Author Topic: ARTICLE: Stupid Things to Put in Your Cover Letter  (Read 3853 times)

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MatthewShiner

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ARTICLE: Stupid Things to Put in Your Cover Letter
« on: Jul 14, 2011, 12:34 pm »
Again, more geared to hard core business, but a couple of good thoughts....

http://www.wisebread.com/stupid-things-to-put-in-your-cover-letter
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BLee

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Re: ARTICLE: Stupid Things to Put in Your Cover Letter
« Reply #1 on: Jul 14, 2011, 05:10 pm »
I really like that last section discussing the "career change". We often discuss as stage managers how well our job skills transfer to various other fields and this article points out how important it is to know how to market ourselves when our resumes may not immediately scream "I'm right for this non-SM job!".

Case in point: I'm currently trying to broaden my career choices by exploring the field of broadcasting and am soon applying for an internship. Although there is a "stage manager" position at many local news stations, it is hard to find the words to prove that being a stage manager for live theatre directly relates to success at directing the local news program, especially when you don't have the journalism, broadcasting or communications degrees traditionally expected. (And any advice on that topic in my mailbox would be greatly appreciated!)
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Joshua S.

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Re: ARTICLE: Stupid Things to Put in Your Cover Letter
« Reply #2 on: Jul 14, 2011, 05:31 pm »
Case in point: I'm currently trying to broaden my career choices by exploring the field of broadcasting and am soon applying for an internship. Although there is a "stage manager" position at many local news stations, it is hard to find the words to prove that being a stage manager for live theatre directly relates to success at directing the local news program, especially when you don't have the journalism, broadcasting or communications degrees traditionally expected.

Hopefully someone in charge of hiring will be at least somewhat familiar with live theatre and the vital importance of the stage managers work.   When I interviewed for my current "real world" job I found it very difficult to try to explain what a stage manager does, why it's important, and how those skills transfer over to "real world" jobs to the manager who had no interest or knowledge of theatre.