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How To Guides

by Brian Attwood and John Byrne

Brian Attwood is Editor of The Stage Newspaper.

John Byrne is a showbusiness life coach, the author of several bestselling career guides for performers and writers and a regular broadcaster on TV and radio.

Starting from scratch

The first thing you need to grasp is that potential employers tend to regard your CV as a tool to make their life easier, not yours. The fastest way to reduce 100 applicants to a shortlist of ten potentially very good interviewees is to get them to put in writing why they deserve the job.

Understanding these two facts should give you your general guidelines for putting your CV together: firstly, do everything you possibly can to make your CV easily understandable. This applies both to form (no coloured papers and fancy typefaces, and never ever hand write even if you are a trained calligrapher) and content (don't just tell them what you've done, tell them why what you've done before can help solve their problems and fulfill their needs right now).

Whatever your experience and whatever the work, the golden rules for translating these general guidelines into a winning CV remain the same.

Keep it brief, keep it relevant, keep it simple.

1) Keep it brief

Two pages plus a covering letter is usually sufficient. You have a couple of minutes at most to make an impact on the reader and if you can't do it in two pages, another ten won't help you. If you have more information than will fit in the space available - congratulations. Cutting the excess out till it does fit will immediately improve your chances.

2) Keep it relevant

Leave your cover letter until last - you'll use it to point out the stuff you particularly want potential employers to note on your CV and you can't do that until you have your CV written.

Begin your CV with the basic information (name, date of birth, contact address, telephone number). If you want to include school qualifications at this stage, be brief and remember, nobody except your parents cares which primary school you attended a decade ago. Next, deal with your vocational training - which drama school you attended (if you've reached this stage), which courses you studied, plus what skills you have acquired. As a rule of thumb don't put down skills you don't actually have to a decent standard. Morality aside, you will almost certainly be found out.

Get to your work experience as soon as possible. Start at the present day and work backwards. After all, if you are applying for the post of front of house manager, your work in theatre administration last year is going to count for more than your first Saturday job in 1992.

Think of the CV reader like the TV viewer with finger poised on the remote control. You have no guarantee they are going to read to the end of your CV so you need to grab them with your strongest selling points up front.

Since those selling points can differ depending on what job you are going for, you must be prepared to adapt your material for each application. Keep a basic CV on your computer and save a new version for each new job application. Remember to label them, so you can print a copy out for yourself so you know what you've said for each job! The first job you mention must be clearly relevant to the one you are seeking, so you need to outline the similarities between the two and not leave the task to your potential employer. In fact at no point in your CV should the reader have to wonder why you are telling them something - it is always up to you to make the connection clear. Ignoring this point has brought many CV and interview attempts crashing down in flames.

In addition to listing what was involved in each post, you also need to make it clear how you personally made a difference in the job. If you were responsible for your theatre group or entertainment agency branching out into new areas, say so. Be particularly alert for chances to mention achievements that your current employer might also be looking for. Again, tell the truth - they may check references.

Actors face a particular problem with their shorter periods of employment. This can leave applications looking like little more than extended lists, in which performing work is interspersed with seemingly irrelevant jobs which merit only a single line. If that is the case, then organise the CV in themes. For example, group together your performing work, other work in the industry like theatre admin or entertainment agency, then those jobs which obviously draw on your experience as an artist such as demonstrating or telesales.

Even if your only performing jobs have been in college or amateur performances, treat them with pride and respect. Set out the character name - even if you played "third passenger" you gave him or her a name in your head, didn't you? - the production name and the director, even if it was your college tutor. Even the greats started somewhere, and it's always possible that a particular role you have played on or off stage at whatever level may be relevant to the job you are looking for now.

Then you should include a separate section on any skills not previously mentioned, such as horse riding, HGV licence and so on. Also include a shortlist of your interests to demonstrate in a few lines that you have a life and a personality. Lastly, you need the names of two people who can provide a reliable reference, preferably ex-employers or if you are younger, teachers.

Let's just remind you of that instruction to adapt your basic CV to every application. If you're applying for a performing job the order above should work, but if you happen to be applying for a telesales job to tide you over a rest period, your non-acting jobs may well be more important and should come first. We're not suggesting you disguise the fact that your main interest is performing - after all, you'll be wanting time off to audition - but it's back to that basic guideline: CVs are for information of interest to the employer, not to your biographer.

3) Keep it simple

Plain English works best every time. Long-winded jargon suggests you have something to hide. Always get someone else to proof read your CV for mistakes and don't rely on spellcheckers which use American rather than British spellings. Ask your guinea pig to give you the impression they would have formed of you purely from the CV and be prepared to tweak if it's not the impression you wanted to give. Remember it's your job to communicate, not theirs to understand.

Take the same approach with the layout. Use one font (Times is particularly good), don't underline every second word and keep italics and quote marks to a minimum or you will distract the reader.

4) The cover letter

Often CVs include so-called personality profiles written in the third person ("Johnnie Walker is a highly intelligent, motivated self-starter and natural leader"). Don't do this - it can irritate as much as help. Two good and reasonably objective referees provide the best endorsement, together with a good cover letter.

If you know the title of the person who will read your application, don't refer to them as "Dear Sir/Madam". That suggests you can't be bothered to find out who you should be addressing. And always use surnames, not first names. Explain why you want that particular job and why you are the ideal candidate. Again, brevity is the watchword. State your case in no more than a few short paragraphs on one sheet of paper. If there is anything particularly relevant on your CV refer to it in the letter, but in just a line or two, and only your main selling point. Treat the letter like a script and cut out the repetition.

Lastly, having produced your killer CV, don't kill your chances by shoving it in any old envelope. Make sure it arrives looking good. If you are emailing it, check that this is allowed first of all, you don't want to have it deleted as a virus. Make sure the file format you use is easy to open. It is a good idea to email a copy to yourself to make sure it opens properly before sending it into cyberspace.

Of course, a good application does not ensure you an interview or audition, let alone the job itself. However, it does boost your chances considerably of getting that face to face encounter and leaving 90% of the competition behind.