There always seem to be jobs going in that field… I wonder why the attrition rate is so high?
I’m supposedly starting a new contract with the cartoon people this month, but the last nine weeks of inactivity have made me a little cautious when it comes to signing up for things that hinge on so many external factors. Government grants, distribution agreements… if any one of them goes belly-up, then so does my job for the next 12 months. And even if not, presuming all goes well, I still find myself in the same career purgatory after the next series is done. It’s not just the finances either (although that is becoming more and more of a consideration as the weeks drag by), but the self-esteem takes a bit of a knock when you’re not actually really doing anything useful with your days.
Enough.
So I’ve been looking at alternatives – and I have to say that while the allure of the television industry was a very strong one in the mid 90s when I started down that road, it hasn’t left me with a set of skills that is terribly portable to other fields.
Actually scratch that – it has left me with a surfeit of useful skills, but very little in terms of being able to prove them. I’m worried that prospective employers are going to be inclined to exclaim “camera, sound, editing, graphics, yes yes that’s very nice. But where’s your degree and your minimum 5 years of demonstrated experience in marsupial husbandry and what not?”
Which I sort of kind of don’t have. Well, I have 83% of a degree, which is not quite the same.
It’s helped my crafty resume-writing no end. I almost said “creative resume writing”, but the thing is, I’m not being in any way misleading. I’m not applying for anything that I don’t honestly believe I could do very well, it’s just that it’s a challenge making a case that I can do “X” when my practical experience is in “Y”, which while sharing a lot of pre-requisites with “X”, is not, in fact “X”.
It’s almost tempting to point to the application itself as an example of demonstrated skill. Marvel at the deftness with which I distract from my shortcomings and exaggerate my abilities!
But perhaps that’s a little too forthright.
