Creating a Great Resume

I guess the next logical topic is the resume since it is generally kept together with the head shot. I dread blogging about this as it’s such a personal thing. Your resume is the next best opportunity to make an impression. It’s a chance to “stand out” or to “catch someone’s eye”. Please remember as you read this week that these entries are all written based on my/our personal experiences and opinions. There are only a few “must’s” and “must nots” for a great resume and I’ll make sure those points are clear.
First and most importantly, your resume should only be one page. Your resume will be stapled back to back, in all four corners, to your 8×10″ head shot and then trimmed to match the head shot. This allows you to hand a tidy “business card” to the casting director at an audition. You will want to make sure that your margins allow you to trim the edges without losing any of the content of your resume.
The very top of your resume should have your name. We like ours centered on the top, some people like it aligned on the left margin, this is simply a preference. Just under your name should be the name and phone number for any agent or agency with whom you are working. At one point Zack had agents in NYC, Boston, and Maine so we had a version of his resume saved for each agency. If you don’t have representation yet, just skip to your personal contact which would be just below. For a child you can put parents’ name and phone number, if you would like, but make sure you have marked it as “personal contact”. I have always used my cell phone number as our child’s personal contact. Even when they are 17 years old, business should come through you first.
Below all of the heading information you want to place, along the left margin, some basic statistics for your child. His/Her age or date of birth, height, weight, hair color and eye color. You can arrange this any way you would like. Keep in mind that a key point to a great resume is making sure it is easy to read. Casting directors should be able to glance at the resume and within just a couple of seconds find this information. Use capitalization, underlines, and bold lettering to help them, but try not to make it too busy or overwhelming.
The body of the resume should contain information including work experience, training, special skills, and activities or interests. Zack has two different resumes; one we call his commercial resume and one we call his theater resume. We chose to do this so that when he submits for a movie, commercial, or a print job it is his work experience in those areas that the casting director will see first. On his theater resume his theater roles are listed first, allowing that casting director to easily find the work experience that is more pertinent to him/her. You do not have to have two resumes and you may arrange the information in any way that you would like; however, you should consider the type of project for which you are submitting. You do not want to make casting directors wade through a lot of information before they get to the information that is most important to them; you risk losing their interest.
When Zack was starting out he had very few credits to put on his resume, quite a bit of training, but very little work experience. The margins were quite wide and the font was larger to make the resume more appealing to the eye. I will use his theater resume as an example here.
His header and stats were as noted above. Next we put his theater roles with the most recent role listed first, much like an adult work resume. The section was titled “Theater”. The list included even his school shows and were presented as: title of show, followed by the role he played, and finally the theater or school that presented the show all along one line.
The next paragraph or section was for his commercial work and labeled as such. At the time of his first resume he had only had one commercial job. We listed it similarly to the theater roles with company, role , and then that it was a “print” job.
The next paragraph was labeled “Awards” although it also could be labeled “Recognition” or anything similar. Perhaps your child has been nominated for, or won, some kind of performance award or competition. At this point Zack had been first runner up in his age group for a local singing competition. Including this on his resume wasn’t so much about the award , although he was very proud of it. It was more about showing his time on stage and in front of an audience and some experience taking direction.
The next paragraph included “training” or “special skills”. This may include dance, theater classes, vocal lessons, acting classes, or even martial arts. You want to include the style and number of years of training and rank or “level” where appropriate.
The final paragraph should just be a quick sentence that lists activities or interests. It might include biking, swimming, skiing, chess, reading, etc…
As time went by and as Zack was fortunate enough to have more opportunities to perform, train, and work, the font and margins of his resume shrank. The work can include projects that were only for credit and not for pay. Being able to add those to the resume is the benefit of doing them 🙂 . As the resume grew we dropped first the school productions and then the ensemble community theater roles and they were replaced by the leads in the community theater and the professional theater work he was doing. At one point, in the middle of his growth, we highlighted the lead rolls in yellow to allow the casting directors to see those immediately. Eventually we no longer needed the yellow highlights as he transitioned to primarily professional work.
It is ok to drop things from your resume when you have work that is either equal and more recent or more advanced than something it is replacing. Zack struggled with this. He felt that he was discounting something that had meant a lot to him. I reminded him that those memories are there forever in scrapbooks right where they belong. That his resume is not a scrapbook , it is a business card, and those other roles and work he did are what brought him the new projects that we were adding and would always have value. He was able to wrap his head around that very well and we have a great one page resume!
When Zack started he was just as interested in commercials and film as he was in musical theater. As he grew and we updated his resume regularly it became clear that his true passion was for musical theater. As it turned out his resume was not just a valuable tool for marketing him , it was also a valuable tool to help his mom and dad see easily the type of jobs for which we should be submitting. This allowed us to make choices much more easily when we were faced with several opportunities at once. This business is always feast or famine!
At the risk of being repetitive I just want to say again that your resume should be only one page. If you are just getting started don’t fill it with fluff. Everyone starts somewhere. Keep it updated, pertinent, clear, and one page 🙂
So far we’ve talked about getting started, training, head shots, and now resumes. I think the next step would be talking about getting out there, submitting for projects and/or attending open calls. Next week we’ll get into all of that including how to find projects, the process, and some good tips for audition etiquette and making a great first impression.
Have a great week and as always feel free to offer any comments or ask questions. I am just as interested in learning from your experiences!