Okay, this is about something basic. So very, very basic that most of you reading this don't need to, and the rest of you will probably think you don't need to, even though you very desperately do.
It's about resumes (or CVs, if you come from some place where a CV is a list of your accomplishments, rather than something to land naval aircraft on). A steadily-widening stream of these cross my desk, via mail, e-mail, sometimes by Facebook, a couple times per month at the Guild office. A lot of them are sent by recent film or art school graduates (if business grads were sending me resumes, I suspect I wouldn't have been moved to write this - but you never know).
Way too many of you are kneecapping yourselves right out of the gate by introducing yourselves via documents that are frankly painful to read. Let's leave aside mis-spellings, non-functional grammar, bizarre formatting, raucously colored resume paper, the use of four or five different fonts or the inclusion of sparkly festive confetti-like bullsh*t that sprays across one's desk and into one's keyboards. Let's set aside all the stoopid obvious stuff (if you are still reading I guess I owe you at least a little respect) that you have probably figured out already.
Rather than try and write a resume textbook, let me offer some examples of things not to do. By process of elimination I think you'll get the drift of what you should do (or what I think you should, anyway). And if you don't...no hard feelings but I wouldn't hire you anyway.
Don't Include Meaningless Data
2002-2007 – Tibshelf Community School GCSEs
I gained 10 ½ GCSEs B-C grade.
I don't know what this means. Do you? Good for you, I don't care, maybe you should have received this resume. I'm guessing that it's something to do with grades in a foreign academic system with which I am unfamiliar, that are therefore meaningless to me. What have I learned about this person? She doesn't exercise any care in researching her contacts (or she would know that as a US national located in L.A. I'm unlikely to know what a GCSE is, or whether 10-1/2 represents an impressive score on it). She would likewise know that - while for all I know in England B's and C's are something to brag about - you don't wave them in front of a US employer. More to the point, and closer to home: I don't care what you got on your SATs, LSATs, your driving test, or your Wasserman screening, either. You're competing against a huge pool of people who scored better than you did anyway, so move straight to offering me some insight into why you're any different. I promise I won't hire someone else because they scored 10 points higher on SAT math, while you're not looking.
Don't Write To Me As Though I Am Your Friend
Work Experience One: Art Department on ‘(REDACTED)’ – Martin Scorsese November 2010
I went to (REDACTED) Studios to do this work placement and did one weeks worth of work on a feature film set. I did a lot of work with the art department including making scale models of sets and also making a few props. It was good to see how different a film set is to a television set and how big the crew really is.
The sad part is that there's some interest-attracting experience here but at least at first read the presentation is lousy, like a what-I-did-on-vacation note slipped to a classmate. On a CV you are not telling me the story in the form of a conversation. You are (or ought to be) distilling the relevant information into bullet points and descriptions with punch. Not offering me a travelogue (you went down to the studio? Really? How was traffic?) because I don't care about your transit to your workplace, I care about what you did there. Crack one of the endlessly circulating resume books out there for guidance on how to hone your language; this document tells me that you haven't yet bothered. And while it may have been a nice revelation for you to find that television and film are different beasts, you have limited time before my eyeballs and I bet you could think of something more useful to tell me in that limited time, if you think real hard. Like I said, there is some useful material in there but right now you're tossing me a lot of noise, wrapped around it.
If You're Going To Detail Your Education, Make it Count
2009- 11 - (REDACTED) FdA in Film & TV Production (on-going)
I enjoyed studying media at A-Level and wanted to carry it on at degree level. I chose this course because of its practical approach to learning. I find that actually physically doing something helps me remember it better.
It's not that I don't care whether or not you enjoyed your academic studies. It's that for the purposes of hiring you or not I don't care. Again, limited time - the time it takes me to read your resume, or at least, to read enough to lose interest - means that you should be selective when it comes to what you give me to read, in that time. Okay, now I know that someone enjoyed their education, that they decided to pursue a degree, that they appreciate practical instruction, and that like most of the billions of primates walking the Earth, they find that kinesis improves memory. None of which is particularly useful in determining where (if anywhere) in the "hire" stack her paper goes. For whatever reason, you apparently decided that this paper was important enough for me to read, but declined to include any important information, there. If that's a strategy designed to persuade me that you're the sort of clear-communicating, rapid-transfer-protocol person we usually need - it's a bad one.
Anyway, free advice, with the usual guarantee that it will appraise for twice advertised value.
And, if that was *your* resume that you saw utilized for a how-not-to - well, I was planning to write you an e-mail offering what I felt were helpful suggestions on what to revise, but then I decided that this would be more fun, instead.
