Nothing against car audio guys. Or BBQ guys either, unless they have a Napolean complex. (snicker, he he he)

Hell, I'm an ex-pizza guy. Throwing dough really helped with my rack building skills.

Seriously, I was hired by a company doing alarms and intercoms when I was 18. The one thing going for me was that I worked at the same place for 3 years. And I'd start at $5.50 an hour.

I was mediocre for a few years. They fired me after 5 years during the early 90's recession. I came back after 1.5 years; I turned into their Golden Boy installer.

Just goes to show that it's the character and constitution of the guy (or girl) that matters.

Read my post on the previous page. Just joking about hiring locations, it's probibly not as enticing to move to the mountains in the snow compaired to Hawaii.

As far as your comment, don't get too full of yourself there Chief. ;-)

In my install manager days I interviewed more than 100 people in 5 years but only hired a fraction of them. The one thing I did learn was to not hire anyone with experience - they are full of themselves, want stupid levels of income but then end up doing crappy work and won't change because that is how they've always done it.

One of my best hires was a guy who had just graduated from DeVry after serving four years in the Marines. He did what he was told to, didn't think he was god-like and and ended up being the number two man after I left.
Another guy had no experience outside of some knowledge of alarms but was a fanatic for home theater. After he bugged me for a year or two I hired him just so he'd leave me alone. Now he's a top lead installer who can be counted on no matter what the need.

I really think that the military is a good start, if you can figure out how to get in touch with them. Electronic tech guys who just got their degrees from places like DeVry can also be great, but they may expect too much to start as they did just graduate...

Just my two cents,

Jeff

Jeff makes a good point. Passion is the one thing that has gotten us where we are. I look for it in prospective hires. If they don't have passion for the systems, they are gonna burn out and become worthless. My last 2 hires actually approached me. They came to me and because they were "hungry" got jobs.

The most important letters in the word "enthusiasm" are the i, s and m. "It Sold Me"

Duly noted. Again, I think you have to go through a bunch of people; even experienced techs, before you get a keeper. Industry veterans aren't perfect; if their attitude sucks, I'd rather take your Devry guy or other positive attitude person.

Again, cast a wide net, within the industry and outside of it.

Yeah, well my boss just informs me this morning he hired a guy... I didn't even get a chance to talk to him to see what his level of skills are or what he is like etc.... I guess he worked here before me a while ago... man... I'm bummed... Now I'm accountable for this guy's ability to get the job not only done properly... but effeciently (sp)? See that he gets trained properly... Others here tell me he was more of a good basic installer... no programming etc. --- and I needed a Vantage, ELAN & AMX type guy!!! I'm basically the sales person, although over the last 7 months since our head-tech left... I've been out in the field putting out fires and helping the other two guys on installs, and today was told they've added all the scheduling and project management duties onto my plate at no extra $$$. I've been really struggling keeping two guys busy full time - now they've added this guy and guaranteed him 40 hours!!! Plus I'm now totally accountable for the departments profitability etc. Talk about a little pressure!
Sorry don't mean to be a whiner... just a crappy way to start the week!

Those were the days! KP500 under-dash 6x9 jensens in the back... but if you were a real high roller, you added on their 15 or 20 watt per channel amp, and stuck a pair of 5 1/4' s in the door!!! Of course the really cool guys did the Nakamichi decks with the ADS platemount speakers... & ADS power-plate amps... Still great sounding stuff!

I had a car guy that was pretty good, but a little too "a.r." ... everything he did was beautiful, but it took forever... went to a pre-wire once, and he was snapping chalk-lines for his wire runs! He would use about 4 cable ties per yard of cable... and to go out and service a piece of gear was a nightmare... cutting off all of the ties etc.. literally had to undo everything to move the equipment around (before the rack days).

In retrospect, that really wasn't a bad thing... He had really high standards... but I was losing my shirt on labor time, as most of my stuff was fixed bids. I was more of a "just slam it in... we've got other jobs waiting" while he was very methodical... In looking back it's kind of like the tortoise and the hare!!!
Now he is still maintaining that high standard of quality with his cable management and dressing...

He eventually went out on his own, and now is kicking my butt... and a huge Crestron dealer, and can pretty much do the trick wiring, take his time and still charge for it... So maybe slow and methodical isn't a bad thing??? Hell I don't know!

So, a good car guy, if he's willing to relax his sytandard a bit might be a good fit. It's just I don't have the aptitude or time to be the programming dude...