Do you like to wear “wife-beaters” and various food stained t-shirts? Well, then you might mistakenly believe that your employment options are limited to working in a pawnshop or convenient store, but this just isn’t the case. Besides those careers come with way too much interaction with the public. That fact is something you want to consider when embarking on a job search or while career planning! 

 

As an audio and video equipment technician, it falls upon your wide, but capable, shoulders to make sure civilization doesn’t collapse. You are the one that sets up a variety of electronic equipment that is to be used in everything from a television show, to a radio program, to a movie screening. Without you, it would stop; it would all just stop. 

 

This is a growth industry. In 2006, there were 50,000 audio and video equipment technicians, but by 2016 this number is expected to climb to a 62,000 or a twenty-four percent increase.

Most days are spent in a broadcast studio, or on occasion, a remote studio van or trailer. Normally, the work environment is temperature controlled, due to all the equipment. Technicians can either spend their day setting up new equipment or working with existing audio or video equipment to make sure shows make it onto the airwaves. More than likely, an aware and alert audio and video equipment technician will find at least one opportunity to talk down to people who know nothing of his obscure world during the day. (And yes, it is usually a he, but that is changing.)

About one-third of technicians are employed in the broadcast industry, with about seventeen percent employed in the motion picture, video and sound recording industry. Training often takes place in community colleges and technical schools, where would be technicians can receive associate’s degrees.