Task 1A Professional Profile:

Definition of Curriculum Vitae in English: noun: A brief account of a person's education, qualifications, and previous occupations, typically sent with a job application. 

ref: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com

A job, a key attribute in any person's life. It may be a paper round after school, as pocket money for treats with friends on a weekend. A part time job whilst studying at university, to help pay for rent or that train fare home to visit family. Or a full-time job, a career which one works through education from a young age, to finally be at a point in their lives when they are working full time in a job they have always dreamed about. To apply for a job, one needs a CV... where to begin? 

As I go to write about Task 1A: Professional Profile: I type in my documents folder of my laptop "Victoria Fawcett CV" and over 40 drafts of my CV appear before me. Where do I begin. I go to my first ever CV, one I constructed in year 9 at school in PSHE (Personal, Social and Health education) classes. This was my introduction as to what a CV should include and it's importance for future employment. 

Obviously at the age of 13 I had no job experience or even educational achievements to write down, it basically included my name, my address and point of contact and also what I was currently studying approaching to my GCSE's. However, throughout my time at school I did gain a lot of skills which would work towards my career and my CV a lot more than I thought at the time.

From the age of 13, I used to study at school Monday-Friday in Barrow-in-Furness. Attend at a Performing Arts Academy for three hours on a Friday evening studying singing, dancing and acting. Proceeding these lessons I then taught singing lessons to three young girls who also studied at the academy, which was my first ever point of employment, and one I loved doing. Every Saturday I used to travel to Manchester, a 2 hour drive from my home town, to study at the Junior Royal Northern College of Music having two principal studies of Singing and Piano. Finally, one Sunday a month I used to travel the 3 hour drive to Leeds to study as an Associates at a Professional Musical theatre college "Studio la Pointe (SLP)". Looking back on all this experience I gained throughout my extra curricular activities at school, it has given me a huge amount of life experience in the terms of my abilities within the performing arts and also self determination and management of my life.

Whilst in my first year at Italia Conti it occurred to me that I needed a part time job. I was 19 years old, now living in the most expensive city in the world and I needed to pay my way. Which then concluded to me writing my new CV, one that would have all the correct information needed for the skills were needed of the job role. I decided I was going to apply for a job in retail. Once I constructed my basic CV with really very little experience for employment in retail, I walked down the road to my nearest high street in London which happened to be Cheapside in St Paul's and walked into the first shop where I was interested in working, this store was Ted Baker. I walked in and asked if I would be able to speak to a manager, the lady who I was talking to said "You can speak to me if you would like to speak to a manager, how may I help?" I then went to ask if they had any part time job opportunities at the moment to which she replied: "Yes". We then were talking for approximately ten minutes about what I am studying as she had a keen interest in musical theatre herself and me and what skills I had. When our conversation came to a close I asked if she would like to take my CV and she said. I will take it for your file but I don't need to read it, I would like to offer you a job. I was delighted. A young girl with no previous employment history walked into a store I have always loved, spoke to a lady about me and my life and without the form of a CV, just through pure communication skills and my personality and I had a job! In this situation, my CV turned out to be highly unnecessary. My first impressions and interview on the spot earned me my job, but of course not all job applications work this way, especially not in my choice of career to be a professional performer in Musical Theatre. 

What do I do when my first impressions to a potential employer involve a piece of paper with my name at the top of it? How do I stand out from the crowd and prove that they would want to meet me in person?

Throughout my third year at college, we spent a lot of time doing theoretical work and working with our tutors and agent what the best layout for our CV was for potential future agent's and auditions and also our Spotlight profile's which to this day is important for any performer to have in order for casting directors and other professionals within the musical theatre industry to see what your capabilities are and are you right for the job. It is a cut throat industry, if your not right on paper in the first place you won't be seen for an interview or an audition its as simple as that. So where as in my "out of musical theatre work job" my communication skills in person are a real attribute, despite my talent my CV has to be perfect in order to gain interest for casting directors to notice me and want to see me for potential job opportunities. 

So how do I stand out:

1. Layout I feel is very important. Considering a job in Musical Theatre despite being about your performing abilities is also primarily about looks, if you don't fit the description of the job by your look then its immediately an employer will not consider you for the job. I feel a photograph/ headshot must be at the top of the page so the casting director is familiar with your physical attributes and whether your look is the right one for the job.

2. Moving along with layout next to your photo it is important to have your name, your playing age (as you may be able to play much younger or much older than you look), your height (also important for example if auditioning for a cruise, they may want all dancers to be above 5Ft 7), your nationality, Hair colour and length, Eye colour and also for me (primarily wanting work as a singer) my vocal range. Also where you have trained and finally point of contact whether that to be to you personally or to your agent.

3. The next section can be debatable in terms of whether to discuss your skills or your credits. Your skills will obviously show to your employer whether you have the essential technical attributes for the job and if you are worth being considered for an audition. However, this could also be identified by previous credits you may have worked in. For example: it may be you have played a part in a show very similar to the one you are auditioning for and immediately the casting director has an idea of your performance abilities. For me I have opted to put skills first as I believe I have gained more skills throughout my training which are worth considering before my credits.

4. Finally, as stated above my Cv ends with credits of everything I have achieved and performed in throughout my professional career. 

Over the last year my professional career has taken a holt due to family health issues which have alternatively led me to take a step back in my career. I understand that my CV as it stands now is very basic but I believe it meets the criteria needed of a job at the moment. Throughout the duration of this course I hope to be able to create a successful online profile of myself including a new Spotlight page which will include video and voice links of my song and dance abilities and also explore sites such as youtube to further document my talents in order to portray across to a potential employer that my talents aren't just written on paper. 

There are so many ways advertise oneself through the use of social media and the internet and I believe this is something I can achieve throughout this course to bring myself back up to where I should be in the musical theatre industry and gain employment in a job I have always dreamed of. 

Please find my CV attached below, any thoughts on comments of ways I can improve my CV would be much appreciated.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B68l9Hl_zCMceFBsMnJ1Y19ralU/view?usp=sharing