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[Cailen Waddell]

[size=78%]It really doesn't.[/size]

[size=78%]Some might have these qualities - but equally, you can find them in those without too.[/size]


Steve.

Steve you are right, to an extent and I think I am as well.  I don't suppose that we are going to agree on this.  There are plenty of people with and without degrees with all ranges of skill.

My experience is just that, my experience, and it is what I have to use.  In my experience if I had to choose with degrees or without, experience has shown me that I will get abetter applicant pool with than without. 

I'm curious and this question goes out to everyone - if you have to take formal applications, everyone gets a fair shake, this is public sector, what questions will you ask?  What objective criteria would you use to thin the pool of applicants?  200 people can't come in for a practical skills test.


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[Ivan Beaver]

Steve you are right, to an extent and I think I am as well.  I don't suppose that we are going to agree on this.  There are plenty of people with and without degrees with all ranges of skill.

My experience is just that, my experience, and it is what I have to use.  In my experience if I had to choose with degrees or without, experience has shown me that I will get abetter applicant pool with than without. 

I'm curious and this question goes out to everyone - if you have to take formal applications, everyone gets a fair shake, this is public sector, what questions will you ask?  What objective criteria would you use to thin the pool of applicants?  200 people can't come in for a practical skills test.


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I would say that it really matters on the particular job that is being offered.

A higher education offers and develops particular skill sets, and real world experience offers different skill sets.

It is not that one is "better" than another, but different sets of skills are needed for different jobs.

For example-Just because somebody knows the details of the physics involved in designing a loudspeaker or amplifier does not mean that they can mix a band.

Yes maybe they can-but I have know some good mixers who had no idea what ohms law was or could tell you how large 1Khz is.

Being good at report writing  doesn't mean you know how to pack a truck and so forth.

[eric lenasbunt]

I think the sad reality is that a college degree is almost equivalent to what a high school degree used to be as far as hiring. Many positions don't care if your degree is even in the field of the position.

As someone stated earlier, the education is what you make of it. One of the best engineers in my region has only a high school diploma but has the skills and knowledge for any audio gig around here. But, he took every opportunity on the job to learn, go to trainings, practice his skills and learn from guest engineers.
  Conversely, as in the case of many (not all of course) of the Full Sail kids there was not much initiative taken to learn and hone a variety of skills or do the unfun parts of the skill set.

I don't have an answer for you Cailen, but I do think we are looking at a higher education crisis where these degrees cost as much as a house and really do not prepare candidates nearly as much as a few months of on the job training by a willing learner.

[Bob Charest]

The paper may get you a chance at the gig, but your performance and attitude will keep it for you.

I got a degree in music composition - it never got me a job except for two times: When applying to teach improvisation at the University of Maine and then when I went to work for an insurance company as a hardware tech. I learned programming on my own and then was hired as a systems programmer... spent a total of 20 years in IT while doing music, then back to music full time... never got at degree in Computer Science.

Someone who is willing to work hard and wants to learn will always stand out. Some of the people we hire to help on road crew really demonstrate that.

[Stephen Swaffer]

The last two posts mentioned "willing learner" "wants to learn"-to me that is the key qualification in any tech position because much of what you know today will be obsolete in 5 to 10 years.  How to discern that trait is the question.

Cailen,  I agree with the traits you said a degree shows-and using one as a significant qualifier makes sense. 

When the presence or absence of a degree is used as a litmus test, IMO it potentially rules out the best person for the job.  In my case, I wound up teaching the newly graduated engineers the difference between a servo and a stepper motor-as well as how to use a command prompt line in DOS-essential for older equipment we had, but totally foreign to their generation. 

[Scott Holtzman]

The last two posts mentioned "willing learner" "wants to learn"-to me that is the key qualification in any tech position because much of what you know today will be obsolete in 5 to 10 years.  How to discern that trait is the question.

Cailen,  I agree with the traits you said a degree shows-and using one as a significant qualifier makes sense. 

