ASK MIKE: HOW CAN BROADCASTING ATTRACT GOOD TECH-SAAVY PEOPLE?
Conversations in the hallways before and after meetings at this year’s NMBA Summer Convention were a rich source of valuable information for all NM broadcasters. One topic that came up repeatedly again at this year’s convention was “How can I find a good engineer?”
The need for good tech folks is real. To that end, the Society of Broadcast Engineers in its most recent trade publication, “The Signal,” carried a full-page article in the October issue entitled “In Search Of. . . Engineers.” The article outlined that there has been a real lack of good candidates for broadcast engineering positions, particularly for radio.
Broadcast engineers are the wizards behind the curtain, and they’re in high demand. These folks are good at quickly assessing what something is, how it works and what it does. It’s the puzzle-like fun of broadcast engineering that they enjoy. They learn well on the fly, and when handed a problem, broadcast engineers figure out how to fix it.
As Steve Tuzeneu, Chief Engineer at Connecticut’s WIHS, points out in Radio World what station managers and directors of engineering can do to find and retain broadcast engineers include paying engineers a fair wage. “Do some research on salaries for engineers; perhaps you could start with the Society of Broadcast Engineers, which has a good idea of what is a fair wage to pay your current or future engineer. There are radio groups paying very competitive wages. If you aren’t, your opening could go unfilled indefinitely.”
Today’s tech world engineering talent is being offered a better deal in the many computer-centered tech disciplines than what we offer in broadcasting. That means we need to be competitive with what we offer in order to recruit new prospective engineers, as well as experienced engineers who work in other industries.
We who love our industry should take a long look at what we want from prospective new engineers and what we’re offering them to come aboard.
Reality check: we truly need to re-examine why a well-certified, dedicated, prospective tech employee should choose our industry over other industries competing for the same new employee. We know how to fix this industry-wide problem. Are we willing?