It's about resumes (or CVs, if you come from some place where a CV is a list of your accomplishments, rather than something to land naval aircraft on). A steadily-widening stream of these cross my desk, via mail, e-mail, sometimes by Facebook, a couple times per month at the Guild office. A lot of them are sent by recent film or art school graduates (if business grads were sending me resumes, I suspect I wouldn't have been moved to write this - but you never know).
Way too many of you are kneecapping yourselves right out of the gate by introducing yourselves via documents that are frankly painful to read. Let's leave aside mis-spellings, non-functional grammar, bizarre formatting, raucously colored resume paper, the use of four or five different fonts or the inclusion of sparkly festive confetti-like bullsh*t that sprays across one's desk and into one's keyboards. Let's set aside all the stoopid obvious stuff (if you are still reading I guess I owe you at least a little respect) that you have probably figured out already.
Rather than try and write a resume textbook, let me offer some examples of things not to do. By process of elimination I think you'll get the drift of what you should do (or what I think you should, anyway). And if you don't...no hard feelings but I wouldn't hire you anyway.
Don't Include Meaningless Data
2002-2007 – Tibshelf Community School GCSEs
I gained 10 ½ GCSEs B-C grade.
I don't know what this means. Do you? Good for you, I don't care, maybe you should have received this resume. I'm guessing that it's something to do with grades in a foreign academic system with which I am unfamiliar, that are therefore meaningless to me. What have I learned about this person? She doesn't exercise any care in researching her contacts (or she would know that as a US national located in L.A. I'm unlikely to know what a GCSE is, or whether 10-1/2 represents an impressive score on it). She would likewise know that - while for all I know in England B's and C's are something to brag about - you don't wave them in front of a US employer. More to the point, and closer to home: I don't care what you got on your SATs, LSATs, your driving test, or your Wasserman screening, either. You're competing against a huge pool of people who scored better than you did anyway, so move straight to offering me some insight into why you're any different. I promise I won't hire someone else because they scored 10 points higher on SAT math, while you're not looking.
Don't Write To Me As Though I Am Your Friend
Work Experience One: Art Department on ‘(REDACTED)’ – Martin Scorsese November 2010
I went to (REDACTED) Studios to do this work placement and did one weeks worth of work on a feature film set. I did a lot of work with the art department including making scale models of sets and also making a few props. It was good to see how different a film set is to a television set and how big the crew really is.
The sad part is that there's some interest-attracting experience here but at least at first read the presentation is lousy, like a what-I-did-on-vacation note slipped to a classmate. On a CV you are not telling me the story in the form of a conversation. You are (or ought to be) distilling the relevant information into bullet points and descriptions with punch. Not offering me a travelogue (you went down to the studio? Really? How was traffic?) because I don't care about your transit to your workplace, I care about what you did there. Crack one of the endlessly circulating resume books out there for guidance on how to hone your language; this document tells me that you haven't yet bothered. And while it may have been a nice revelation for you to find that television and film are different beasts, you have limited time before my eyeballs and I bet you could think of something more useful to tell me in that limited time, if you think real hard. Like I said, there is some useful material in there but right now you're tossing me a lot of noise, wrapped around it.
If You're Going To Detail Your Education, Make it Count
2009- 11 - (REDACTED) FdA in Film & TV Production (on-going)
I enjoyed studying media at A-Level and wanted to carry it on at degree level. I chose this course because of its practical approach to learning. I find that actually physically doing something helps me remember it better.
It's not that I don't care whether or not you enjoyed your academic studies. It's that for the purposes of hiring you or not I don't care. Again, limited time - the time it takes me to read your resume, or at least, to read enough to lose interest - means that you should be selective when it comes to what you give me to read, in that time. Okay, now I know that someone enjoyed their education, that they decided to pursue a degree, that they appreciate practical instruction, and that like most of the billions of primates walking the Earth, they find that kinesis improves memory. None of which is particularly useful in determining where (if anywhere) in the "hire" stack her paper goes. For whatever reason, you apparently decided that this paper was important enough for me to read, but declined to include any important information, there. If that's a strategy designed to persuade me that you're the sort of clear-communicating, rapid-transfer-protocol person we usually need - it's a bad one.
Anyway, free advice, with the usual guarantee that it will appraise for twice advertised value.
And, if that was *your* resume that you saw utilized for a how-not-to - well, I was planning to write you an e-mail offering what I felt were helpful suggestions on what to revise, but then I decided that this would be more fun, instead.
