BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Flautist Jacquie Liversidge graduated from her music degree in 2013. She’d performed in flute ensembles, featured on multiple instruments in the 2012 album Tasman, and even premiered a number of works by Tasmanian composers.
But the skills she acquired through her University of Tasmania music training, and her broader experience in the performing arts, didn’t hold her back from testing the waters of other industries.
In 2016, Jacquie decided to change her career path, building on her existing skillset to launch her own business in an entirely different field.
Now, Jacquie helps people get jobs through her business The Resume Writers. From her Salamanca studio, this musician-turned-careers-expert works with clients across Australia to strengthen their resumes, and empower them to aim for their dream career goals.
So it only makes sense that, with her own background in music, Jacquie would know a thing or two about how you can write a winning resume — one which could appeal to employers inside the arts industry.
We asked Jacquie to spill all her secrets about resume writing, so you can think about how to communicate your own music and arts skills. Read on to learn how you can apply for that full-time job in arts admin, project job as a curator, or other position you’ve had your eye on (but haven’t yet been confident enough to apply for).
Jacquie, tell us a bit about what you do.
I run The Resume Writers, which offers resumes, cover letter and selection criteria services to clients of all backgrounds, ages, and levels of experience. This can be anything from graduates struggling to make sense of their undergraduate and post-graduate degree for challenging graduate program application requirements, through to government programs and even some of the more forward-thinking high school leavers. I would never have thought of engaging a service to help in my career when I was 18, so these young people really inspire me with their dedication to their own professional development.
As a former classical musician, I find the analytical approach and the communication strategies I employ to be so related to the interpretation of a piece of music: objectively, to do a great job of assessing someone’s resume in line with the goal of their career, you analyse the content they have constructed, the content that they need, and identify the opportunities in between. Then, it’s about weaving together something which fully encapsulates them.
For me, these transferrable skills that I learnt from music have been part of a very valuable toolkit which has propped up my career.
You must see so many resumes each week. What have you found are some of the most common mistakes in resume writing?
Each week, I would see anywhere between 30-80 resumes, often in the form of people wanting a quote [for my services to bring it up to the appropriate standard]. In every resume, I can see the lack of objectivity. Similarly to when we ask someone to listen in on our pieces for some objective criticism and feedback, it is really easy to see where a lack of objectivity is holding back a resume.
With people re-entering the work force – particularly mothers, or students new to the workforce – almost every single resume fails to fully demonstrate their value in the context of their goals. You studied music performance? Teamwork, collaboration, analysis and interpretation, time management, conflict resolution, scheduling, logistics management, asset management (your instrument!), quoting, and financial management are skills that you have developed – to name a few. You’re a composer and you’ve had a piece played? You likely had to influence the group playing for some money; or, in the student environment, like no money. That’s no small feat.
I think we all devalue ourselves because we reflect on our experiences with no objectivity. Perhaps an ensemble went really badly one time, and you don’t feel confident in your collaborative ability. It doesn’t mean you can’t do it. And you still need to be able to sell these aspects of your skill set in your resume.
Largely in terms of formatting of resumes, there are always opportunities to better leverage the white space of a document and utilise the first page to maximise impact. The digitisation of hiring practices has really influenced what constitutes a successful application, because employers receive hundreds of irrelevant applications – and in a matter of seconds, you need to get your point across.
What is some of the specific advice you offer to your clients who want to secure a job in the arts industry, compared to other industries?
Specifically, with regard to the arts, immediately, you know you are coming up against a lot of competition for these coveted roles.
First thing – call the employer! I know this sounds a bit old school, but before you even embark on the application, call the contact officer or the organisation – unless it says not to – and say that you are interested in the role. With so many applications coming in for the role, you can make yourself known, and build a bit of rapport with the contact officer, just by having a chat.
You could ask them some of these questions:
- My background and experience is in ____. What does your ideal candidate look like?
- What are you looking for from the application?
- I’ve looked on [the organisation’s] website, Instagram and Facebook, and it looks like an exciting time to be coming on board. What are the main challenges of [the organisation] at the moment?
- How has the role emerged or evolved?
- How does this role offer value to [the organisation]?
How do these ideas then translate into the resume writing process?
From the actual written perspective of the application, the advice I offer is to build something called a summary of qualifications, which is six to seven points that encapsulate your best value propositions. It’s not, as it sounds, a summary of your education.
As an example: You are a guitarist, and there’s a casual social media role available with the local arts centre. This would be your qualifications summary:
- Guitarist with 10+ years performance experience across Australia.
