Quote:
Originally Posted by trippinbillies40
Sorry I didn't see this post till tonight. I'm actually in Portland right now on business and would have been happy to meet up with you and tell you more about working for Subaru. Long story short, and not to beat a dead horse, but you're going to need a solid resume. For SOA, a 4-year degree is mandatory for anything but interns. Even our call center reps have them.
If you don't have a degree, plenty of companies will hire you with "equivalent experience" but that's for them to decide, and you need to be able to paint a VERY clear picture in a resume on how your accomplishments demonstrate you have that equivalent experience.
For example, my (soon to be former) room mate has about half of a mechanical engineering degree finished but quit half way through to work full time as a mechanic. He ended up teaching himself how to fabricate very very well with metal, fiberglass, and CF. He is also an extremely talented autocrosser, multi-time national champion. He got a job at 3R racing a couple years ago working on Pirelli World Challenge cars. All of this was on his LinkedIn profile. Who ended up calling him to recruit him? Tesla! He just accepted a job as a vehicle dynamics engineer. So, he'll be test driving Teslas to help shape their driving dynamics. No degree, but more than enough proven experience.
Based on what you've posted you're capable of, I would start by building a website about yourself showcasing your photo/video and graphic design skills. If it's good, you can use that as a reference. In the meantime, the advice everyone listed above is fantastic. Narrow down what you want to do, because there are about 4329429469832146932864193284 different "careers with cars" available, and an equal number of different education/experience requirements. Figure out what you want to do, and get trained to do it!
|
Excellent! He started at the bottom and worked his way up. That is how real life works. I hire new engineers every once in a while and they all want to start in the design and prototype areas. They are usually pretty disappointed to find out they will be crunching numbers, filling in spreadsheets and ordering materials on routine manufacturing tasks for their first several years. You don't start at the top or even the middle in the automotive field no matter how many wrenches you have pulled or concept drawings you drew in your high school class. You start at the bottom and work your way up just like this example.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeremyR
I went to school to be an auto tech, and lasted for about 1 year when I finally got on the job.
I realized I like working on my own cars vs. others...
From the skills you listed, I would look for a local performance shop that needs sales or marketing help, with a bit of mechanical duty here and there. Maybe an apprenticeship somewhere?
|
THIS OH GOD SO MUCH THIS^ It is a blast to work on your own car, in your own garage, at your own pace, with nobody to have to account to but yourself for any screw up you make (and I don't care how good you think you are you will screw up). It is a whole different matter when you have to work on somebody else's car, following somebody else's rules, requirements, timetable and control. Not that there are not guys that still love it but it loses it's happy glow really fast. All those dealer mechanics that everybody here loves to hate on so much at least started out like the people that put them down so much. They loved working on cars and wanted to do it for a living. That gets beat out of them fast in real life.