Photo by Yan Krukau via Pexels.com
I have come to the realization that I say this at least once to every client or potential client. That must mean that it’s an important idea.
I have always said that we can learn a lot from marketers and sales people. For example your resume is the equivalent of the Features of the product; your cover letter elucidates the Benefits of the product. In the case of a job seeker the linking phrase is not “you can…” but “you get…”. And the important part is going beyond the surface benefit to the emotional benefit, which should relieve a pain point. This is something you can brainstorm.
Like this:
- Feature: 12 years of experience in post production, fluent with VFX workflows
- Benefit: You get someone you don’t have to train in every little thing, a proven expert
- Emotional Benefit: You get one less thing to worry about – you gain serenity, assurance, confidence
(How do you find the pain point hidden in a job listing or conversation? Stay tuned.)
This ability to explain Features and Benefits is a function of clarity. The Benefit follows from the Feature – and your clearly expressed documents display the path to hiring the solution to their problem.
However, if your documents lack clarity – well, a confused buyer always says no. To translate this to entertainment resumes, if the producer or department head is confused by your resume, they are likely to move on to the next person.
Five ways to create confusion on your resume.
- Lack of clarity about the position or job you want – without a job title in the headline you make the hirer have to work to discover which crew job you are after.
- Too many job titles across multiple departments all mashed together – not only does this obscure your qualifications and your goals, but it makes it tough for the production coordinator to forward your resume to the right department head. There are ways to demonstrate broad competence, that still maintain clarity.
- A desperate desire to include everything even when it isn’t relevant to the application at hand. Most of the time hirers aren’t looking for a generalist, but someone to fill a specific role with a defined set of skills.
- If you aren’t clear on your goals, your resume is likely to follow suit, (and so is your cover letter.)
- Idiosyncratic language that does not reflect either keywords in the job description or industry standards. Throw in some “same words, different meanings in different sectors” and you can build a really nice muddled mess to confound your readers.
What to do instead
- Know what position they are offering and use the job title from the job listing if there is one, or the job title or department if this is a freelance application. Make sure you have done your research about the company, the project and personnel connected to it.
- Curate your resume to conform your credits to the job you seek. This especially applies to projects where you held multiple positions. Emphasize those credits that demonstrate competence, and hopefully development over time, in the specific department or field. This might mean that you have more than one resume. For example, you might have one that prioritizes production work and another that uplifts post-production work.
- Understand the skills that are needed and highlight them with your job titles and competencies. There are only two positions on a film production that requires broad, general skills and knowledge – PA and Producer. Every other job will have specific qualifications within a department.
- It’s very worthwhile considering your career goals and doing some writing about them. Consider where you want to be in five years, ten years, and twenty years. Get granular. Don’t stop with just “director”. Write about the kind of films you want to make, the budgets, the genres, the kind of stories. Consider why you want to apply to any particular job. This doesn’t mean that you can’t ever take a gig that is outside of your trajectory, but accept it with consciousness. Know your own story so that you can tell it.
- Most of your keywords should come from the job listing. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are improving, but they are still mostly too stupid to understand synonyms. It’s better to use their keywords and key phrases. If you are sending a direct submission resume to someone for a freelance gig after a call, networking event or referral, still keep using straightforward, industry standard jargon that display your understanding of the job and the business. Every now and then a company will use some of their own unusual phrases. This is a cue to fit in with their written style, especially in the cover letter.
(Writing styles – hmmm. More to come on this too. Stay tuned and join my email list for extra content on this.)
Once your content is expressed clearly, the next step is to make sure that the structure of your resume supports that clarity. Expected headings, organized bullets – each addressing only one idea or topic such as communication skills or a particular metric – standard formatting including each line item in your work history, and your list of credits.
Note: as in all things, a personal recommendation or prior networking connection will overcome a cornucopia of confusing factors on the resume.
I would love to know how I can better serve you. Please take my survey here. You will be eligible to be a Beta Tester and get future training content for free.