The Graveyard of Gigs Lost - how to list opportunities cancelled during the pandemic on your materials
Dear artists, freelancers, and anyone with a job or contract that has been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic…
You may be at the point where you are freshening up your resume or bio in order to apply for new jobs or next year’s gigs. And you may be wondering:
How the hell do I acknowledge what has just happened to my calendar?
March, April and May are huge months for most people in creative fields. A lot of people have had a lot of jobs disappear that were not only revenue generators, but also important line items for their resume and bio.
Typically, we only list the jobs we’ve actually completed. But this feels different.
Because it is. So let’s break it down.
As far as your resume and materials go, the following rules apply:
A resume is an accumulation of accomplishments and experiences.
Getting hired for a job is an accomplishment.
Performing a job is an experience.
Typically, we perform the jobs we are hired for, and that is why we combine the accomplishments and experiences into one entry.
Also typically, losing a job you were hired for before your perform it is either a poor reflection on you (you lied or were unprofessional) or the result of an accidental situation (you got very sick and they had to replace you).
As a result, under normal circumstances, we don’t list jobs we were hired for and didn’t perform because it can draw attention to errors we have made or increase doubt in the mind of the hiring party by making us subconsciously appear accident prone.
However, this is not a typical situation. This is a global pandemic! So let’s go back to the basics.
A resume is an accumulation of accomplishments and experiences.
Getting hired for a job is an accomplishment.
Performing a job is an experience.
If you have had a contracted job cancelled or postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic - still list it on your resume - at least for the next year.
Remember, being hired for the job was the accomplishment. You just had the experience cancelled, but the accomplishment still exists.
Plus, if you label a job as cancelled on your resume, and also label it as occurring during April of 2020, it’s not as though people will wonder why. Literally every human on earth is experiencing this right now. Trust that your fellow humans will remember that we were in the middle of a global pandemic and that’s why your job was cancelled.
Big Disclaimer - be sure to label any cancelled or postponed jobs during this time as such. You don’t want to ignore the fact that the show did not go on - doing so will make the reader second guess the legitimacy of your entire resume. And you don’t want that.
You do not need to pretend that all of those jobs you auditioned for, applied for, and negotiated for don’t exist. You may not have gotten to experience them, but you definitely accomplished securing them in the first place - and that’s worth noting.