Formal training is much like a college degree… it doe not ensure that the person is well trained but only that they have been exposed to and should have a minimum proficiency in a variety of (taught) subjects. Both the school and ultimately the person make the difference, in what is really learned. Thus formal training comes down to you paying for a perception of assurance, not in guaranteed excellence but in the student having achieved at least a measurable minimum. … whether that schooling / standard even taught the details of work you need (example: laser welding or 3D design, etc) … only you can judge.

Shanu, That is a common question around Independents offering services. I'll give you my biased opinion.;) These are sweeping statements from my own scars and triumphs as both a bench jeweler and an employer with 28 years in the trade. So take a pinch of salt... The best smiths have had diverse work experiences and worked for more than one fussy nit-picking master. You nit-pickers know who you are.:) They have to have their own inner sense of excellence in their workmanship and a critical eye to know when it's right. A sense of pride and ownership or accountability adds to valuable performance. No one person can show you every angle of attack when dealing with the various complex problems in repairs or construction and production. Repetition also helps train the body to move efficiently. You will not get that in a classroom atmosphere. Every apprentice I've ever had, that came from an academic training program had to be deprogramed from thinking they knew the right way to skin a cat. It's one thing to make a pretty box that takes all semester to make but now how do you produce it so that you can amortize the cost of design. No school I've heard of will give you that most important and necessary information. One of my local university's teacher of jewelry arts has told their students that "the only career they will have will be in teaching...so they better go ahead and go for their master degree." That teacher , I'm clear, had never been in a real work environment. Where do you learn how to get the channel band finished that your customers needs by 5pm on friday, when it's 4:35pm and the stones are a tenth of a millimeter too large for the setting and the girdles will touch? I'm just pulling that off the top of my head but I hope you get the picture. Schools have a vested interest in the perception of their value so they can sell classes. It's a business that has no one accrediting their performance. I've had two graduates from one of our modern day "master bench jewelers" schools, that spent some thousand dollars for their training and they weren't worth the time it took me to fix all the jobs they fubared. I can handle arrogance as long as they can back it up with performance. It's the pretentiousness that you have to sift through and avoid. You can tell I'm here to make friends with the academics.;p Self-learners can workout well like yours because of all the trial and error but there is a possibility of tunnel vision unless they can think outside of the box. It will help you if you to have a clue when reading a resume'. Don't believe common interpretations of resumes'. Just because somebody hopped around doesn't mean they're unreliable or uncommitted. They may be learning new techniques and furthering their training or perhaps looking for the right home for their talents....that was me.;) Staying in one place may mean that they figured out how to hide well. I had one like that. He could size a ring and fix a chain and that was all his tricks in a nutshell. Now for compensation: The main problem for keeping talent is that there is such a low ceiling for earnings when you work for someone as a bench jeweler. Eventually they hit that ceiling and look at their prospects of the future. While you're building a business with equity, that they are helping you to build, they hold nothing at the end of their career. This is not an indictment, it's just the facts. The days where a bench jeweler can work his life away for someone else and have something to retire on are gone. How do we determine compensation? Context is decisive. What is the value of a human life? In life, all we really have is time. It's the line between the two numbers on your tombstone. We treat it is as a negotiable commodity. Apparently some lives are worth less than others. That's why we find it acceptable to pay our people as little as we can get away with. Matter of fact, we've shifted much of our industry to countries where life is valued around a dollar a day or less. Nice. Pay your people what you can sleep with. You know how much money they make for you, if you keep your numbers. Give them a piece of the action, if they're worth keeping. After all, we're not going to build an edifice to our glory, are we? At the end of our days, our life will be measured by the lives we've touched and made a difference in. p.s. I'll bet the laser training was not free but actually inside of the cost of the laser. They are invaluable tools nowadays and you don't have to spend $30k to have one that will do the work you need. A good smith will aid you in doing custom design pieces with larger stones & color. It shifts the customer relationship when they see the hands that made their rings. It makes it very personal and moves it away from commoditization. I'll take a school of hard knocks jeweler, any day, over school trained. Good luck finding the right smith for your new shop. I'm sure you'll find the right one.

