Colette Schotsman

On learning on the job: getting started in a career after graduation  

A lot of the skills you need in your job are all very teachable skills. I don't think you can enter into working in music and be an expert right away. The whole thing is learning along the way. And everything changes within the industry so fast that everyone's learning. Nobody has any absolutes on anything. Everyone's just trying to figure things out  together.  

I think one of the biggest things that I've  noticed, for myself and then for other people  that we've hired as well, is effort is the most  important thing. So if someone asks you to do something, it’s possible that person might not  even know how to do it - and that's why they're asking you. What I learned is that it's  really important to just try and figure it out. And I know that it's super time-consuming. In  my first year of work, I worked so much and I was so exhausted all the time because I was  just trying to learn everything myself. And I didn't know how things worked, so everything just took longer. But it's kind of the nature of working in entertainment.