Quality Manager
Jobs Interview

My job title is Quality Manager and I work in the manufacturing industry. I've served in quality manager jobs for a little over 4 years, but I've been in my field since I graduated college. That is about 12 years of experience. 

In my Quality Manager jobs, what I do is pretty fun. It requires making sure that operations are running smoothly and that our established standards are being met. I oversee a lot of people to make sure that the company is running efficiently. I analyze what might be wrong and create solutions to solve them. Whether it has something to do with manufacturing processes or customer complaints, I get those things handled. Another part of it is the supervision of the engineers and technicians who set up and run the machinery. I do training sessions, contamination inspections and take care of a whole slew of responsibilities. It entails keeping the company in compliance with national and international regulations and standards. There is a lot to it, but I find it very rewarding. One misconception that I find most people have about my title is that they think my job is to test the products for defects in quality. In reality, in quality manager jobs, I'm in charge of the people who do that and I make sure that they're doing their jobs correctly.

For quality manager jobs, I'd rate my job satisfaction at a 10 out of 10. Everything was already running smoothly before I took over the position. Of course, I helped out the previous Quality Manager quite a bit.

I do feel like I've met my calling in life. I found a job where I gained the respect of those I work with. Readers should know that when I was in college, I never realized that my degree would lead to something so fulfilling. I got started in this in quality manager jobs because of something a professor once told me. He told me that if I set my mind to something, that I could do it. That led me to a company which was in a different state, a few hundred miles away. I wasn't sure if I could do it, but I decided to set my mind to it and it really worked out for me. Had I stayed locally, I never would have met my wonderful wife and had our three amazing kids.

Something that I learned the hard way from this job was that even if the customer is wrong, you have to make them right. One time a client placed a large order. It would have resulted in an extra 30 percent profit for the quarter. There was a typo in one of their specifications which would have led to the loss of about 2,000 man-hours. We caught the mistake in time, but it hurt our profits. The CEO wanted to break our contract with them. I was able to come up with a plan that solved our predicament, as well as the client's. Had I not, they would have taken their business elsewhere.

The oddest thing that happened to me in this job was when we were hiring new technicians. I decided that we shouldn't hire a certain person because he seemed reckless, although his qualifications were outstanding. We found out later that he was sent to federal prison for corporate espionage.

I get up and go to work each day because my job is important. I'm proud knowing that my company trusts me to make important decisions. I handle a slew of very different and complicated challenges every day. None of them want to make me pull my hair out. They make me want to raise my arms up in triumph and shout, "We did it!.

I consider the stress in my job to be the healthy, goal-accomplishing kind. In the morning when I come in, my colleagues are happy to see me. I come home from the job and my family is even happier to see me.

The average salary for my job is $80,000. My family is living very comfortably.

I have five weeks of vacation time, and it's more than enough. Last April, we spent two weeks in Hawaii and I taught the kids how to snorkel.

To be successful in this field, I'd think that you'd need a BS in Engineering and a few years of experience with the ins and outs of the particular industry. I tell my friends that my job is wonderful, and they get jealous! I encourage anyone to take the necessary coursework and try out my field.