How do you diplomatically say....

[monkeh]

Hiya

 

I'm in the middle of a bit of a tricky job at the mo - I'm running a schools/theatres tour booked by a charity and produced by a separate production company. The tour's been running (with much firefighting and last minute work from my side) for about 3 weeks now, and I've only just found out that neither the charity or production company have booked/produced a tour before (you can imagine how much extra work this has created!!!!!)

 

Can anyone think of a positive way to nod towards this on my cv? I don't particularly want to state the above explicitly, but think it might be a good idea to show I can work through all this and troubleshoot as potential problems have come up.

 

Any ideas? Any comments would be great!

 

S

[Just Some Bloke]

Additional duties: Assisting the charity in the tour production.

 

How does that grab you?

[u_dakka]

Additional duties: Ably assisting charity XXXXX in their recent tour production, where to assist I helped out with the organising and booking of the venues.

 

someone who's better at english can tidy that one up

 

andy

[monkeh]

Something like that!!

 

It's tricky as the charity had booked the dates, but had not given the info you'd expect - confirmation of load in access, performance space, plug sockets available, on ground floor etc. So lots of finding this out and working round stupidness as you go!!! The producing company has v v little experience (didn't think that a tour in London would require parking costs in London, for instance) and half the kit we used was borrowed from one of the actors (the rest sourced by me during the last week of rehearsals!!!)

 

It's basically a bit of a nightmare job (it could be so straightforward compared to this!!!) so I'm trying to think of a delicate way of nodding to this on my cv.

 

Thanks for your replies

 

S

[Ynot]

Sarah, hi.

 

You have me a little confused....

 

Quite simply, your CV should reflect what you've done and achieved. There should be no question of dropping any third party in the brown stuff at any stage, even if that's what you effectively feel might happen.

 

The way to reflect this episiode in your career is to keep it nice & simple.

State what sort of things you did and what you achieved by doing such.

If what you did was over and above what you were contracted to do, mention that, but don't dwell on it.

As I've said before, CV's aren't there to tell a prospective employer everything about anything. Give them enough info to pique their interest, BUT have the detail in your head if you get to go to interview. The trick is to make anything that may be a negative (even if it's negative towards a 3rd party) sound like a positive.

 

eg:

On the CV, refer to this job as "Contracted by X to do Y on Z dates

During job Y, I found I needed to get involved in the A, B and C aspects of the job as a whole, which were strictly speaking over and above my responsibilities under the definition of Y, but as I was able to assist in an area that had been overlooked, I was happy to dive in and help out where I could. I felt this gave me a wider appreciation of the event as a result.

 

In interview you may be asked to expand on this - at which point you put some detail in there - mention that maybe due to inexperience of the original employer you saw an opportunity to assist, even though it was outside of your role. Tell them that it was a valuable learning experience, and gave you a better feel for the tour as a whole and that you were happy to do this, as long as you were still able to fulfil the position that you were actually being paid for. Word of caution though - try not to sound TOO much like the salvation of the tour, and stress that at no time did you feel that your prime role was in jeopardy.

 

Tony

[wako_jacko]

I don't think that Sarah wants to

drop any third party in the brown stuff at any stage

but put this on her CV without degrading what she has done (my take on it). over the new year I was working on a high profile event where more brown stuff hit the fan than you could imagaine, yet it's easier to gloss over it and make it all seem good, than try and drop someone in brown stuff - however appealing that may seem.

 

w.

[Ynot]

I don't think that Sarah wants to

drop any third party in the brown stuff at any stage

but put this on her CV without degrading what she has done (my take on it). over the new year I was working on a high profile event where more brown stuff hit the fan than you could imagaine, yet it's easier to gloss over it and make it all seem good, than try and drop someone in brown stuff - however appealing that may seem.

I think you must've mis-interpreted my meaning there.

I fully appreciate that Sarah indeed doesn't wish to drop anyone in it, and that the whole point of the OP was that she did not. But what my post means is that whether or not sticky brown stuff is in the wind (pun intended!) that's largely irrelevent to a CV. Anyone who puts down in a CV something to the order of "The production Co were c**p so I dived in and saved the day" is probably going to look far too cocky for many employers!

 

All Sarah needs to do is say WHAT she did, and if any of the duties were above her contracted job descr, or even pay grade, then allude to that, but leave any detail for interview.

[Jivemaster]

Consider asking the organisation for a upgraded title to use on your CV, say Tour tech manager rather than stage manager. This would allow you to expand on this at future interviews, without wafting the brown stuff.

[Matt Riley]

Perhaps it might be a good idea to make reference to the fact that this was a new venture for the production company.

 

E.g. Contracted by X to do Y on Z dates

As a theatrical tour, this was a new venture for both the production company and the charity who oversaw the project. I was able to bring industry awareness and experience to assist in solving the unique challenges which a new project of this kind can present.