 If you’re actively on the hunt for a new job, you know you need an updated resume and LinkedIn profile. But what about when you’re settled into a role? On one hand, you know you should tailor your resume to the specific roles you’re targeting, which is hard to do if you don’t have a role in mind. On the other hand, you know Hollywood hires quickly, and you don’t want to be caught without a great resume when your dream job opens up! There are a few different ways to approach this. If you’re primarily freelancing and hopping from show to show, you should update your credits list, IMDB, and/or StaffMeUp profile as soon as you get a new gig, so you can pass your most recent document along after wrap. Your LinkedIn profile should be stable, with a strong evergreen summary that includes your key projects (you can update those as you get more recent credits), and you can list all your freelance experience together, so you don’t find yourself constantly adding jobs every time you start a new gig. If you’re not actively searching but casually open to opportunities should the right one come along, you should have an updated resume that’s geared to the types of roles you’d pivot for. For example, if you’re a development executive at a production company, but you’d jump ship if you had the opportunity to work at a network, make sure your LinkedIn is polished so recruiters can find you. Just don't be too overt about the job search, so your current colleagues and boss won’t think you have one foot out the door. Keep your descriptions in line with your current role and professional persona, while highlighting the key skills you bring to the table to increase searchability. On your resume, add your current role and update the job description as you garner more achievements, work on new projects, or expand your duties. You’ll want to keep the bullets tailored to the roles you’d leave for, so when something opens up, all you have to do is convert to PDF and press send. If you’re happy where you are with no plans to leave, and you’re not even sure what you’d do if you were to embark on a job search, you should use your LinkedIn and resume differently. Your LinkedIn should tell the story of who you are in your current role and reflect an interest in building relationships for your current company. For your resume, we recommend creating an overview document that you can pull from when you are ready for the job search. Include everything you’ve done in current or past roles, even if you’re not sure if they’re relevant. This way, you can select bullets to match a particular job description when the time comes. It’s a good idea to update this document every few months or every time you finish a major project, so you don’t forget your accomplishments. This can also be helpful in case there’s a swift change in your employment status. You don’t want to find yourself with a resume that’s five years old when you’re suddenly laid off and need to find a job stat. Don’t worry too much about this document, though – it doesn't need to be perfect. You just want to have a handy record of your experience that you can easily pull from, so if and when you do decide to start on the job search, you’re ahead of the game. -- Angela Silak & Cindy Kaplan
0 Comments
 You’ve heard us say it before, but in Hollywood, it’s hard to get a job by simply submitting your resume through a job portal. In this competitive industry, you’ve got to take an extra step to get your resume into a real person’s hands. In fact, the majority of positions are filled through referrals, as hiring managers like to mitigate risk by hiring candidates who have been vetted by their contacts first. Even if you have great application materials, you’ll be at a disadvantage to those who've found an “in” at a company. So, how do you become the person with the “in”? Here are four strategies we’ve found effective: 1. Build your network. Regardless of whether or not there is an immediate position of interest, you should work to build your network to increase the chances that you will know someone who knows someone the day your dream job opens up. Request informational interviews, attend networking mixers, get in touch with your college alumni network, and build strong rapport with the people you currently work with, both in and outside of your organization. This piece is key to getting your resume into the hiring manager’s hands and will make your career easier in general. But onto more immediate strategies… 2. Tell your friends. If you are looking for a specific type of role, tell your friends that you are on the hunt. You never know when they’ll have heard of something that just popped up, and while it’s not always fun to talk shop with your friends, they are the ones who will look out for you. If you’re hunting for a new job, get in the habit of mentioning it in conversation. 3. Use LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the perfect resource for finding out who knows who at a particular company. If you haven’t cultivated a strong LinkedIn network, use the “People You May Know” tool to build up your connections to at least 500. This will increase your chances of having a second-degree connection with someone. It’s usually relatively easy to identify a hiring manager or member of the department with the open role on LinkedIn, and you can work from there to try to find someone who can refer you directly to the recruiter or hiring manager. If you don’t find a 100% clear cut connection but have a friend that might know someone at a company of interest, reach out and see if you can find some sort of path to send your resume down. And don’t stop at one person – if you find multiple ways into a company, leverage them. The more people advocating for you, the better. But if you really can’t find any connections to the company… 4. Try cold outreach. Cold outreach can be hit or miss, but it’s worth a shot if you’re applying for your dream job and don’t have other options. Just be strategic with who you are reaching out to – if you send a cold email to someone in the IT department and are looking for a development job, they don’t have much incentive to pass your resume along, even on the off chance that they did know the person hiring. In this case, you need to target recruiters or feel pretty confident that you know who you’d be reporting to. You can find email addresses or email formats through tracking boards or by googling “@companyname.com press release.” Just be very clear, professional, and polite in your email, and don’t get upset if you don’t hear back. Note that cold emails are rarely effective if there isn’t an available role. Keep in mind that sometimes, these strategies won’t work. But you’ll find that you have a lot more success at securing interviews if you can take the extra step of getting your resume into a real person’s hands. -- Angela Silak and Cindy Kaplan You’ve heard that your resume should be more than a list of responsibilities -- it's a story that explains why you’d be great for the job you’re applying for. But a lot of our clients struggle with what belongs in that story, especially when they're trying to convey results and accomplishments. Should you craft a bullet point about the time you saved the production $25K by switching to off-brand snacks for crafty? What about the new spreadsheet you designed to make reporting more effective, because your boss was