Shanu, your question could not have been more opportune. I have been crying myself hoarse since the last 4 years about the need to have owners, their kids and all those who oversee production to understand the nuances of bench jewellery. In India we still have this huge problem of working with your hands. You are just not considered savvy enough if you sit on a bench and work with your hands. I have had designers bring their daughters to join our bench jewellery program and their response is that they want to create and not become babus. What they don’t realize is that their created designs simply remain drawings until they are manufactured and probably .05% of those drawings get made. It is important for all in the jewellery industry, designers, production control managers, quality control department and owners to go through formal training on the bench. Students who have done this bench jewellery program quietly confess that to me they seem to know more than their bosses/ husbands / fathers and fathers in law on account of the 1000 hours that they have sat on the bench. It is critical that the industry hires trained professionally qualified persons. I agree with Crystal, formal training will not ensure brilliance but it will definitely ensure a standard proficiency. Also the time spent in teaching on the job can perhaps be used more productively. Jonathan’s perspective is definitely biased. The problems he has mentioned about attitude and other stuff are prevalent in all other programs too be it a student from a B school, accountancy or fashion yet today no one would dare to enter into these industries without some kind of formal education. The answer to your question is that there is a crying need to have formally trained gold smiths.

Shanu, your question could not have been more opportune. I have been crying myself hoarse since the last 4 years about the need to have owners, their kids and all those who oversee production to understand the nuances of bench jewellery. In India we still have this huge problem of working with your hands. You are just not considered savvy enough if you sit on a bench and work with your hands. I have had designers bring their daughters to join our bench jewellery program and their response is that they want to create and not become babus. What they don’t realize is that their created designs simply remain drawings until they are manufactured and probably .05% of those drawings get made. It is important for all in the jewellery industry, designers, production control managers, quality control department and owners to go through formal training on the bench. Students who have done this bench jewellery program quietly confess that to me they seem to know more than their bosses/ husbands / fathers and fathers in law on account of the 1000 hours that they have sat on the bench. It is critical that the industry hires trained professionally qualified persons. I agree with Crystal, formal training will not ensure brilliance but it will definitely ensure a standard proficiency. Also the time spent in teaching on the job can perhaps be used more productively. Jonathan’s perspective is definitely biased. The problems he has mentioned about attitude and other stuff are prevalent in all other programs too be it a student from a B school, accountancy or fashion yet today no one would dare to enter into these industries without some kind of formal education. The answer to your question is that there is a crying need to have formally trained gold smiths.

I'm a "formally trained" bench jeweler, but say that with a little reservation. Yes, I do have a piece of paper that says I took the classes, but the real education came in the shop working on real jobs. At school all we set were 4-6mm CZs. Its a little different when you've got to channel set a row of colored stones that were not cut by machines to the same proportions. The same goes for everything else I do. They left out a lot of topics, skills processes that are essential to a bench jeweler. I couldn’t agree more with Jonathan. I left school with the ability to do a lot of things as long as I had an entire semester and as many attempts as I needed to get it right. If I broke a stone or ruined a mounting it didn’t really matter. You could do the same "job" a dozen times until you got it perfect. Now, if I do the same things its quite a bit more serious, and expensive. In hindsight, I know the school I went to wasn’t anything near the best but, I also feel that no matter where I went I would have been under prepared for the real thing. As for the compensation part of the discussion, again, I agree with Jonathan. Pay them what they are worth to you. I know I could make more if I went someplace else. But I enjoy the people I work with and the setting I’m in. My boss doesn’t pay much compared to other jewelers around town, but when viewed with the amount of business the store does I am much more understanding. The owner and I have a good relationship, and remain open with each other about how we both feel he, I, and we are doing. I'm more willing to take less pay for a position in a store where I know I'm cared for and my opinion is respected. Hire the person who is the best fit for the job, pay them what you are comfortable with, whether or not they have a piece of paper saying the passed a few classes.