PMEL Forum

Volt Services is partnering with a local company to find a Test Equipment Calibration Services Technician.




Located in Wichita, Kansas, our Partner has a job opportunity for a Test Equipment Calibration Services Technician. Position is responsible for performing troubleshooting, repair, and calibration on a wide variety of complex test equipment under general supervision. Considerable over the road travel working alternately out of a fixed base Calibration Lab and Mobile Calibration Vans. Position requires the following: Transport items weighing up to 50 pounds. Understand solid state analog, basic digital and basic microprocessor circuitries. Must possess manual dexterity necessary to disassemble and reassemble mechanical assemblies. Ability to identify malfunctions caused by deteriorated mechanical components. Candidate shall have good solder proficiency, and very good oral and written communication skills. Work well with others in a team environment.

This job requires a technical Associates degree in applicable technical field and or 5 years equivalent related experience. PMEL experience and training preferred. Candidate must have an excellent driving record capable of obtaining a class "A" driver's license, and passing a DOT (medical) physical. Travel up to 26 weeks per calendar year. Participate in a mandatory drug testing program adhering to compliance requirements.



For immediate consideration please submit resumes to [email protected]

Care to state a possible range of pay? Its on several minds.
Is a class "A" license a regular license in the state or is it something special?

The Class "A" license sounds like a CDL.  Commercial Driver's License....  think 18 Wheeler...

To this point pay ranges are open.  We specialize in Metrology/PMEL positions and we are looking for the right fit not only for the client but the candidates as well.  If you are interested please submit your resume along with salary requirements/history to [email protected].

What's the matter e@volt? You advertised one position, located in Wichita, with a series of duties and requirements. You were asked for a pay range. So do you have a position to fill or not? If so, answer the question. About how much does it pay?

Don't come in here and advertise a position and then pull the typical head hunter crap. If you have a position deal openly and honestly with the questions. If not, advertise the fact you are a head hunter and you want resumes. Don't come in and play games.

I advertised a vacancy here and even though I didn't get any questions on the forum it was a real position and the person we hired saw it here. So level with the good folks here and provide an honest answer to a valid question.

Now, back down off of my soap box.

Ol'Dave

Feel free to step on a soap box to that place called windamir or something like that in maryland. they do that alot. they've never hired a soul for the opening they've supposedly had for almost two years now.

I think I've just answered the question myself on the pay scale.

28-32K

http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/det.asp?d=JER71K66SQVWD04J2VJ

Quote from: OlDave on 09-04-2005 -- 11:47:44
I think I've just answered the question myself on the pay scale.

28-32K

http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/det.asp?d=JER71K66SQVWD04J2VJ

At up to 50% travel... and what looks to be alot of expected repair "Possess manual dexterity necessary to disassemble and reassemble mechanical assemblies. Ability to identify malfunctions caused by deteriorated mechanical components. Candidate shall have good soldering proficiency."

I think most people qualified for that job would be hard pressed to even apply for less than 40k a year. I'm not qualified or interest though. It does say other pay - DOE but it also does not list required experience up top so a good solderizer could apply and say *willing to learn pmel*

"This job requires an Associates Degree in an applicable technical field or 5 years equivalent related experience" - associates degree in SMT okay?

Hi flamy.  I agree that's a ridiculous salary.  I'd get that stacking cans in the supermarkets down here.  I take it PMEL jobs are generally not unionized in the US.  It shows..

There seem to be few employers willing to pay what the technical skills are worth.  And when they do - they generally skimp on the benefits.  That's because they get away with it...

This is a REAL position.  If you feel the pay is out of line then what type of compensation is closer to reality?  This is not our only client however they are more motivated at this time to find the right person than others.  I have many clients that are paying in the $40 k a year range, however they are not hiring.  I would like to present qualified candidates that are serious and willing to state what kind of salary they are looking for.  This may not be the fit for you however in this line of business there is no telling when a fit may be there.  If you are serious about finding a good fit send a resume and I will work to find something for you.

e@volt

From personal experience I know that it's impossible to find someone that you would WANT to hire for less than $40-45k, and if you want experience, you better be prepared to get really close to $50k. $30k for an experienced calibration tech that is any good is an insult to them.

Of couse as an employer I would LOVE to be able to get hold of someone that was desperate enough for whatever reason that they would work for that. But at the same time I know that I may as well treat them as a temp because as soon as their situation changes and they become less desparate they are "outta here!". Personally I would prefer to hire the right person, pay them what they deserve, and keep them around to become a long term productive member of the organization. But I guess now I'm showing my age.

You want someone that is experienced and is willing to be gone from home 30% of the time, yet you want to pay them less than the take home pay for an E-4. I do too! But from practical experience I know it ain't gonna happen. So as soon as you level with your client about what is realistic, and have them pay what is necessary, the sooner you can provide them with a quality employee that I would even allow to calibrate the equipment that I send out for calibration.