using post-its to track everything instead of Excel? Is it relevant that you rolled calls for three bosses, one of whom had a serious temper? How much information is too much information? We often see candidates make the mistake of listing their key skills and illustrating them with overly specific highlights like the detailed anecdotes above. Doing so often makes your resume harder for a hiring manager to parse through and may feel redundant. You'd do best to save some of this more nuanced information for the interview. On your resume, you should focus on the big picture -- what are the key takeaways that will match the skills listed in the job posting? In the above examples, you might say “Managed production budgets and implemented cost-saving solutions,” “Created new tracking system,” or "Supported three executives." Or you can take it a step further by including top-level results: "Implemented cost-saving solutions that saved $25K." Alternatively, you may want to add a little more context about how you did something: "Created new system for tracking project submissions using Excel." But you'd want to avoid: "Converted supervisor's post-it reminder system into an Excel submissions tracking system to increase departmental efficiency." See the difference? Don't make a mountain out of a molehill. It's a waste of valuable resume space and makes you sound silly. But don't discount all of these great stories and accomplishments -- even if they don't belong on your resume, they're still very important! Save them for the interview. When you're asked about an achievement you’re particularly proud of, your biggest strengths, or how you managed a challenging situation, use these anecdotes as examples to bolster your argument. It can be frustrating to look at your resume and not see the full picture of who you are as a worker. No one wants to be boiled down to a one-page document that relies on bullet points and white space! But it’s important to remember that your resume is step 1 of your job application. You can supplement it somewhat with a cover letter, but the real moment to shine is the interview. Your resume should be simple, concise, and effectively communicate that you would succeed at the job you're applying for -- the last thing you want is for a hiring manager to get overwhelmed by the details and miss the bigger picture of your capabilities. -- Angela Silak & Cindy Kaplan  The best way to get your resume from the bottom of the stack into the "must interview" pile is to highlight the right skills the hiring manager is looking for. While there's no one-size-fits-all resume that will work for all roles within the entertainment industry, there are some skills that many Hollywood jobs require, regardless of the position. You should always match your resume to the job posting to make sure you're reflecting the appropriate skills and verbiage, but there are a few basic elements you'll likely want to include on your resume in some form or another, and these differ based on your experience level. Here's a breakdown of what you should highlight at various stages of your Hollywood career: Entry-level: For an intern, most hiring managers want someone who is smart, reliable, and eager to learn, and this can be conveyed in many different ways on a resume. But once you’re ready for an assistant position, your resume needs to change -- there are some very specific skills that should be on your resume if you want to get an interview. In particular, administrative duties like answering phones and scheduling must be included. Although they seem like menial and easy tasks, they will be the core of your job as an assistant, and your potential boss will want to know he's going to be covered if he hires you. It’s all about proving that you know how to manage a desk. If you’re going for PA roles, phones won’t matter as much, but ordering lunches, going on runs, and setting up equipment are going to be important. There’s a good chance you’ve acquired those skills during college or an internship – don’t leave them off. Even if you've developed more advanced skills through campus leadership, other work experience, or student film productions, make sure the primary focus is on your ability to handle administrative duties and organizational tasks, so your boss knows you'll be committed to the job at hand and not immediately looking to jump into a higher-level role. Mid-level: Obviously, mid-level roles are a lot more varied and specific than entry-level roles, but there are a few things to pinpoint that pretty much all hiring managers will want to see. The main ones fall under the category of communication skills – showing your ability to cultivate relationships and manage projects by interfacing with a wide range of stakeholders is key. You'll also want to highlight the moments when you took initiative and your achievements. Make sure you call out the big projects you've worked on (or better, led), clients you've brought on, shows you've sold, or workflows you've implemented to provide evidence of your successes. To land those mid-level jobs, show that you will be able to keep projects running smoothly but will also bring added value to the company. Senior-level: If you’re looking for VP and department head positions, our advice for mid-level jobs still applies, but on top of that, you’ve got to prove your management and leadership skills. Part of that is supervising teams – often, you’ll develop those skills in mid-level roles, but now is the time to show that you have mastered it. But beyond people management, you have to think about cultivating and implementing the overall vision for the department, project, or company. What projects in your past have forced you to think strategically and from a big-picture POV? You’ll also need to note if you’ve managed budgets, since most senior-level roles involve managing project budgets, salaries, and vendor contracts. As long as you aren’t breaking confidentiality agreements, it can be good to reference budget ranges on your resume when they are relevant to the job you are applying for. Additionally, senior leaders are often the face of the company during both internal meetings and externally. If you have a way to showcase public speaking skills or that you’ve represented your company at pitch meetings with high level buyers, these are good things to include on your resume. Please note that this is simply a general guide to get you thinking about what types of things might go on your resume -- it's up to you to get specific and tailor the resume to the posting at hand. And remember, it's impossible to encapsulate the entirety of your career on a one or two page resume, so it's best to highlight the skills that are going to be valued most. Then, when you’re ready to level up, you’ll need to overhaul your resume again – for instance, you'll want to lose the assistant skills on your mid-level resume and likely remove those work experiences altogether for your senior-level resume. Think of your resume as a working document that will change frequently to help you get the specific job you’re applying for, and you'll get hired soon enough! -- Angela Silak & Cindy Kaplan |
Hollywood ResumesWelcome to our career tips blog! To receive our updates via email, sign up for our weekly newsletter. You'll also get access to exclusive discounts, offers, and resources! Categories
All
Archives
April 2022
|
RSS Feed