For a project for school, I have to get some questions answered by someone who works in the field I want to pursue. If you are a full-time editor and you have the time it would be greatly appreciated if you could answer the questions below.
Thank you

1. Did you go to college and if you did what school did you attend and in what field did you study
2. How do you get started in a video editing career?
3. What things do companies look for in portfolios when they are looking at editors?
4. What things in portfolios appeal to companies?
5. How do you get your name out?
6. What main aspects of editing should an editor perfect to appeal to people
7. What hours do you work?
8. Should you approach companies or let them approach you?
Comments
@MorganStudios Having "been" a full time editor in a previous life, I hope you don't mind my $0.02.
Thank you!
Also a former full-time editor.
1) I studied at many places and actually completed degree requirements in theater, film and fine arts. My tv/film training was at Chapman University. I say "degree requirements" as completing those disciplines took more than four years... The University suddenly changed me from a graduating Senior to a first-term soph. Who knew gen-ed classes had an expirations date?
As I had completed degree requirements, I also lost my scholarships, so I dropped out. The takeaway here is film/tv is an industry where the quality of one's work matters more than the degree. But I should have taken the damn foreign language course and locked in a degree years earlier.
2) I hustled and went after jobs. Lots of calling and asking around. Where film school helps is, if you can generate good relationships with fellow students, you can help each other out with work. For several years a buddy and I (this was for A/V work) were a "package deal,"
3, 4, 5) @Stargazer54 is spot on. Only thing I have to add is "short attention span" syndrome 20 years ago a reel would be about 5 minutes. Now you can get away with two minutes, but most reels will be watched for about one minute...
6) "Half a frame?" *facepalm* Dependability is key, and this means delivering on-time and on-spec. If you're brilliant, but always late to deliver, you've caused problems for your producers and won't keep your job. If you go off spec, you'd better have finished the spec work efficiently and found extra time to create your "improved" version. I'll give a good and bad example of going off-spec (these were radio ads): Bad. My former partner once went off-spec because he thought he had a better plan. By the time I found out he'd already delivered to the client. I managed to complete the project to spec and get it to the client within two hours, but the damage was done. We lost our contract, and we had to fight to get paid - and, of course the client used both versions. Good: The script was terrible. I completed the job on-spec then recorded and produced an entirely different version (I note in both these examples we did stay on-budget). I sent the on-spec version first, then the "oh, I also did...." version. Client was happy, paid extra and used both, and we picked up a recurring contract.
The only difference is in the order the ads were presented. When the client was given a "my idea is better" FIRST, the client was annoyed that we "hadn't done as asked," whereas the other way around was "going above and beyond." Delivering off-spec first was "undependable."
7) Whatever you have to. Some projects, things go smoothly and you can put in your eight hours and go home. Sometimes there are issues and you're on-site for 36 hours because the deck is down and the titles artist flaked and you're frantically trying to get the master finished for delivery by 11am, but the final output isn't ready until 1045 and it's a half hour show and you're begging the UPS guy to wait the extra time...
But that only happened to ME once.
8) As Stargazer notes, you're the one who has to sell yourself. When you get to the point where people just call and offer gigs, you've already put in your years of searching for gig after gig.
Hope this helps.