No, I don't have any desire to apply for something like this no matter how much you were to offer. I MIGHT consider something like a senior metrologist position at the right location for the mid $60s if it fell into my lap. But I'm not looking. I'm already there, and pretty content actually. I'm making pretty good use of 30+ years of experience and I get to sleep in my own bed every night and go home at 4:30 every day. It don't get much better than that.

This is just something to put in your pipe and smoke e@volt. I'm sure the folks here appreciate you posting job vacancies here, but do everyone a favor, don't try to rip them off. They deserve a decent wage for the work they do.

Ol'Dave

E-4's take home 30K........................wholly crap.

I went to Moody for about 35K a year.

It since has gone up, and now I work in Pharmacueticals for much more......less stress.....less work....... :-D

But I will say one thing, the manufacturers are hiring people with no experience in metrology and they only do what they need to to get by. The way the military does metrology is totally different than many companies.....the emphasis just isn't as big.

I dislike headhunters

OK,  give me some advice.  I retire from the USN, start my terminal leave at the end of Jan 2006.  I am a E-6 17 year electronics, 15 year Cal-Tech with supervisory the last 6.  Currently a Calibration Lab Manager on a Navy ship.  Retiring to the Orlando Fl area.  I am looking for mid to upper 40's.  Is this a fair salary or am I under pricing myself?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

As a manager you should aim upper 40k's to lower 50k's - at least that's my 2 cents

Quote from: bradley563 on 10-06-2005 -- 17:16:03
OK,  give me some advice.  I retire from the USN, start my terminal leave at the end of Jan 2006.  I am a E-6 17 year electronics, 15 year Cal-Tech with supervisory the last 6.  Currently a Calibration Lab Manager on a Navy ship.  Retiring to the Orlando Fl area.  I am looking for mid to upper 40's.  Is this a fair salary or am I under pricing myself?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Were you an ET the whole time????

What kinda cals can you do?

Are you well rounded?

These are questions from an ole tender sailor

ET?  I am an AT.  I have ET's that work for me.   :-D

I have been to the Navy's basic and advanced calibration schools.  I have worked in Cal for 15 years, doing Phys/Mech, electronic, on-site's (Test Cells, etc...) I have run issue and receipt and production.  I am currently a Calibration Lab Manager for the USS Wasp LHD1. 

I think that qualifies for well rounded.  Or I hope so. :wink:

So you weren't an IM then????

Did you go throughPhys-D school???

Gator cal lab....that's gotta suck :-D

Yeah i would say pretty well rounded.

Just the phys "D" that was with basic cal.  All the rest is OJT. 

And yes I would rather be back on carriers then on a gator.....

All us Sr. Techs here where I work are getting 27-29 dollors an hour. Volt services must be kidding. I won't work for less than 60K a year. I guess that really lets us know the quality of there techs...

Well get ya some Ol' Dave! You have found a place that you can get in somebody's ass worse than the pressure room at Wright Patt!

I make 43k as a GS-9 for the Patriot Missle Facility as one of two Metrologist.  They even sent me to NCSLi for the conferance as the rep.  Now I am taking a job in VA for NOAA working there as a GS-11.  I got out as an E-4 with 7 level skills done.  Not sure if that is a good basis but I like it.

I'm new here, but my two cents is that 50K isn't pricing yourself out of the market.  At least not for contract PMELs (AF).  Most are in the high 40s for techs, at least.  There has been a move towards unionization, but not for the purposes of pay, more for the benefits.  I will say, though, that the pay raises have been more regular since we left the AWD behind.  Averaged 4%/yr.  All the techs I know are in the 28-29/hr range now.  That's just for techs, not for leads, QA or site managers.  Typically the tech IIIs are making 10% more than tech IIs and the site managers are another 8-10%+ from the tech IIIs.  If someone is offering less than 40K, they'll get what they deserve.

Amen to that FREEZER!!!!

Well, it would take a bit over $80k to interest me in moving...
Unless I could move where I wanted, then $60k would work.

OK, I am at 18 days until I start terminal leave.  I am still looking for something in the Orlando FL area.  I will draw full military pay until end of March.  But I would like to find something well before that time.

our mobile technicians get payed between $60K - $80K a year. E-volt is crazy. E-volt needs to keep in mind that you get what you pay for.  :? Is your customer really going to want to keep you E-volt? You and your customer need to wake up. I know of know tech that has to travel getting payed less than $60K a year and even that is low. With the salary you offer you might be able to get a pizza delivery guy who had taken a class on-line about fixing old VCRs to come work for you. You have just put a black mark on E-Volt Services in the PMEL world. Everyone knows who you are now and you have become a laughing stock in all the PMEL labs. We were just talking about you guys this morning. E-Volt = JOKE.....

I can confirm that a can-stacker in Perth, Western Australia, makes $19.50hr AUD night-rate, which equals $28,360 USD annualized (38-hour week here).  The employer also provides 9% paid into a 401k Australian equivalent, and 4 weeks vacation leave, and two weeks sick leave cumulative, every year.  My daughter just looked into it, but decided overtime at the pathology lab she works at is a better option.  I agree with flew-da-coup and others, salaries like E-Volt is offering are an insult and a disgrace.

