13. Interview (continued) 4.) Is there anything that you don’t like about your job? Occasionally you'll run into an unpleasant situation with a band and have to deal with it, but most groups are pretty reasonable and understanding. Present what you plan on doing upfront and do whatever you can to make them happy with their product and experience and they'll be back again, either as the same group or in another form. Repeat business is very important. Long days with a lot of hours can sometimes be taxing, but it comes with the territory. Do you best not to over-work yourself. It helps no one. 5.) What skills are needed to perform the job? A lot. Running sessions properly is a very complicated procedure that requires that you know a lot about every piece of gear involved. If a snare drum breaks, you need to be able to fix it. If a guitar amp sounds bad, you need to know how to adjust for that. It takes years to get an understanding of all the parts in play so my advice would be to get familiar with all that stuff as soon as possible. 6.) What advice would you give to somebody like me who is trying to get into the field? Make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. It's really a people based business you need to be a real "people person" to succeed. It's really hard making the step from hobbiest to full-time engineer as you'll see how much income really matters when you start getting a lot of bills. Being in the studio isn't the only method of being an engineer though, bands always need good sound guys on the road as well.