A Practical Guide to Starting a Career in Technical Theatre: Section 3

The Marketing Toolkit

To successfully compete in today's job market, you must be able to sell yourself. Doing that effectively requires a focused marketing and advertising campaign – one that starts with the components of your Marketing Toolkit, the materials that represent you both when you’re present and when you’re not.

Components

Designed to help you compete in modern job searches, the Marketing Toolkit generally consists of nine key components:

• Résumé: Often considered the primary document that speaks on your behalf. It communicates your experience, knowledge, educational background, contact info, and skills, along with the professionals who can vouch for you. It also demonstrates your graphic layout abilities and your attention to detail.
• Business Card: In many casual or chance meetings, this becomes the primary item shared with a potential client or employer. In brief encounters where a résumé would feel too aggressive, the business card provides essential contact information for future communication.
• Cover Letter: Often viewed as equally important as – if not more important than – the résumé. In many cases, it's the first document a potential employer reads before deciding whether to read your résumé at all. Although it’s supposed to appear simple and natural, a strong cover letter requires careful thought and construction. A poorly executed one can signal that you aren't up to the task, and your résumé may never get a second glance.
• Portfolio: For designers or skilled craftspeople, a hard-copy compilation of your best work, showcasing your skills, versatility, and aesthetic. It's where you "put your money where your mouth is," presenting the strongest possible version of your capabilities. If your portfolio is displayed on walls or tables among your peers, its layout and appearance are adapted into a display portfolio.
• Stage Management Production Book: For stage managers, the official archive record of a production, documenting its final onstage state. The heart of the book details the cues and blocking relative to the script or score, along with contacts, schedules, meeting reports, technical drawings, and departmental data. Its purpose is to provide the roadmap to accurately recreate and run the production.
• Interview Outfit: Targeted specifically for in-person or zoom interviews, this is your personal version of "dressing for success." It is the costume – and overall appearance – you select to project the image appropriate for the job at hand.
• Biography: The short, third-person summary representing you in the "Who's Who" section of programs and playbills. As a professional condensation of your experience, it's part of your publicity package and helps establish your brand.
• Photo: Usually two images; the résumé photo that includes the head and torso, while the headshot is a tighter é cropped upper chest photo, commonly reduced to a thumbnail alongside your biography in programs or playbills.
• Digital Presence: The collection of digital platforms and channels you utilize to define your online identity, including Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn, for example. This includes a digital version of your portfolio – an e-portfolio – formatted for viewing on electronic devices. This may expand to a website that repackages the materials of your portfolio. For informal settings, many people curate selected images into albums on a smartphone or tablet, swiping through highlights while providing their own narration.

With your Marketing Toolkit assembled, you'll have all the components necessary to take on the next step; finding a new base of operations that will be best suited to your skills and goals, in order to set up shop and start looking for a job.