Back in college, I used to hear my professors say “everyone knows everyone” and “the entertainment world is really small” all the time. And I thought they were nuts.

Mostly because I knew no one and the world seemed incomprehensibly massive.

Well… 10 years later, I can say they were right. And while everyone doesn’t quite know everyone, there’s a very solid six degrees of separation thing that happens in the arts.

So for my younger stage management readers out there, here are some hints on how to find (and keep finding) jobs – although many of these tips apply to every field.

1. When you’re first starting out, you just have to do something. You may need to do a survival job on the side, but you need to jump into the job market. You may have kicked butt and taken names at your college, but no one is going to care that much – want to know why? Google tells me there are 3,026 4-year colleges in America. The vast majority of those schools also had a best stage manager. And they want the same job you do.
2. When you get that crappy job that pays next to nothing and also has you coming in early to wire cables or build flats and staying late because the director is a needy psychopath who should spring for a therapist but is instead using you, you need to blow it out of the water. You need to ace every one of those tasks so that every person in that show, performers, creative team and technicians remember you as incredible.
3. Then you need to stay in touch with these people – Facebook and LinkedIn are really useful for that. The leading lady loved puppy YouTube videos? Mark it in your calendar to send her one every 3 months with a “thought of you note.” The TD was into Chuck Norris jokes? Do the same thing.
4. Pimp out the people you worked with who were excellent. There are times I bump into people who are looking for a sound designer, or a great tap dancer and I am none of these things, but I know people who are and I always toss out their names to the people looking. Then I go home and shoot that person a Facebook message and say “so and so was looking for a tap dancer, I passed on your name. Hope you’re well!” Karma, man. It works.
5. Also note, you should be doing steps 2-4 from the first day you step foot in a theater, although the fruits may take a few years to pay off. Step 1 is just your first step, because, as that old Asian proverb goes, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. After doing a few painfully low gigs, you need to evaluate your resume and stop taking them.
6. By this time, some of the other folks who did those terrible jobs with you should’ve made it a few steps beyond the starting line and you should talk to them about how they did it. And remind them you exist. And just start applying for jobs that will pay your rent and let you eat. Remember the whole “everybody knows everybody”? Well different theaters will also look at your resume and recognize the pay scale at some other places and realize you are willing to work for next to nothing or, heaven forbid, stipends. This has two negative effects – if you have a ton of those theaters, better companies don’t think you’re good enough to work for them or better companies will exploit you and pay you a lot less than they would pay the same person for the same job. I am excited to not know that from personal experience, but stage managers, we talk to each other.

Finally, the four main places I actually look for work:

• Networking – just throw it out into the void that is social media that I’m looking for work.
• Offstage Jobs
• Playbill
• Individual Companies Websites (Theaters, Cirque, Feld Entertainment, Phoenix Entertainment, Troika, Cruise Lines, etc)

When I was first out of college, individual company websites worked best. It’s how I landed on a cruise ship. When I’m trying to fill weird gaps of time with little jobs, Offstage Jobs seems to have the edge. However, networking is, without fail, the best way to pick up jobs and they’re usually jobs that I’m actually well suited for, since someone who had already worked with me, though of me and recommended me.

What other tips do you guys have for people just starting out in a field?