Either we’ve been guilty of doing at least one of these things or we see a lot of people do these things on their resumes and laugh. Feel free to add more.
- Putting your address on it.
- Listing your home phone number
- Listing Non Union under your name. It’s a waste of ink! It’s assumed you’re non union if you have no unions listed.
- Listing extra work and saying you’re “featured”.
- Saying it’s a student film. Why list yourself as a minor league player? Your goal is to play the major leagues. Film is film as long as you get good footage. If it’s not a studio production, it’s INDIE!
- Leaving your old agency logo on and crossing it out.
- Saying you’re Fi Core. Though it is a legal right recognized by the US Supreme Court, it has a stigma. If you’re going for SAG, your resume says SAG. If you’re going for non union, it says SAG Eligible.
- Listing one day Scientology/sell-a-thon/free seminars as training. I HAVE seen people list these.
- Listing casting director workshops as training. Killian, Chris Game, and Megan Foley are a few exceptions for they actually teach classes on commercial technique.
- Just because you can imitate Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins does NOT qualify you to list English accent.
- Putting dates, years, age. DON’T put anything that might age you.
- Listing an age range. It’s the CDs who ultimately determine that, NOT you!
- Listing commercials and print work. Say you did a Pepsi commercial YEARS ago with the conflict long expired and you audition for a Coke commercial. CDs can be like kids and go “eww…he did a Pepsi commercial so let’s not call him in.”
