Aaron Marcus, an actor with 38+ years of experience, explains five things to never put on your resume: age or age range (it limits casting), your home address (geographic bias and privacy), Social Security numbers (security risk), an unprofessional email, or false credits. Being caught lying damages your reputation.
In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you 5 things you absolutely should never share on your acting resume, because if you do, agents might not take you seriously, casting directors might not want to see your work. Also, if you watch this to the end, I've got a great bonus for you. If you get nervous when working with famous actors, Here are 2 tips that really work. Okay, let's get started. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center, where I share information with you based on my 38+ years working as a full-time actor. And hey, look, if you haven't done this yet, don't forget, click the subscribe button and the notification bell. And if you like the video, give it a thumbs up. That's always helpful. So on your resume, there are 5 things that I've seen people share that it's, it's really not good. And, and I want to share all those with you. Okay, number one, this is a little bit controversial in the sense of I don't do it. Some people do. I don't think it's a good idea. I'll tell you why. Some people like to put an age or an age range because they feel like that will tell casting or an agent, if you're submitting to an agent, exactly how old you are. Here's why I don't do it and why I think it's a bad idea to either list age or age range. People should be bringing you in to read for a role based on the way that you look. If you happen to look Older or younger than your chronological age, that might keep you out. So let other people decide how old they think you are. So I just don't even list age or age range. Here's the one exception to the rule. If you are a minor, absolutely, you need to put a date of birth so that way they know that if you are cast in a project, they're going to need tutors on the set. They will know how many hours a day you can work. They know— they will know how long you can work before a break. So that information is really important. The other time you need to list it is if you are not a minor but you look like one. Let's say you're 22 years old but you look like you can be in high school. Absolutely, you want to list your date of birth. Because people always— productions, they always love hiring people who are not minors who can play minors. They don't have to deal with school. They don't have to deal with tutors. They don't have to deal with child labor laws and things like that. So that is the one exception. Otherwise, never. Number 2, make sure— and once again, I've done a lot of private sessions with people, and one of the things that I'll do, I'll go over their resume. Don't ever list your personal home address on your resume. And there are 2 reasons for that. One is, let's say you live kind of far, you know, it might be out an hour, I don't know, 3 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours drive where this project is happening from your home. And if you have your home address listed, people might think, you know what, they probably aren't going to want to make the trip. So let's just bring in somebody who's local. But if you're willing to make the trip, which is something that I pretty much always do— like, I'm not going to drive to LA for a 1-hour booking for a commercial modeling job or a day player role, but I've driven very long distances. And so I always want to have the option to say yes or no. So I never list it. Here's the other reason. You never know who's going to get their hands on your resume. Look, if it's an agent or casting director, that's fine. But sometimes if you have a hard copy and it gets— you bring it in, you mail it into an agent or casting director, and it gets thrown out. There's some weird people in this world, and you don't want them getting a hold of your headshot where they see your face and they go, oh, that person looks interesting, and then they flip it over and Now they know where you live. You just don't want to give that information out to people who you don't know. Number 3, never, ever, ever list your Social Security number, or if you live in Canada, your SIN number, S-I-N, SIN number, because nobody needs to have that information at this point. Look, there are so many people who get hacked and things like that. Don't give away that information. If you book the job and you're filling out paperwork, yeah, of course you're going to put your Social Security number in. If you're working with an agent, of course you're going to put that information, but don't put it on an acting resume. Number 4, make sure that your email sounds professional. Don't use the same email address that you might have created 10 years ago when you were in middle school or something, and it says, I love Hardly Motorcycles at gmail.com. Make it professional. Try to use your name if you can. Maybe it's already taken, so you can't do that. Maybe you can add in an initial. Maybe you can add in your middle name. I mean, for SAG, I'm listed as Aaron Robert Marcus. So for all of my emails with them, it's always aaron@aaronrobertmarcus.com. And so, you know, just try to have something professional and not something silly that, you know, you might have used a long time ago. And if, and if you do have that, just create a new one. Number 5, and this one is so important, please Don't lie on your resume. And what I mean by lying, sometimes people— I've heard of people actually listing plays that they were never in. As a matter of fact, I had a casting director tell me an actor came in to read, uh, this for a feature film. It just so happens that her husband was the director of a play that was listed on this actor's resume. She knew he was never in the play and he just made it up. He figured, who's really going to know if I was in the play? And you know what? Most of the time people won't. But why? Don't do it. Because if you do get caught, you know, your name will spread around the industry very quickly and it's not good. And there's no reason to lie like that. So actually, she told the actor to leave. And that he would never be invited to read for her again. So don't lie about that. Don't lie about special skills. You know, if you took French for, you know, one semester in college and, you know, now it's 30 years later, you're not fluent in French. Don't list that as a special skill. Make sure if you are going to put a language that you sound like you are from one of those countries where that language is spoken. And the same thing holds true for other kinds skills, whether it's singing, whether it's dancing, whether it's athletic things. You look, you don't have to be a professional, but you have to be able to be good enough so that when people are watching you, it sounds like, it looks like you know what you're doing. So those are the 5 key things that you never want to put on your resume. Hey, if you have some other ideas for things never to put on a resume, Please share it in the comments section. And if you haven't done this yet, don't forget, subscribe, click the notification bell, like the video if you like it. And if you look up here in the upper left-hand corner, at least on my side, upper left-hand, I guess it's your probably right. But anyhow, you'll see the link for the video about, you know, how to deal with nervousness if you're working with a famous actor. There are 2 tips that really work. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya. See ya.