I predict that E-Volt, and companies like them, will be out of business within the next 5 years.  As their clients get continually more and more disgruntled with their poor service and under-qualified technicians, they will take their money elsewhere.

Good labs take care of their customers, both military and civilian, and they do that with highly-qualified techs, QA, and scheduling- all people that care about the quality of their work, and have an understanding of how it fits in the big picture...

When I was at F.E. Warren, it was a big deal to have the ICBMs ready to fly 24-7.  In PMEL, we knew that our equipment was used to maintain those missles, and we played a key role in our 99%+ "green time" (ready-to-fly) rate, and I have an Outstanding Unit ribbon to attest to our hard work.

In Germany, our job was to keep the F4s and F16s ready to go.  Again, our equipment maintained the aircraft, and was mission-critical.  We do our job right, and the planes flew safely and effectively.  We do our job wrong, and people die.  That "big picture" view of the world provided a great deal of impetus to do the best work we could, and permeated down to our training and coaching of the younger techs...

Some of the civilian labs out there have one mission - to make money.  So they charge the market rate to calibrate a piece of gear, and pay bottom dollar wages to get it done, maximizing their profit margin.  That's fine capitalism, to be sure, but the quality of the work suffers, and soon the customers will go somewhere else.

Why do people buy Jaguars and Porsches, Mercedes and Acuras, when they can go get a decent Chevy for much less?  Some of it is prestige, of course, but I think if they're going to spend their hard-earned dollars, they're going to spend it on a quality product.  The same principle applies here...

But then you have to take into account that most calibration is overhead. I know we are overhead here where I work, the people making the drugs are the only needed people. Also, the level of calibration is much lower than what it is in the military, these companies actually buy what they need......not what they think they need. We got a 70K capital budget this year and had to sign over newborns and sign in blood for that.

Until something gets done in changing the job description......the pay will always suck.....you can teach monkeys to calibrate.....look at K3/K4 as an example.

http://www.sound-effect.com/sounds/animal/Treeanimals/monkey1.wav 

I may be a monkey but I'm a literate monkey. And I believe you can take a bum off the street and he can calibrate many a thing through the whole lab long as he can read the instructions. Though IMO if they are going to be specific on one page they should be specific the whole way through. Either they want you to interpret or not.

I meant to say there are less K3/K4 monkeys than K1/K8 but maybe on par with K6 grease monkeys and knuckle draggers.

THIS IS MY WIDGET.
I KNOW HOW TO TURN IT ON.
WHAT IS AN OSCILLOSCOPE?

Somebody write a litany on widgets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litany_against_fear

bradley563,

Back in 99 I was in your shoes, xIM getting ready to retire. I had to take a joe's garage cal job at 10 bucks an hour and it sucked. Two jobs later working for a gov contractor and it still sucks. Dont be supprised if it takes you several jobs and several years to score a good deal on a job. I know of some place that is getting desparate for people but you wont like the weather and upward mobility is like waiting to make chief in the navy. That's getting to be the real world now days, companies are cuttin back and thier only focus is on cost savings. If you find a gig around 40k or higher I'd score it because waiting on a management job might not happen. Remember sometimes you just got to start on the frie machine man.  :-D good luck.

I agree the salary at Happy Valley is pretty reasonable for the area.  I've seen the employment contract, as you probably know, and it is unfortunately pretty woeful in the benefits area.  My calculator told me I'd have to sacrifice a fair bit of that salary to make up for the benefit shortage...ie medical, 401k (or lack of employer contribution to be specific).  As I've heard, it's a good place for military retirees , or single workers staying for a while.

I can imagine the benefits would be a hot issue there...

Quote from: MIRCS on 03-16-2006 -- 10:09:42

Until something gets done in changing the job description......the pay will always suck.....you can teach monkeys to calibrate.....look at K3/K4 as an example.

I went thru the basic Calibration course at Lowry, then did the Microwave course, but during the basic course we had a Gunnery Sgt doing a career change from the infantry after he somehow managed to get thru Avionics 'A' school.  He did 17 out of 100 on a multiple choice test.  In theory a chimp would write a 25 - and the AF instructors were really pleased to tell him so.  He disappeared to the hills of Camp Pendleton immediately afterwards....

Just one more slam. What kind of tech did this company finally hire?

I make around $64K/yr, but I do a lot of international travel. That'scool cuz I get 10% "hardship" pay extra and $116 a day per diem....The avg trip is about 4-6 weeksa pop...they put us up in 5 star hotels and we fly business class internation and first class in the states...they make it worth your wild :mrgreen:

evolt,
That's not bad pay for a single person with a couple years of experience. But on this website, there's about abillion years of combined experience here. Don't believe me? Ask Doc or Old-Navy. They've been around since electricty was discovered :-D
But regardless, this site is an awesome way to network and get the word out! :mrgreen: 

Yeah, and so does McDonalds.

It's pretty bad if McDonald's can offer competitive pay compared to a calibration company. :-D