After posting a job in Stage 32’s job section, and being on the hiring side of things, I’ve learned what helps to get you hired, and what doesn’t. I realized they could also be career makers or breakers.

You are the Destination!

Let’s flex those acting muscles and act like you want to book a holiday. You’ve got exotic music on, a daiquiri in hand, and are surfing the net for a tempting destination. You open the first website. The written information on the home page of Hula Travels appeals to you. Stating they can book every type of holiday to every destination. It comes across as very convincing. You scroll down looking for pictures of destinations until you realize there aren’t any. So what do you do? Next website right? Well, that is why it is so important to have a profile picture. And by that, I mean not one of your cute dog wearing a tea cozy on its head, but one of you. You are the destination that needs to get booked.

On that note, having a profile picture but no bio is just as ineffective.

From Hawaii to Brasil

It is four minutes later. You have fetched another cocktail from the kitchen. After sighing away your annoyance you decide to start afresh. It just wasn’t meant to be. Yes, that’s it. With renewed enthusiasm, you dive back into the world of traveling. Within no time you have found a site with colorful, enticing pictures of exotic Hawaii. They lure you in and have you picturing yourself in a hammock on Kauai beach. That first crappy site was meant to be a dud, you think. Because this is what I truly want. A click on the menu bar and….hang on.. where is the contact icon? Am I looking in the wrong place? You try different icons and search the entire site until you realize there is no contact information. your cocktail glass shatters against your wall, along with your Hawaiian dream.

If you have a profile on Stage 32 or a website then add a way for possible employers to contact you. Because Hawaii can be easily replaced by Brasil which is also a very charming destination.

Don’t Put Yourself on Standby

After two disappointments you’ve given up on booking a trip altogether. Adventure calls! You’ve put yourself on standby for a flight to Hawaii. The lady on the phone was very hopeful about seats becoming available since several very pregnant ladies had booked flights. You wait and wait but on the day of the flight you still haven’t heard back. Your heart breaks a little. you were so looking forward to it. When you want to call a friend for some support you realize that you had turned your phone off yesterday evening in the cinema. When you turn it on you’ve got missed calls. There were available seats but now it is too late to get to the airport in time.

If you don’t have a website with contact information but just a Stage 32 profile I urge you to turn on your email notifications. I have had people apply to my job post who didn’t. After a week of trying to reach them, I had to send them another message stating that they would be replaced.

Other actors who I had reached out to, for a part, only responded when the job was finished. Because they just happened to be on the website at that time.

You can miss out on opportunities simply because your email notifications were not turned on. Also, if you know a new person, with a new email address, will be contacting you. Enter it into your email address book so it doesn’t go straight to the spam box.

Don’t Write your Own Bad Advertisement

Well, you’ve struck out again on going to Hawaii. It is back to the drawing board. With coffee in hand, you get back behind the laptop. Within minutes, you find an enticing new travel agency. It has nice pictures, information, and a way to contact them. But it is Saturday evening so calling is out of the question. You email them, explaining what you want.

Come Monday morning you see you’ve got mail! You open it and read. “We don’t offer that”. You are dumbfounded. You were about to spend thousands of dollars and this is their reply? You would never think of booking anything with them again, would you? That is why how you communicate is so important. Don’t email like you’re texting a friend. Bad etiquette is bad advertising for you.

Save Yourself from Hassle 

You are in Hawaii at last. It has all worked out. What a relief. Your paid all-in stress-free holiday is beginning. You step into the lobby of the Aloha hotel, ready to get the key to your sea view suite. The check-in lady smiles and asks you how you will be paying for the suite. You smile saying it has already been paid for. But after a discussion, and a call to the travel agency, you learn that you’d neglected to read the fine print on the site. The price of the room is excluded from the so-called all-in. So, now you either take the suite for a thousand dollars more or get a downgraded room with shared toilet facilities and no view. Since you can’t afford the suite you’re forced to go with the second option. If only you had read everything properly.

Reading…it sounds easy enough but a lot of people neglect to do it. Don’t apply for a job without reading its specifications. Or signing a contract for that matter.

Don’t Delay your Own Take Off

After all your Hawaii holiday trouble you are back home. Instead of being rested, you’re pooped and sick. All thanks to your downgraded room which was near a construction site that supplied a cacophony of irritations during the day. At night you were kept up by enthusiastic neighbors on their honeymoon. The extra expenses you had to make meant you had to forgo the costly hotel food. So, you brought cheap food from street vendors and caught a bug.

The acting job you’ve got lined up in two days could be physically possible if you rested until then, but there is no money left to travel there. You send them an email, with all the proper niceties and etiquette, in which you inform them that you can’t make it. Still, you have messed up any chance of ever working for them again. Why? Because you did so without providing them with an explanation. They might have found a way around your problem. Maybe a crew member or another actor, living nearby, could have given you a ride. Anything might have been possible. But by you not giving an explanation for the cancelation you will have made sure that a takeoff with this company will be delayed indefinitely.

One Last Thing to Check

Okay and end scene. Let’s stop the acting now and looks at your real life. Your life online. If you have publicly accessible social media accounts it is worth thinking about what you post. Do you upload both private and professional pictures/videos to the same account? Is everything suitable for a future employer’s eyes? What kind of impression does your Instagram feed send out? If you have any doubts about the content, then it would be wise to consider making your present account private and creating a professional account.

Well, that is all my friends. Have a wonderful take off!

Greetings, Mack