employment advice<\/a>” and hope they’ve learned something and put it in practice.\u00a0 I really like my original list of ten pieces of sage advice, but I’ve now added another ten.\u00a0 These are great tips for those getting their first job and for the rest of us they should be common practice.\u00a0 If not, there’s still time to change!\u00a0 Here they are:<\/p>\n10.\u00a0 Be on time. If you can’t be on time, then be early.\u00a0 It’s disrespectful, arrogant and unacceptable to keep other people waiting on you – even if you’re the big boss man.<\/p>\n
9.\u00a0 Check your work, then recheck it.\u00a0 If you’re writing, use the spell checker and grammar checker.\u00a0 If you’re shooting, check the recording before you walk away.\u00a0 It’s always harder and more expensive to redo something – and you may not be the one offered the chance to fix your work.<\/p>\n
8.\u00a0 Learn all you can before you think of leaving.\u00a0 Jobs are hard to find. Good jobs are extremely rare. If you’ve been given the opportunity to work under someone who knows what they’re doing, then soak up all the knowledge, contacts and good habits you can.\u00a0 Don’t leave them immediately after they’ve invested in you the skills to make you useful.\u00a0 Be patient.<\/p>\n
7.\u00a0 You are not the world’s foremost expert on anything.\u00a0 Be humble.\u00a0 Just because you know the keyboard shortcuts on After Effects doesn’t mean you know more than the old guy who does it the slow way, but has been animating for years and knows his craft.\u00a0 There’s an arrogance that exudes from many college kids and new hires that really ticks off those of us who now regret hiring you.<\/p>\n
6.\u00a0 Offer to get coffee (or Red Bull or…).\u00a0 You’re expected to do stuff that you think is beneath you. This never, ever ends.\u00a0 Be a servant, happily, but don’t become a slave.\u00a0 If this is your first gig, you’re probably the lowest paid person on the crew, so nobody should expect you to buy the coffee – just do the legwork of getting it and bringing it back hot and as ordered.\u00a0 Then, help unload the trucks… you get the idea.<\/p>\n
5.\u00a0 Shut up.\u00a0 If the old guy is telling a story, don’t try to up the ante by telling your story.\u00a0 If there’s a problem don’t butt in with your solution.\u00a0 You should be close by, ready to work without being asked, happy, and quiet.<\/p>\n
4.\u00a0 Pay attention. Turn off the damn cell phone.\u00a0 Don’t sit on the set and text.\u00a0 This happened yesterday… we were taping a show in the studio and two assistants were sitting in the shadows, constantly texting. They had to be asked for everything.\u00a0 Very tiresome.<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0 Learn as much as you can.\u00a0 Even if you only want to direct, learn signal flow from the engineers.\u00a0 If your career plan is to be in front of the camera and read prompter, make friends with the camera guys and editors and learn what looks good and how to make their lives easier.\u00a0 Trust me, pretty person in front of the camera, pissing off a\u00a0shooter, editor\u00a0or prompter person can make your life hell.<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0 Don’t steal or lie… (or break the other 8 commandments, for that matter).\u00a0 Don’t stick a roll of gaff tape in your bag. Don’t make excuses. You’ll get caught some day. Really, this stuff grows and when you do get caught it won’t be pretty.<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0 Make friends.\u00a0 Your friends and contacts will get you many more opportunities down the road than your reel will get you.\u00a0 I have friends that I’ve helped get jobs that frankly, I wouldn’t hire again, because they just aren’t that good. But, because of our friendship, I helped open doors for them when they asked. People want to be with friends.\u00a0 Have a great attitude, do your very best, follow my two lists of advice, and as you do, make friends, and then work to keep them.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(how’s that for alliteration?!) There have been several times over the course of the summer that interns, students and people going into their first job in the real world of television have asked me for advice – they want to know the secret to becoming needed, liked and successful.\u00a0 Often, I end up telling many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[78,79,80,76,77],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-advice","tag-career","tag-college","tag-employment","tag-jobs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}