Initiative counts for a lot. Nobody wants to hire someone who’ll need to be poked and prodded to execute the basics. They want people who can see, and contribute, in new ways.
Putting your resume into “action-oriented” mode is a great way to establish yourself as this kind of person.
8 comments:
This was a really interesting article. I like all of their ideas and rationales for how to word a resume, but I wonder if these same points apply to theatre. The idea of momentum is great! We were talking about how people really don’t read a resume, so can we create a sense of momentum that makes people want to keep reading? They were really focusing on an opening statement or mission statement which we don’t really do, but we might be able to take the idea of momentum and use it in design or our cover letters. But I do think it’s great to keep in mind that potential employers want to know what we can do for them, not the other way around until there is an actual employer/employee relationship.
The idea of highlighting the result first seems backwards at first glance, it actually makes a lot of sense for us where almost the entire point is the end result of a show going up. Getting the show up and running isn’t quite enough for us because that is what we are hired to do, but making it easy and pleasant is important. This leads us into #3: not mentioning daily tasks. The article is totally right! If you talk about the little nitty-gritty things that have to get done, it seems like you are not focused on the big picture.
I don’t always agree with articles of this type on Fast Company, but this all seems like good advice. As Sylvi mentions above, I think some of it requires adaptation for theatre resumes, but it isn’t too much of a stretch. Really, the essence of the article is saying that you need to phrase things so that employers know what you can do for them. Reorient your resume to address their needs: how you can be an asset and prove that you can do it by leading with the results of what you’ve done in the past. Yes, you need to include your skills, but as your credits grow, many of these skills will be assumed. It’s better to declutter your resume of assumed skills and highlight ways you’ve “moved the needle.” “Business speak” is, in my opinion, always distasteful. It makes you sound false and unoriginal, something that is particularly bad in a creative field.
Normally I hate reading resume tips because they are either painstakingly obvious or to specific to be useful. But this article is actually better than most resume articles I’ve read. I specifically liked the point about talking about the end result before you talk about what you did to get there. I really like the idea of making yourself an active participant in the things you’ve done. But I do question how exactly these tips can translate into the world of theatre. I feel like our jobs are less about what exactly we did and more about what we worked on. As an SM/PM I can’t really talk about exceeding profit margin expectations or spearheading a research group. At least, not in the way the article implies. But it is something to think about in my next revision of my resume. On a side note, I think it was really funny that the examples the article gave were all full of business jargon to the point where I has trouble understanding what it was saying, but the last tip was about not using too business jargon.
I found this article very interesting, but it is definitely geared toward a more experienced demographic. There are certainly times I could make note of something I improved or created at a company I worked for on my resume, but for most items, I was...just working. I can see how the difference between these two types of job descriptions might separate those who are less experienced from the rest of the pile, though, and would make strong note of it when hiring others myself. I also appreciated the "open with what you can do, not what you want" advice. This is extremely important. When my manager was teaching me the hiring process for supervisors a few summers ago, he had me sit in on some of the interviews. After the first interview, he asked me what I thought of the candidate. I told him that I liked him, and it seemed like this would be a really great opportunity for him to learn and experience a leadership position. My manager asked me, "What did he say about what he could do for us?" and I realized that the conversation was more focused on the candidate's opportunity to learn, something that is really only important in an internship. From then on, I listened for what the candidates had to offer the company. The same thing goes for resumes. If you aren't addressing the needs of the company you're wooing, why should they listen at all?
This article actually has very practical and applicable advice for polishing your resume. However, I’ve been always cautious about adding description to each job or internship because they will make the page look cluttered and potentially stalls people’s attention. I used to feel like when it comes to theatre, especially stage & production management, people who hire you know what you do. If you look at the job title and the company, you’d know or assume what the scope of this person’s job has been as well as the results this person has achieved, unless the job title is unusual or misleading, or the job title does not entirely explain what your work entails. The organization that I interned in this summer has the job title of production coordinator held by 7 people – 1 of them is the festival coordinator who is in charge of all venues and the operation of the entire festival and the other 6 are actually respective venue production coordinators. They have the same job title, but the load and focus of their work is very different. In this case, maybe one should put down some highlights of the job on the resume.
This is a great perspective to read in reference to the way you should phrase your resume fields. I’m pretty sure when laying out resumes for Professional Prep, I had to fill in some paragraphs that I didn’t have in my original formatted resume and ended up writing passive and disinteresting descriptions of my jobs. Now I know to lead with the major accomplishments in each position followed by the more mundane. I also like the advice to not use a lot of jargon in your resume because if a hiring manager who doesn’t know exactly what everything is that you do is the first person to process your resume, they may not fully comprehend the depth and breadth of your experience or knowledge just because they don’t know what certain acronyms or technical terms may be. This also leads to the issue of maybe taking up more space on the page to describe exactly what you’ve accomplished, but if it makes you sound more successful, it’s probably worth it.
Usually I don't find articles about creating a resume very interesting, but I really liked the way that this author addressed the fact that many resumes read as stagnant. I haven't written a resume with descriptions of jobs in a very long time, and it's been something that I've been meaning to do. I've never realized considered that rewording these descriptions to something more active could make your resume more appealing to employers. Like Emma said, I did think this article contradicted itself about business jargon. Almost every example they gave includes jargon, but at the end of the article they said this was a bad thing. I think that in order to make this work for a theatrical resume all of this jargon would have to be eliminated, and you may have to write slightly shorter descriptions to fit everything on one page. Overall though this is definitely something I'd love to be able to incorporate into my own resume with a few minor tweaks.
This is a really great article. Something so simple as reframing your focus could easily make your resume more likely to jump off the page. What the article describes reminded me of what I learned in my acting classes in undergrad. Choosing weak or vague verbs for motivation dulls the focus and interest of the performance and the same is true of the resume. Even more so because all you have left to stand on is a single side of a sheet of paper. Also the breakdown of the article is very helpful. It is clear, concise, and straightforward just like you're attempting to make your resume. I am curious about the lack of jargon use in a theatrical resume as opposed to a business one. Especially in production, I feel like the use of appropriate jargon for your field and for any special skills that you have would be helpful in showing that you truly know and can construct what is needed for your craft.
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