Please please please do not Resume bomb... Be specific and apply where you CAN go, or where you want to go. Every
cover letter should be unique. If you
send me a generic
cover letter it'll be lucky to get a read.
I got my start in NYC through a contact who I kept in touch with for a few years and he said
call me when you get to town... I moved in on a Tuesday, called on Wednesday, Interviewed Thursday, went to work full time the next Monday.....
You don't necessarily need to apply for a job today, but you can make contacts without applying. Reach out and introduce yourself, make a
point to visit them, talk about future positions or opportunities. Step a
foot in the door not in the mailbox...
When you have a definitive start date and a location and resources to relocate if necessary you can start to
play the game a little more aggressively.
This post has several great points to think about, some which I agree with, some which I don't, but all worthy of mulling over.
I totally did a resume bomb when I first moved to the area. Googled "
theatre near me", sent a resume to everything that returned a result. (Though, as MRW points out, a more prudent move would have been to
send each with a unique
cover letter instead of just changing the name at the top. Not only does this broadcast a
level of care and thought, but if I'd taken 5 minutes to research each group enough to develop a unique
cover letter I would have realized that several of the places I was sending resumes to were 100% volunteer
theatre with no paid staff. Oops.) And though most of it turned out to be a waste of my time because I was sending my resume to organizations that weren't (or wouldn't ever be) hiring, it did lead to landing a full time roadhouse job for the next decade, and it certainly didn't hurt me at all. (In fact, the chair I'm sitting in right at this moment was one of the victims of my resume bomb, and an (at the time) grossly under-qualified resume at that. Clearly didn't hurt me any a decade later.) So while it might not be a great
ROI on your time, and certainly less effective than MRW's fantastic idea of directly reaching out, my personal experience says that it doesn't hurt. Individual results may vary.
However, I will also draw attention to the second
point above: that this industry is all about contacts. I personally have never set (digital)
foot on Linkedin, but I can draw you a web of nearly every job I've ever gotten from one contact to another. People like to work with people they know, and being in good standing in the industry will (inmho) get you 100x farther than your resume or degree ever will. Which is, again, why you should start gigging. Now. Yesterday. Don't worry if it's in the sector of the industry you intend to land in or not, they're all connected. (Don't believe me? My gig in a roadhouse helped me land a job offer as a lighting
system installer. It's a smaaaaall industry.) Just work.
Final thought, definitely think about reaching out as MRW suggested ESPECIALLY if you're interested in the shop/install world. Though it's still connected to the industry, the skills needed for that world can be farther flung from what you're learning in college (if you were in high school, I'd tell you to go get your electrical engineering degree and involve yourself in student
theatre, but hindsight's 20-20) and they can help guide you towards any additional training you may need to pursuit. Or put you to work tomorrow, either one. I would also put getting your
ETCP cert in your future game plan; individual areas may vary, but it can have stronger weight in the install world than a degree.
