on one with less experience. 2) You probably have many more years experience than you realize. Some may have not been "inspecting" weld but if you are a quality person in this field, you have been "inspecting" your welds and probably those around you for years. Your background adds up to as much or more than some other "inspectors". Use it! On the other hand, sometimes there is no substituting for experience.
Alternately, try looking at companies that produce or service. They need inspectors also and may be more willing to take an inspector with less years experience and may not yet be as widely adaptable. Either way, never stop educating yourself. Too many of the people we are all surrounded by can't wait to hit that clock at the end of the day so they can go get a beer. They are the ones that will be doing what they are doing now when they retire and wonder why they did not make more money doing it.
I used to be point man for our local AWS Section CWI training classes and dlmann's above observations are right on. I would start every seminar with a pretest to let each CWI candidate get a taste of what the seminar was going to teach them. Average score was about 20%. Eye opening as most candidates had been welding for years. They just did not know what they knew. At the end of the seminar their eyes had been opened and we had a very high percentage of candidates that achieved their CWI status.
As for me, I started out my career on the inspection side of the fence and have spent years trying to improve my hands on strengths. I (and my family) would be considerably skinnier if they had to depend upon my "welding" (more like dirt dauber) skills.
Anyway, that is my 2 cents worth.
What price are you willing to pay:
Your handle "bamaCWI" leads one to think that you are from Alabama (WAR EAGLE!!). Call up Longview Inspection in Tuscaloosa @ 1-800-638-2262 (I hear there is some sort of Colledge in that town!). A lot of road time will be spent, but you will spend some valuable time in pulp and paper mills, oil refinerys, fossil fuel powerplants, cross country pipe line, and various fabrication projects.
Your CWI cert with no NDT background (exception: VT) will let you start just above the bottom rung as opposed to somebody with no certs (NDT or otherwise). Three things will happen:
1. You'll get up to level II in at least VT, UT thickness, MT, and PT in a very short period of time. RT, RT safety, and UT shearwave will depend on your motivation. Complement your employer NDT certification I/A/W ASNT-TC1A with certification through ACCP.
2. You will do inspections on miles of power and process piping, pressure vessels of all kinds, and above ground atmosphere storage tanks from fifty to one million gallon capacity and you'll write pounds of reports on the same. You will do call-out, turn-around, and outages. You will get exposure to just about every section of ASME there is, API, and AWS.
3. If you decide that petrochem, power, or pulp & paper is the thing for you, then you will be on you way to certification for API-510, API-570, and API-653. Combine those three certs with CWI and ACCP certs, and in my rarely asked opinon you will have some serious skills.
As your skills develop keep your eyes open for that ONE oportunity your looking for, and never stop learning.
regards, Donnie Mann