Job Market Part 1

Today one of my colleges noted that he was looking to fill a position with our company. Someone else said it should be an easy time to fill a job because so many people are looking. I know in the DC area many theatres have had to lay off staff to try and make their fiscal goals. So I wondered what kinds of jobs are out there right now.

I have personally found only two sights to be really useful when looking for work. First, Playbill.com has a great jobs page but is geared more toward NYC and commercial theatre whereas Artsearch (my other favorite) is geared more toward regional and educational theatre.

Yesterday I went through the Artsearch site and looked at the job data to see what kind of jobs were posted this month. I split them into 11 categories and the descriptions and results are below. There were 101 jobs posted on Artsearch for the month of April.

27 Technical – TD, ME, Shop Managers, Crews, ect. (costumes included)
18 Education – Education Department for a theatre or Faculty at a college
13 Interns – Any kind of Intern or Apprentice
9 Leadership – Artistic Directors, Managing Directors, General Managers
8 Sales / Marketing – includes Group Sales, Marketing, PR, Box Office
7 Management – Production Man, Stage Man, ASM, Company Man.
7 Other – Random jobs that did not fit anywhere else
5 Development – Development Staff and Directors
4 Design – Costume, Scene, Lighting, Sound Designers and Assistants
2 Business – Accounting, Bookkeepers
1 Artistic – Directors, Choreographers

Are they posting jobs you are qualified for? Should you be learning more about the technical or educational fields? People ask why I am always looking at job postings if I am happy in my job, which I am. The reason is to know what’s out there and be aware of tends. Plus I like to be helpful and if I see a job that is right for someone I know I pass along that information. Being aware of the job market in my industry makes me an asset to my friends and to my network.

When I have more time I will do a bigger analysis of the jobs by expanding the time frame. Again this is from one site and that site caters more toward Educational and Regional Theatres.