This concerns my boyfriend, as he graduated with a B.S. in Audio Engineering last December. Basically, I am looking for some advice on how he can find a job in his field. We live in Bangor, Maine at the moment; we are both working menial retail jobs part-time. He has put in at least twenty applications for professional jobs in the last six months with almost no response. We realize that the city we live in does not have a good career market (and we’re both desperate to move anyway), so the jobs he’s applied for have been in Ontario, Boston, Orlando, NYC, Santa Cruz, etc. His college set up an interview with Carnival Cruise Lines last week, but nothing came of that. We are behind in rent and other bills, and he told me that he wanted to get squared away before he’d even consider moving. We’ve waffled back and forth on where we want to live, and I think we’ve settled on Boston (as it’s not terribly far from where we live now, and his dad lives in NH, so he could probably help us out with moving). I’m not sure what else to do other than keep sending out resumes and applications, but it’s hard to stay motivated when there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Is there anything else we should be doing? I sort of assumed that finding a job would be fairly easy once he graduated, but it clearly isn’t that simple. We’re both desperate to get out of the financial black hole we seem to be in and for him to start working in a capacity that he enjoys.
Hi Stauderhorse,
While it may seem archaic in today’s world wherever everyone in the industry is connected… head hunters still do exist.
Have you considered hiring one?
Be careful not to get involved with ‘staffing solution’ companies whom are more or less glorified HR departments run amok.
Consider being a “Supplier Quality Engineer”…you get to work from home, but have to travel every week on short notice to Automotive Suppliers of electrical items in the USA, to review quality and delivery and new launch issues.
Many of these are contract, or contract for 2 yrs, then perm, and pay is very very good.
go to indeed dot com
do not worry about experience - the degree will cover that - they will teach him about stuff like 8D, PFMEA, PPAP, APQP, etc…
do not limit the field to audio - his degree will suffice for all electrical components, and eventually he will pick up other areas like plastics, etc.
he can also be a suppliers rep - which is a supplier quality engineer that resides in a big 3 car assembly plant. most of the time is spent waiting on a quality issue; when one occurs, he has to ASAP confirm defect, contain it, arrange sorting, and report out 8D reply in plant.
Not sure of any car assy plants in Bangor, but there was a large Big 3 supplier there called Lemforder ZF in Brewer, but they closed in 2010.
Here is a list of big automotive suppliers near you:
https://www.elmanalytics.com/auto-companies-map/maine-2nd-congressional-district
Maine isn’t a big automotive state - he will either have to travel a lot, or move, most likely to the midwest.
Indiana is big on automotive work, esp car audio - Delphi (formerly GM Delco) in Kokomo, Indiana, Emerson in southern Indiana, Fujitsu Ten in Rushville. Delphi in Kokomo is always looking for Audio engineers. Delphi is also in Troy, MI
here are more Automotive supplier in Maine:
https://www.elmanalytics.com/geographic_guides.aspx#maine
click on each district
this would be a good electrical parts supplier in Standish:
http://www.controldevices.com/
and one in Sanford
an example of using indeed dot com for an audio engineer
Hearst Television is looking for an audio engr in Portland Maine right now:
In my experience, many employers won’t even consider hiring someone who is not local. They don’t want to pay for the relocation costs (unless you’re high enough in the food chain that it’s worth it) and won’t consider you even if you’re willing to relocate at your own expense. (I was working for a Fortune 50 company on one coast and wanted to take a job on the other coast, but they wouldn’t even consider it, even after I offered to cover the costs myself. And that was for the same job I was already doing and it would have been an internal transfer, not a new hire.)
90% of what you just posted is useless for an audio engineer. Most have next to no experience with engineering in the traditional sense of the word. If lucky, most have a few credits of basic electronics.
The focus is audio engineering is ‘audio’. Recording, mixing, mastering of audio and music.
For the OP: get the hell out of Maine. Go west if at all possible. If nothing else, get to the largest metropolitan area you can stand/afford. This industry thrives where there are large numbers of independent artists, an active and disparate music scene and more opportunities to work with a/v, commericial production etc.
Tell your boyfriend to start thinking about revenue streams. The more the better. Very few engineers land staff jobs, except as tech monkeys for broadcast or running corporate presentations for $10.20 an hour. To truly succeed, you either build a studio, build a network or build a niche - most likely at least 2 out of 3.
I have a degree in music, went back 15 years later and got a degree in Audio Engineering/Music Production. Over the course of a given week I might be: teaching music lessons, teaching workshops on live sound and home recording to hobbyists or young bands, composing music or producing content for independent media, recording foley or doing sound design for indie film, producing or recording with local artists in the studio, doing remotes for live recording, etc etc.
Again, the key is: build a studio, build a network, build a niche. Go urban. Go west.
In fact, I’m relocating my entire studio and business from Madison to SF next month just to keep growing my business - I’ve outgrown Madison and found most clients and new work were out west anyway.
You can PM me if you have questions.
I’m a lighting guy, not sound, but the field is so small that most of the same advice applies.
First, get the hell out of Maine. You’re not going to find much work outside of the big markets until you’ve got some experience and you can break into a market with a network of contacts. Maybe you can do that in Portland, but it’ll be difficult. Chicago, NYC, and L.A. are probably your best bets, although you should be able to do well in any major city.
Second, get his resume and cover letter thoroughly checked out. I had similar trouble out of college and it was partly because I was sending out a crappy resume and cover letter. Take advantage of his college connections and get someone to give him a harsh lesson in resume writing.
The only sort of employer who won’t find your current location a negative are companies that expect him to be on the road most of the time anyway. Cruise ships are a good idea, and he should try touring companies too. That’s what I did straight out of college, and even though I didn’t get good contacts out of it, it did allow me to state that I had, in fact, been on tour, which is a valuable box to check.