- Skilled communicator: leverages creativity and a high level of analytical capability in producing engaging content for socials, web, and marketing collateral.
- Customer-centric: adopts a person-centred attitude to service, builds relationships with customers, and addresses the needs of the audience.
- Stakeholder engagement: builds and leverages relationships with stakeholders for mutual benefit.
- Administration: experienced in complex logistics management, coordination of musicians and scheduling for short- and long-term projects.
You would put this at the top of your resume. These are what offer value in the context of the role, and this specific section will control how the rest of the content within your resume is interpreted by the reader.
Outside of resumes, it’s important to really market yourself. And the internet provides so many avenues for this. For your performance work, build a website, and get someone else to write your biography. Start a performance Instagram page or a Facebook page, and post engaging content. This within itself is such a valuable toolkit of skills which you can offer in your resume, for other roles, too.
However, this advice relates largely to the administrative and back-end roles of the arts industry. For the performance roles, it is still very much a business of who you know.
Arts organisations are often values-based or have strong missions in their practice. Does this hint at the need to create a more personal series of responses in the cover letter or body of the resume, which can reveal the way the candidate embodies these values?
Absolutely. It is increasingly important to organisations across the board to hire those with similar values. For each role – arts or outside of the arts – I tell clients to go to the organisation’s website and find out what the underpinning values are, the mission statement, and whether there are any goals; or, for bigger organisations, a strategic plan [publicly available that may help] to guide your application.
You need to offer your value in the context of the role, and by offering personal stories and really being able to demonstrate how your approach aligns with their mission and values, you can essentially position yourself as the answer to their question.
Many emerging musicians will have plenty of practical experience, through their time giving performances, but not always a great deal of formal employment experience in other areas off the stage. And this harks back to the old careers conundrum: “You have to have experience to get experience!” How can young people best showcase themselves, if they’re worried their resumes are looking bare on the employment front?
In this instance, I would think carefully about the structure of the resume. You might still opt for a professional experience section – but instead of jobs, list all of your performances.
You might build a skills summary, as above, utilising the skills you have used in self-managing your own career. But as I mentioned above, market yourself. Having a strong online presence can really bolster a resume that is lacklustre for experience.
When I’m thinking about hiring anyone [for The Resume Writers], I put on my FBI hat and head to Google to find out what they contributed to their primary school newsletter in 2002. And every single employer does the same thing. If my interest is piqued by a strong application, I head to Google, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or a personal website. And if I’m impressed, then I know you can impress my clients too, and I want to hire you.
Bringing it back to what it’s all about is important — what value do you offer in the context of the employer’s needs?
How can musicians find deeper value in their practical skills, and communicate this as a way to find a job in the industry that doesn’t use their instrument?
You need to identify the transferrable aspects of your technical and practical skills. The ability to interpret a musical piece is transferrable to the ability to interpret something else. The ability to communicate a musical piece is transferrable to the ability to communicate something else of complexity. If you can do it once for one thing, you can do it again for something else. A self-reflective and analytical practice to your own effectiveness as a musician is a self-reflective approach to something else.
A good way to think about all the skills you use, if you are having trouble identifying them, might be to go to your music stand right now and pick up your instrument. You open a piece of music, and what are your actions? What guides your practice? When you make a mistake, what do you do? How do you structure your practice? Then think about another environment. You sit down at a computer in an office, and what do you do?
A lot of these things meet in the middle most of the time, but you need to [explain to the] employer how and where they meet. Otherwise, they don’t know.
An employer will pick a good personality with a teachable, even if not fully developed, skillset, over a bad personality with a good skillset. Be the good!
What are some of your final top tips for the construction of the resume itself?
Get to the point, identify your transferrable skills, control the narrative, and think about your value. The formatting of the document is not critical — but get to the point, and be creative about it.
Get someone else to look at your resume, because objectivity is important for everything.
Any parting words for musicians who want to land that dream job in the arts?
Value, value, value!
It’s all about money. The opportunity has come about because of funding, or commercial success. How are you going to get the organisation bang for buck and contribute to their success?
That’s the question you need to ask yourself, and the question you need to answer for the employer.
If you’d like to find out more about Jacquie and her writing services, or to get some help applying for your own dream job, you can check out The Resume Writers online for information.
READ NEXT: We need to end the “all or nothing” approach to careers in music
Jacquie’s photo supplied. Laptop photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash.
Disclaimer: The advice in this interview is of a general nature.
