Music Resume Examples to Help You Succeed This Year

Important Elements for Music Resumes

Your resume should showcase your music experience, creativity and vision to inject your passion into the scene. In many cases, before you’ve even had the chance to showcase your musical skills, recruiters will look at your resume to see if you’re qualified. So, before you can impress them with your talent, you must write the best resume highlighting your creativity and experience.

To highlight those qualities, you’ll need to structure your resume correctly. Here are the elements you need to include in a professional resume:

Header

The header is located at the top of the resume. This is where you will include your contact information, such as your name, phone number, email address and professional social media links, like your LinkedIn profile and portfolio.

Resume summary or objective

Next is your resume summary or resume objective. A resume summary is best for professionals with some experience and will go over your best achievements and highest metrics. A resume objective is a short paragraph where you can also introduce yourself, but you talk about your career goals and skills. The resume summary and objective should only be two to three sentences long.

Skills

In the skills section, list your soft skills and hard skills with bullet points. Soft skills are special qualities you can bring to the table, such as interpersonal skills or special performance skills. Hard skills are more about technical skills, like proficiency with FL Studio. The listed skills should be as relevant to the job title as possible. Here are some common skills professionals in the music industry have:

• Performance experience
• Organization skills
• Time management
• Multitasking
• Multi-instrumentalist
• Music software proficiency
• Three-octave range

Work experience

In the work experience section, list work that is relevant to the job title you’re currently after. For example, if you want to play in a symphony orchestra, mention that you’ve done live gigs before. If you're going to become a recording engineer, mention any work you’ve done with sound design, even if it wasn’t on a music project.

Suppose you don’t have years of experience; mention internships and volunteer work related to music. Many recruiters understand that simply being in a specific work environment gives you a lot of experience, even if you weren’t working professionally.

Education

In the education section, talk about your academic achievements. No matter what kind of job you’re applying for, any type of music education is good. There are a lot of entry-level music jobs available for people in high school, like being part of the stage crew in a musical theater.

Other jobs require more in terms of education. If you want to be a music teacher, a degree in music is usually required. Specific jobs in music don’t require you to go to a music school or understand music theory. For example, if you want to be a tour manager or booking agent, then a degree in business administration is preferred.

Achievements and awards

In creative fields like music, awards can be very impressive. It means that there are people who enjoy your work. In music, that’s extremely valuable. If you have received any awards, be sure to list them!

Certifications

Certifications in certain subjects depend on the job you’re applying for. For example, a music journalist with creative writing certifications should include the information in the resume, adding an extra layer of expertise. A music publicist is more likely to get hired at a record label if they have multiple marketing certifications versus none at all. Master classes taught by popular musicians also look good on a resume, so don’t hesitate to mention them.