Career guidance and the audio visual industries

Skillset, the Sector Skills Council for the Audio Visual Industries, in conjunction with Equity, the Actors' union, recently held a free workshop for Connexions, next step, learndirect and learndirect scotland, and Careers Advisors in FE and HE colleges, on careers as Performers. Notes were taken by Eileen Clarke, learndirect advisor, and are available for you to read here. Are you aware that Skillset have recently conducted a survey on the working patterns of Performers and will shortly be available on the Skillset website and the NGRF? We’d be interested in knowing what you think of the results, once they're published. Have you found it difficult to advise clients on working in the Performance sector? Where have you traditionally gone to find out about opportunities/lmi in this sector?

Skillset are organising a free workshop on career in the audio visual industries to share ‘insider’ industry info.  It is the aim of Skillset to help practitioners access the latest information on our sectors e.g. skills gaps and shortages, entry and progression routes, employer qualification preferences, sector overviews, detailed job profiles and demographics – and also to highlight the diverse range of careers opportunities in our industry. To find out more information about the workshop and the presenters - click here.

If I had a pound (or even just a euro) for every client I'd seen who wanted to enter the audio visual industries by now I'd be doing very nicely thank you!  However, am I alone in sometimes wondering if I am helping clients as best I can.  For me there are a number of areas I'd like to discuss:

• The nature of the industry seems to suggest that posts are filled through networking, capitalising on work experience, working your way up from relatively mundane positions, persistence, speculative approaches and so on.  As a consequence it can be hard as a practitioner to understand the sector.  There isnt the same ease of access to information about entry routes, objective competency based criteria and so to help in keeping abreast of developments in the industry.  This can make it very hard to advise clients - are we recycling out of date myths or does there remain some ring of truth to this perception?   How can careers advisers keep up to date with labour market intelligence for this sector and so be credible to our clients?
• If we perpetuate the idea that enthusiasm and contacts count for a lot, and that applicants must be willing to do anything for practically nothing to get a foot in the door are we providing a helpful shot of realism, or colluding with exploitative practices?

My approach tends to be to encourage clients for any competitive sector to hope for the best and aim high, but make sure they have a good back up plan, but I feel that is something of a cop out.  A better approach would be to have enough of an insight into the sector that I felt a bit more confident about entry routes and had something rather more tangible to offer clients.  Here's hoping this section of the National Guidance Research Forum website will allow for some discussion to upskill me in relation to media careers.  Also a note to other users, don't forget to look at the LMI Future Trends Media section of this site to get the ball rolling!