Corporate Job Posting – Are we going to keep taking this?

[Brandon Lima]

These guys really want it all! goodness!

[Mark Suszko]

Hey, it says “pay range negotiable”. Until we have a number who’s to say it’s unfair? This isn’t quite like the typical Craigslist ad that would list all those skills, plus demand you bring your own camera, and then say you’re working for ” minimum wage plus screen credit and good promotion for your reel”.

I meet all these qualifications, easily. Plus, I can write or fix scripts, a skill they don’t even realize they need. I wouldn’t expect I’d have to do more than two of these jobs simultaneously at any one moment, though.

I’d expect for some of the work there would be at least an assistant. They don’t say specifically that this applicant is to be the only person in the department, I think that’s an assumption you made. Perhaps they were only trying to be really complete in describing their need for a well-rounded generalist who can handle whatever comes up. Likely they wrote the requirements down from a list made by the last person to hold the job.

It is not uncommon these days for a corporate media department to be kept very lean, with specialized freelancers brought in only for peak efforts, while a small core staff of generalists handles the day to day operational grind. That’s just business.

I wouldn’t get so burned up by it, until we see what princely wage they deem apropriate for such a skill set. If you really can do the work of three guys you should at least get paid like two of them. In a typical busy day I could write a script, run a prompter while floor directing, then go shoot some news, come back and edit it, direct a 3-cam live shoot, tweak something in photoshop, fix and format some powerpoint slides, light a green screen set, compress an AVI file, and generate some music or Foley effects. Around here, we call that “Monday”. At least it’s not boring.

As far as the point about cardiologists, well, they also start out being general practice doctors before taking the advanced specialty training in heart stuff. That’s not much different really from one of us going to take concentrated courses in colorization, animation, photoshop or compositing after we’ve learned how to edit, is it?

It is my opinion that in our business, the days of people who just shoot, just cut, just composite, just do audio, are fading. Such super-specialists are now mostly only in the very high-end of the business, and now everybody else on the lower tiers is expected to bring more and more skills to the table these days, though they still may each have a personal specialty like animation or compositing or music, etc.

If you’re one of those high-flyers who can command a great salary just to do one narrowly-defined thing exceptionally well, my hat’s off to you. Really, it is, because you are at the top of the mountain, a place I’ll liekly never reach.

The rest of us have to be more of a jack of trades to prosper. I like being multidisciplinary myself.

Was it Heinlein who said: “Specialization is for insects”?

[Brandon Lima]

I suspect many of us are capable of fulfilling the requirements. At a quick look I didn’t see anything I lacked, I was commenting because the amount of qualifications required were substantial.
-Brandon

[Dan Brockett]

The sad part is that there are probably a lot of people out there who would jump at this for $50K per year. This business is too competitive. The only reason that corporations advertise like this is that they probably think that they can get it. And they probably will, although not with someone highly skilled in even half of these disciplines.

We do work in the era of the $2,000.00 regional commercial, the $200.00 day rate for you and your HD camera and the 30 minute corporate video with the $5,000.00 budget. There are a lot of technical schools and film schools that are churning out rich kids that live at home that have some skills and will gladly do lots of work for little money. Fact of life. Not saying that they are good but most of the corporate clients I work with don’t even know or care what “good” is. They run on “adequate” a lot of the time 😉

FWIW, I agree with you totally but budgets aren’t going to increase any time soon in this economy. People will continue to want more for less.

Dan

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[Vince Becquiot]

You will be asked to do a $2000.00 commercial if the client doen’t know what quality production means. If they do, and understand that the commercial is more that just putting a camera on a stick, that it involves scripting, research, and that without it they’ll likely be throwing airtime dollars at a dead horse, then they will be willing to pay much more, even for a regional gig. Of course, since it’s still really hard to figure the real ROI on regional television commercials, you’ll see those kind of requests for a little longer.

Vince

[Tim Kolb]

Unfortunately our industry has spent a couple decades telling clients about how expensive and specialized our equipment is, that now that it’s cheap, we realize we forgot to tell them that there are skills involved too…

i don’t know what the answer is…someone will take the job and probably stink at at least a couple areas there…

The software to do all that comes in one box from Adobe, so how can it take more than one person to do it? Wouldn’t there be two boxes?

🙂

Welcome to the ever-heralded “democratization” of our industry.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

CPO, Digieffects

[Mike Cohen]

This describes many of my job duties, most of them in fact. The American College of Cardiology is not a college, but a medical society, like ACS or AMA – it is an accrediting body for cardiologists. As such, hiring one or more in-house specialists for media production is the norm. We work with such organizations all the time.
If we professionals are worth the salaries we are paid, then we mustn’t feel threatened by job postings like this.

Mike

[Gary Chvatal]

I don’t find the job description that daunting. They want a senior producer with production experience. They just listed the experience in very specific terms. I spent about 25 years doing medical communications…and as Mark said it sounds like a normal day at work.

And the American College of Cardiology is not a medical school its a professional organization. Kind of like the Bar Association for Cardiologists. They are probably doing continuing medical education for cardiologists. So if you have the requisite media skills, some medical background and maybe some experience with instructional design (or marketing communications depending on what they are trying to accomplish with the videos) you’d have a shot at the job.

Heck, they’re only asking for 2-5 years of experience. How much advanced knowledge can they expect with a person with five years experience. Its a job in DC so I figure $50K at the low end of experience and $75K for someone with more experience. I’d consider applying for it if I wasn’t invested in my own business and had any interest in being in DC.

[Mick Haensler]

Sounds like a normal day in my life. As many of you know, I left a corporate gig some months back that required all of the above plus producing live events where I had to know FOH sound, IMAG production, multi camera directing, and OH so much more. Not only that but I had to be available evenings and weekends. I worked an average 50-70 hours a week and did not have a life. But I gained invaluable experience and a stellar reputation in my community which has enabled me to start (once again) my own production company. It got me used to being a one man band. I now have a solid client list that trusts me and doesn’t mind paying my rate which has enabled me to only have to have about 20 hours billable for the week to make a comfortable living.

3 years ago I would have taken this job in a heart beat. Today, no way. Do I find it insulting? Of course not, it’s how I was taught you need to be in this brave new world. I tell all of the young freelancers who work for me to learn as much as you can about as many things as you can. The more you know, the more valuable you become to an employer or to a client. Breadth of knowledge and experience is what has enabled me to do what I do and not have to kill myself anymore.

It’s my birthday, I’m gonna go play on my boat!!!

Mick Haensler
Higher Ground Media

[Dan Brockett]

“Its a job in DC so I figure $50K at the low end of experience and $75K for someone with more experience. I’d consider applying for it if I wasn’t invested in my own business and had any interest in being in DC.”

See told you there would be no shortage of takers on this…I have only visited DC, can you actually survive there on 50k?

Dan

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