Dance Magazine: If you’re pursuing a professional dance career, you’re probably used to wearing many hats—performer, choreographer, marketer, producer. Here’s another to add to your list: resumé generator. At any given time, you’ll likely need two very different resumés: one for performance gigs and one for stop-gap side jobs that often exist outside of the dance field.
10 comments:
I’ve only ever had to make a resume for production jobs or other non-performance jobs, so being able to see what dancers are expected to highlight for potential employers is very informative. Putting education at the very end of the resume makes some sense, as perhaps dance employers are looking for people with experience regardless of formal education, although perhaps if you attended a very prestigious dance school you would want it to be a little higher. They also recommend not putting references on any resume, regardless of field, and only providing them when asked, which conflicts with some of the advice I’ve been given in the past; I do wish they included some more explanation for why one should exclude references initially. They also recommend putting your Instagram on your resume, so a dancer may have to have a professional Instagram account that clearly shows their skills, and doesn’t include any distracting or possibly unprofessional photos.
I remember the first time I developed a resume with my father, a businessman, read through it and said: “I don’t think listing show titles is the way to go, you should focus on explaining what it is you did for each position.” Quite frankly, I still find it funny. I ran into the issue of needing more than one resume when applying for student jobs just last semester. Before my arrival at Carnegie Mellon University, I had only ever needed a theatrical resume– one which details the productions, positions, and tasks I’ve worked on. Thus, when it came to applying for non-theatre-related jobs, I found myself in the position of having to fabricate a skill-based resume. One that does not assume the reader understands what the “Stage/Production Manager” or “Lighting Designer” position meant, but rather one constructed by identifying the skills used for each position I’ve held in production and outlining their importance.
I made my very first resumé in tenth grade when applying for a New York University summer theatre program. It was horrible, hideous, and 2 pages long. Needless to say, I was rejected. In 12th grade, I was again approached with the task of creating a resumé, but this time it was not just for a summer program, it was for college. Remembering my previous failure, I received guidance from my technical director on creating an actual and visually pleasing resumé. It worked! A week ago in Production Planning, I AGAIN revisited resumés, as it was one of our assignments. Part of this included going around and interviewing other students. During this, I got the opportunity to look at other people's resumés. What I learned was this: everyone's resumé looks different. There is no one specific way to have a resumé, other than the information you need to portray. So, have fun with it! Make it portray the information clearly, but add some of your personality to it. Adding personality and having fun while still being efficient is my whole work philosophy. Who says it can't apply to your resumé?
I have been making resumes since I was in fifth grade trying to run a babysitting business with my friends. Of course, no one hired me because I didn’t have any experience. I have made probably at least 50 different resumes since then, mostly just little adjustments. I don’t think my resume is jaw-dropping by any means but I think fifth grade Natalie would be proud of me. I like the idea of a side job resume. I have a “regular” resume that I made for getting a summer job and such but it would be nice to have one tailored to the jobs I would want outside of the entertainment industry. I am hoping to have somewhat of a career in the wedding planning industry so I suppose I should start building a resume for that. Luckily, wedding planning and stage management overlap in at least a few areas. Additionally, I don’t think anyone is going to turn their nose up to a degree from Carnegie Mellon University.
This article was so interesting to me, because it contradicts a lot of the things I’ve been told about resumes for design and production. It really highlights the differences within the industry, and the variety of what professionals in the field are looking for from different members of their team. For example, in design and production, including references on your resume is a must, and you’re told that no one will look at a resume with references upon request. In comparison, this article says to skip the references, presumably to make more room for experience or other information. Something that stuck out to me was the idea of separating your “home studio” and “home mentor” from workshops and training you’ve done elsewhere. This is a very foreign idea to me, as someone who has never considered the idea of a “home” in professional development. However, there are many similarities, including separating work by type of media and including a way for hirers to see your creative work.
Just before reading this article, I saw a post online where it showed Benedict Cumberbatch’s (the guy that plays Doctor Strange and Sherlock Holmes) resumé (through an agency of course). Reading this article reminded me a lot of that resume because like the article says, it was very much tailored and categorised by media type. Obviously, at this stage I don’t have any experience working in operas or dance or concerts yet, but I think as my career develops and progresses, it will definitely be a good idea to separate into categories. Another thing that stood out to me is how the author mentions not to include an object in your professional resume, because it is fairly obvious what your goals are. This is different to many other resumes I’ve seen from other industries because they seem to emphasise a lot more on that (as seen in the Side Job Resume section of the article).
I think this article gives some solid pieces of advice. Something I am beginning to learn is that resumes are incredibly subjective, and everyone has something different to say about it, and therefore there is no “right way” of doing it or a “formula” to follow. I totally agree with any of the points discussing readability. The last thing I would like to deal with at any given time is the paperwork I can not easily skim if I needed to, so I can not imagine having to sift through hundreds of resumes trying to weed out the ones that are not worth the time. I do not agree with the bit of skipping on references unless instructed otherwise. A general rule of thumb in my book is that you should have at least one person to vouch for you. However, I did enjoy the general idea of having multiple resumes. If you are not tailoring them to each specific application I do not see much of the point.
I think this idea of the two types of resumes can be very difficult especially if you're just starting out. For example I know personally my academic career, not theatrically academic but purely academic, is far more noticeable at this point in my life than my theatrical career because although I have had experience it hasn't been notable. Figuring out how to work those two parts of my life into a resume is challenging. I think for me I have to look and say how does my academic career show that I have the dedication and show that I have for lack of a better term intelligence and ability to learn and be an asset to the company while intermixing that with showing from my theater experience that I have an interest and am not a complete idiot. My hope at least at this point is that with that right level of tailoring companies recognize that I am just starting out and their company can be something to put on a resume to build that theatrical career.
This article mentioned right away that each resume being sent out should be tailored to that particular job. This is a very interesting point because different companies are looking for different qualities as each position you are applying for has different descriptions and qualifications. This should then encourage someone to emphasize experiences that relate to that company’s mission statement that another company wouldn’t even consider. This implies that it is important to keep a list of your entire background and then have a template ready to go where you can mix and match. From a theatrical industry perspective, this is an essential component of someone’s application to work in the technical world because it is important to highlight key experiences that have prepared you to take on that new role. It is interesting this article mentions making sure you do not “lie” on your resume because although it sounds obvious, it can be tempting for some people to over exaggerate relationships with references or job titles.
I have been a person with multiple resumes since my freshman year of high school. I always struggled with knowing how to separate academic achievement, theatrical experience, and other work experiences. I am happy that for now at least, I primarily only need to use my entertainment resume. However, there is still nothing that I loathe more than updating my resume. I have been using the same format forever. But for example, during some college and scholarships apps I could only submit one page documents for my resume so I’d have to go through and chop things like AP classes to fit with freelance design shows. I found this article reassuring, and I am joyed to know that it is okay to have separate resumes. The tips and section on the side job resume will be really useful if/when I need to apply for a job out of our industry, an experience I have yet to have.
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