Old CV / New CV - first thoughts

Sample creative CV

The whole point of the Professional Practice module is to get us to think like a professional, how would we actually earn a living out there in that big, bad, bold, competitive world?  Unlike many of my cohort I do have a CV.  Having a few years under my belt means that I have an extensive and pretty impressive wealth of experience.  I've shouldered professional responsibilities that might make some shudder.  I've had weeks and weeks where my commute to work has been: get up at 5.30am, drive to Birmingham airport, fly to Copenhagen, catch the train across the bridge (The Bridge, if you've seen the Scandinavian police drama - and if you haven't, you really should) to Malmö in Sweden, walk to the office, and be at my desk by 2.30pm.  I've worked from hotels, airports, coffee shops, home, libraries, basically anywhere I can fire up my laptop.  But sitting in that room, in University, with all those younger students - and believe me there are going to be some creative stars among them (I could name names, but I won't), it is suddenly easy to become frozen with fear, petrified that I may never enter paid employment again.  It is almost enough to make me yell at the top of my voice, 'Helen what are you DOING? Get back to a 'proper' job immediately'.  My CV currently looks like this (names have been changed to protect the innocent) :-

Boring isn't it? It all depends on the audience of course.  This CV contains all of the information needed to prove to a prospective employer that I know my stuff in this field.  Of course I am now focussing on creative roles, or roles combining creativity with my passion for education.  I have a strong desire to teach and with a background in mentoring and person centred Humanistic Psychotherapy I believe that each individual has the capacity to be the best that they can be with support and structured coaching.  Would you pick this out from the above? Probably not, but I am starting to realise that the building blocks are there and a little restructuring to highlight those skills is required.  Plus a different format to showcase my creativity.  

In order to begin this process I've been looking at creative CVs and collecting some inspirational examples here.  

I've also been getting a bit of 'hands on' experience, working with award winning animator Bexie Bush on her new film 'The Rumour Mill'.  More to come on this later but it's been a great example of the implementation of transferable skills.  Although I have no experience in the world of model building or animation, my expertise with processes and efficiency meant that I was easily able to find a quicker way of hand cutting bricks from a sheet of cardboard without compromising quality, and I was able to work around my own constraints of childcare (unpaid work experience does not afford the luxury of additional childminders, unfortunately) by bringing some of the work back to my own studio to return complete, which is the equivalent of spending two days on site.  A perfect example of flexibility and a win / win situation eh?  And while we are on the subject of flexibility, I can do a perfect yoga backbend.  But that's another story.

Sample creative CV

Sample creative CV