Milk every contact he’s got. They say in my industry that you’ll get exactly one job in your life from a cold resume, and every other job you get in your life will be from your contacts.
He should get on the call list for his I.A.T.S.E. local no matter where you’re living, and try to pick up overhire calls. Also call all of the local road houses that host touring shows, and all the stadiums, and music venues, and that sort of thing that needs overhire work sometimes but aren’t unionized. Don’t limit that to doing sound, either; he needs to get involved in the local industry, make friends, and let them see that he’s competent and sensible, and then [del]let them realize[/del] tell them, over and over, that he wants to do is sound and that he’s got skills in that too. Remember, when they see a resume, that can’t tell them the most important things about him-- is he a moron with no common sense? Can he show up on time reliably? Is he pleasant to work with? Is he a drunk who’ll show up intoxicated? Thinking back to all the worst co-workers I’ve had, all of them looked fine on paper. Their problems were not foreseeable from a resume.
Finally, don’t get entirely stuck up about doing only sound. I worked overhire stagehand calls for six months before I landed a regular stagehand job at my big regional theater, and then I worked as a stagehand for a year and a half before I was able to transfer into the lighting department the way I wanted to do. Had I been tending bar or pumping gas, I never would have landed my lighting gig-- I might have known about it and applied, but my boss wouldn’t have hired me because I don’t look great on paper. I am, however, punctual, reliable, great to work with, sober at work, a fast learner, and I don’t do stupid things that end up slowing everyone else down. Ultimately, not having an individual skill is fixable at the entry level. Being unteachable or a pain to work with is not, so he needs to demonstrate to people that he’s not.
Finally, if you’re going to stick with the “send out resumes and wait for someone to accept one”, twenty resumes in six months is peanuts. That’s one every what, nine days? I did one a day for months on end straight out of college. Try backstagejobs.com, and also pony up the ten bucks or whatever it costs now for artsearch, because that’s where serious people look for those sorts of jobs. Twenty resumes is today’s economy isn’t anything.
I wholeheartedly endorse appleciders post.
Network. Volunteer to assist with AV production with local arts. Find where other interests and skills might be leveraged into opportunity.
What is his specific interest? Recording? mixing? Live sound? Commercial production? Sound design?
While he ultimately needs to relocate, there are a ton of ways to develop skill sets, gain experience and grow his network.
That will lead to opportunities.
I’ve been engineering audio since I was 15. I’ve recorded albums, wired studios, done sound for a Broadway show, built a radio station, done PA for arenas and festivals…and never had a class in the field. Honestly, nobody’s ever asked.
I’m not longer exclusively a sound guy, but in addition to supporting what the rest of them said, I’d add that the equipment to work in sound has become just plain cheap these days. Any laptop you can buy has enough horsepower to mix 24 tracks of audio, and there is plenty of excellent cheap to free software out there to do it. You could assemble a very solid system to mix and master an album for less than the cost of a semester at most schools.*
A resume doesn’t get you a job in an artistic field - credits do.
He should be volunteering to do the sound at a church. Cut spots for the local public or community radio station. Anything to actually spend some time doing the work because, I’ll just come right out and say it, in this field a degree means jack shit. The whole field is absolutely littered with graduates of Full Sail who somehow manage to graduate without knowing to check that the phantom power is off before plugging the matrix output of one board into a mic input of another.
He should be the flunky setting up mics and moving the monitors for the main engineer at a club. If the club has a multitrack recording system, he should ask to record some of the bands and do mixes at home. And if the band likes the mix and wants to release a live album, he has a credit, which again, is worth a lot more than the degree.
- I’m a huge Todd Rundgren fan. My favorite album of his of the past 20 years was created on a Macbook with Propellerhead’s Reason, an AKG USB mic and the free Audacity software.
He is probably best at sound design, recording, and commercial production but is able to do live sound and mixing pretty well.
Is this an actual engineering degree (ABET accredited/can legally call themselves an “Engineer” with a PE license, etc.) or is it something related to radio/TV? Yes this is a serious question - my company hires audio engineers on occasion who do sound studies for power plants, utilities, water treatment and wastewater plants, etc. but they are usually mechanical engineers with a special emphasis in sound testing/design with some lab work.
What these folks do is test to ensure that facilities do not exceed ambient noise/sound standards, and also help older facilities quiet up their equipment. Sometimes these folks branch into vibration analysis, which is a small but somewhat lucrative field.
If those are his strengths, then what I said about cheap computer production applies double. In a low population state, he should seek work producing radio spots. The hard part is finding out what the going rates for production work in your area are, and charge slightly less. Only slightly, because as every professional knows, once you give a discount to a client, they are going to expect that same rate forever. Assemble a CD of short clips of his best work and make copies to give to stations and producers.
The software to do it is free or cheap. The hardware is cheap as well. He doesn’t need a $6000 Neumann microphone or a a $4000 mic pre-amp. I’ve recorded voice work with a $99 mic and had wonderfully happy customers.
This is a radio/TV/live music and theater/recording thing. He’s only got a B.S. Those folks are referred to within the industry as audio engineers, but in general they are not engineers in the way that you’re suggesting. In the same way, I’m a theater lighting technician and my job title is “Electrician” but I’m not a licensed and bonded construction guy who can legally wire your house. This is the sound guy at a concert, or the guy at the sound mixing board when a band is recording a CD, or maybe the guy who does the sound design for a theater production. Not an engineering degree in the way that you’re thinking.
Have you thought about looking in Nashville? Obviously lots of music recorded and played around here, and a lower cost of living than either coast. The problem I can see is we already have two local colleges that turn out recording engineers, but if he starts with some kind of internship, he might be able to work his way into something.
StG