When the presence or absence of a degree is used as a litmus test, IMO it potentially rules out the best person for the job.  In my case, I wound up teaching the newly graduated engineers the difference between a servo and a stepper motor-as well as how to use a command prompt line in DOS-essential for older equipment we had, but totally foreign to their generation.

Command line prompts are foreign to this generation, just end users.  Windows Server, Linux, all heavy telecom gear (Cisco Routers, Switches etc.), phone switches etc.  All run CLI's.  Anyone who has messed with an Arduino or a Pi has also had exposure.

You are looking for someone with a flair for electronics and the ability to learn new gear quick.  Being able to use a foreign CLI with ? and help and hack your way around is a bellwether of the overall chops.

[Chris White]

If you end up doing a fly date don't walk in to a venue with an M7 and insert your thumb drive and recall your console image and wipe the house engineers right after he had done some tweaking but hasn't had a chance to save it. Ask first. And then don't spend the last half of the set updating your Facebook status while missing things on stage that you should be watching for. And yes both things were the same BE. I sometimes wonder how some people still have jobs.


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[Scott Holtzman]

If you end up doing a fly date don't walk in to a venue with an M7 and insert your thumb drive and recall your console image and wipe the house engineers right after he had done some tweaking but hasn't had a chance to save it. Ask first. And then don't spend the last half of the set updating your Facebook status while missing things on stage that you should be watching for. And yes both things were the same BE. I sometimes wonder how some people still have jobs.


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I agree, the Facebook thing makes me nuts.  Someone is setting up and they are taking pictures of the gear, the instruments, a cool fly loft whatever and there head is anywhere but in the game. 

In my entire 30 years I have a total of one picture with an Artist, Dan Fogelberg and a Jim Photoglo.  I very much hesitated on that one but had a lot of respect for both of them as artists and found a tactful way.  I was a contractor, doing grunt work just to be in the presence of professionals and was very much worried I might be called out. 

Don't ever apologize for holding people to professional standards.

[Mike Sokol]

Can someone explain to me what 'full sail' means?

Steve.

Full Sail actually hired me a few times a decade ago as a guest professor to teach some special day-long classes on surround-sound mixing techniques. But instead of the 6 to 12 students per class at the conservatory where I teach, there was a room of 200 to 300 students in lecture seating. It's really hard to teach any kind of sound production techniques to several hundred students at a time, but that seemed to be the standard procedure at Full Sail. 

My current teaching gig at Shenandoah Conservatory let's me teach a live sound practicum class for sophomores every semester where I make them set up and tear down a sound system every week. I also bring in strange musical instruments and show them my bag of tricks on how to mic and eq instruments in the mix. For the final exam last week I gave them a basic band/instrument list including backup singers and had them draw a stage plot, pick a digital mixer with iPad control, digital snake, floor monitors, FOH speakers, and all microphones plus a cable count. Oh, they also had to attach a price list of what it all would cost. I gave them a full week to figure this out and turn it in on exam day. It was open book, open notes, open Google, etc... just like the real world would be. They were all terrified when I handed out the assignment, but most of them did really well and thanked me for a great exam. One really timid female student turned in an A+ paper which put the rest of the students to shame, especially the self appointed boy genius in the class. I think she could be great at this.   

I generally pick a student per class that I think has the stones to intern for one of the big sound companies in the area, and give them my recommendation. But first I drag these potential interns out of a few of my own gigs to test them under fire. These sound companies say they have all turned out be great interns and really don't need to do much of an interview any more since they know I won't recommend someone that can't do the job. Some of these students have graduated and been hired on full time in the sound business, and many are now working at least part time in the field which I think is really cool. But this kind of attention is only possible when I can count all the students in a class on both hands. I can't do that with 200 students at a pop.

[Steve M Smith]

I agree, the Facebook thing makes me nuts.  Someone is setting up and they are taking pictures of the gear, the instruments, a cool fly loft whatever and there head is anywhere but in the game.

My brother has zero tolerance to this - albeit in building (I think you call it construction). Anyone seen using their phone without a very good reason is no longer working for him.  They are told of this condition before they start but they shouldn't really need to be told.




Steve.

[ProSoundWeb Community]