Sound Engineer

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You would like to be, you are, a sound engineer.
Why will I hire you instead of somebody else?

By Stephane Meer, Head manager of Studio Capitale, Audio Post-Production company in Paris France.

For fifteen years now have I seen and interviewed young sound engineers, mostly out of school looking for a job.
Some of them can have their evaluation made in minutes, some take a few days, in all cases after a week we know if the challenger is a possible recruit or not.

What are the things to know?

First, what you learn in a school will at max be 50% of what you need to know.

Second, knowledge is important but the key is attitude.

Attitude toward a technical difficulty
Attitude toward the questions you should ask yourself
Attitude toward the company team
Attitude toward the customers.
Stephane Meer is Head Manager of Studio Capitale Audio Post Production in Paris France.

Concert 'VanderCook Symphonic Band'

1/Out of five questions I receive from young composers,

three will be:

How much should I ask for this work?

And they generally take it by the wrong end.

Thinking: I’ll be doing this and that, so I should ask this proportional amount.

2/ My advice would be: Think the other way around!

3/ It’s not what you do that matters, it’s what THEY can give you that counts.

4/ Try to get any possible info about what they have in mind.

5/ If you ask for MORE they will be condidering other options.

6/ If you ask for LESS then they might have hired a more famous composer, because they had the money to do so.

7/ And this is money you could have made.

8/ Therefore the game is to know what they have in mind, ask for this amount by saying:

“I would normally charge more, but for you I would ask that”

Good luck!

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