Do you ever feel a bit lost when it comes to writing your acting resume? It can be daunting since it might be people’s first impression of you and be a deciding factor whether you’ll be called to an audition not. Casting directors go through a ton of resumes and if yours is not up to standard, it’ll go straight in the bin. Harsh, I know, but there is only so much time they have to provide the director with potential actors for a role.
Fear not, fellow artists. I have concocted a check list on what to include and on getting people to actually look at it.
What’s the difference between a resume and CV?
There are three major differences between CVs and resumes – the length, purpose and layout. A resume is a brief summary of your skills and experience over one or two pages, a CV is more detailed and can stretch well beyond two pages.
We are going to focus on resume in this post, since it’s more commonly used for auditions.
RESUME CHECKLIST – 8 EASY STEPS
Keep in mind your agent sometimes have a preferred template already made up. If this is the case, use that for your resume.
1. STRUCTURE:
Put your name on top, then your contact details or your agent’s details if you have one (which I highly recommend, but that’s a blog post for a different day) your physical attributes, such as height, hair and eye colour. Then list you experience and training in your preferred order, but divide in up in sections, such as theatre, film, TVC’s, musicals, acting training, singing training, etc. Lastly list your skills if they are relevant to the role you’re going for.
2. 1-2 PAGES:
Keep your resume to 1-2 pages. The casting agent or director might specify the preferred length of the resume, be prepared to be able to fit it all on one page if asked. This means you can’t make it too wordy, keep the information as clear and concise as possible, unless something is highly relevant to the role you’re going for.
3. KEEP IT NEAT:
Due to the amount of resumes casting directors receive, they might have less than a minute to look at each one. It is therefore important your resume is neat, clean and easy to read, otherwise they might not even bother. Use a font such as Times New Roman, Calibri or Ariel between 10 and 12 points. Your name, contact details and section headings can be a little larger and/or bolded.
4. TAILOR YOUR RESUME:
Always list your most relevant information first and make sure this is the case each time you send your resume off. Don’t place you feature film roles on the bottom of your work experience if that’s what you’re auditioning for, list all your accents and place them high up for voice over work, place your voice type amongst your attributes when auditioning for a musical etc.
5. ORDER:
In comparison to a CV, your credits don’t have to be in chronological order. State your biggest, most relevant roles or Production Company first. The casting director might just read a few credits in each section and this will make your credits look more impressive. Leave your least impressive credits out if you tend to have a lot of them or they are not relevant.
6. HEADSHOT:
A headshot can make it or break it. Get it professionally done, otherwise you can get lost amongst all the other resumes. If you go to a photographer you can usually bring a couple of different looks for different types of roles and characters/ personalities. If you decide to do your headshot yourself, you need to have a great camera, good lighting and a plain background. Let someone else take your picture, NO SELFIES. Keep the headshot on a separate piece of paper, that way you can still use it if you update any information on your resume.
7. SECOND OPINION:
Always get a second opinion on your resume before you finalize it, preferably by someone in the arts, in order to avoid typos you’ve missed or irrelevant information.
8. KEEP IT UP TO DATE:
You should customize your resume to every new or job you apply for; go over your structure, order, contact info and make sure your headshot is current. Change it immediately if you do a dramatic hair cut or colour, same goes for beards. The casting director doesn’t want you to look different from what they remembered from the headshot.
Your aim is to provide the casting directors with the clearest resume they’ll receive. It will be appreciated and they might look a little extra at your resume for that simple reason.
Happy writing and good luck!
Julia Landberg
Acting Performance Studio