As you finish your aria, the masterclass teacher begins: “Good, thank you very much. Now, I’m curious: what are you trying to say with this piece? What are you trying to express? What should we be thinking, what should we be feeling? What is the point?”
After the teacher rakes you over the coals with this breathless stream of near-rhetorical questions, (facing out to the audience of your peers, of course) and through your hesitant responses, they finally gain some minimal threshold of satisfaction, they waste no time in transitioning you back to “sing it again, this time with that in mind.” In that quick moment, they want you to hold on to the core meaning, not losing any sense of its vitality and importance as you try to layer music on top.
All of a sudden, it works! The piano somehow sounds warmer around you, the ground feels solid beneath you, the teacher nods along, and your voice soars. Afterwards, your friends comment that they’ve never heard you sound (so) good before.
Ah, masterclasses.
Picture Your Resume on Display
What would it be like to step on stage, hand me a flash drive with your resume PDF, and watch as we project the image big on the wall in front of your peers? What would it say? What would you be feeling? What should we feel?
I often receive questions about how to convey some past experience line item with extreme precision and accuracy. The singer asks me with fear and trepidation how they can best represent some minutia, possibly using a footnote or three.
The singer explains that they only performed the first Act of the show, and all of the recits. were cut and it wasn’t in German, and it was an outreach production with a reduced orchestra, and they didn’t sing all of the performances …
And yet this same resume will receive about 3 seconds of attention from a director who is busy slurping down chow mien noodles sifting through piles.
Paradigm Shift: Resume as Marketing
I typically respond to these types of questions affirming that a resume should of course be truthful, very truthful. And without sacrificing any shred truth, this singer needs to embrace a paradigm shift.
Resumes are for marketing, not for bookkeeping. Resumes are more like billboards, less like tax returns.
Formatting Speaks Loudest
Above all, your resume should say that you know how to convey information concisely and clearly, without major errors and blemishes. And beholding your resume should be a pleasant experience. Resumes should look good.
Your name should be big, like an advertisement. Your photo should be zoomed in and cropped. Your text should align, your years right-justified. (Read more formatting tips here: http://www.velvetsinger.com/resumes/.)
Sure the facts matter; all of those line items, word choices and fonts complete the picture and help reflect your unique talent, artistry and experience level. But don’t sacrifice the basic formatting, the overall look and feel, that can truly make your resume sing!
Now do it again, this time with that in mind…
Written by Bill Bennett, founder of Velvet Singer. He sings regularly with the choruses of the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Chicago Symphony. You can contact Bill at bill@velvetsinger.com.
