Opportunities Exist

Gigs are harder to come by. The lazy are finding it the hardest, but for those with the two necessary ingredients, gigs are still being found and career advancements are still being made - even in these challenging times.

Those two ingredients are as follows:

#1. Talent
#2. Ambition

(A little luck helps too)

If you're just reading the jobs sites and sending out your CD & R: Congratulations! You've screwed yourself over by limiting yourself to 10% of the available jobs (probably less). Why wait for CC or Infinity to screw you over when you can do it yourself, right? Well, that's what you're doing when you rely on want-ads as your source of future employment.

I've said this before, and yet time and time again it is the exact same people (go figure) who don't seem to understand:

Radio is a business of people. It's people entertaining and informing people. Much like building a successful sports team, building a successful radio team involves scouting around for talent. But as PD's become more and more overwhelmed by the additional duties constantly being lumped into their job description, they have less and less time to seek out talent. So seek them out instead! Don't try to get a job from them. Instead, seek out PD's to use as potential talent scouts. Sure the PD might not have a job today... who cares! He or she may have a great job two years from now and by then you will hopefully have a rapport. In the meantime, that PD might know someone to pass your demo along to.

STRATEGY:

Let's throw away any myth about sending out a tape and landing a gig. Instead, look at finding a job as a minimum of a three month process. Spend a week building the best demo you possibly can and building your actual 'package'. Once you've bought your supplies (a spindle or two of CD's & plenty of bubble-pack envelopes, clamshells - not jewel cases - because they're lighter and sturdier in the mail), the only expense left is postage. Buying the right supplies means that postage should cost under $1 per package. Then build a list of radio stations to send your stuff to. Make it a huge list. Find a hundred stations to mail your package to for one reason or another, in markets of similar size to your own and larger. Don't look for a job. Instead, tell the PD that you are looking for feedback from your peers & people you admire.

Mail 20 tapes a week if you can. Ten a week is a bare minimum. DO NOT COUNT EMAILED PACKAGES AS PACKAGES MAILED! Email is good, but plain old postage is important too.

The point is to get to know people and to let the right people get to know you. If you're green - show them raw potential and a winning can-do spirit. If you're an older jock - show them an understanding of teamwork & team building... show them that you've learned a lot & that you know things are always changing - and you enjoy being part of those changes. Show them that your experience has taught you how to adapt to nearly anything. Show them that you are a winner. Don't focus on the past. Employers want to know what you will be able to do in the future if they hire you.

If you want opportunity to come your way - seek it out! If you don't know how, then seek out people who do.

Opportunities are out there. It's your job to find them. Once you get started thinking this way, the whole process becomes easier. Also, taking the initiative helps your own ego as you feel more in command of your career and your future.

Seriously.

Best of luck!