What's the best way to see when new contracts were posted?

Question

Greetings Voicers,

I'm recently new to this site and trying to break out as we all are. One of the biggest problems I have is identifying which contracts are the 'freshest.'

So far none of my auditions have been listened to as I'm arriving very late to the party. I read that if your voice match is high voices.com will bump the position of your audition, but I don't know that it's helping.

Other than seeing the date the job was posted and when it's due, there's no other time stamp. So I don't know which ones to to try and hit first.

In terms of speed I usually record a dry read of a custom demo and send it off as soon as possible.

Any advice from experienced people would be appreciated and thanks for your time.

Thanks,
Jon S.

Answer 1

Hi Jon - my best advice is to treat this as a regular job.  Go to work (online) as soon as you can each morning (that's when the first batch usually arrives).  You can see how many people have already answered in the section that says "0 of 45" etc.  Yes, voicematch will bump you up, if your profile match is 80% or above, but once you start seeing that 80 - 100 people are ahead of you, it won't help as much.  Remember, if you and another actor have the same percentage voicematch numbers, the person who posted first is placed first, so there may be a larger number of equally or more matched candidates ahead of you, if you post later.  If you want someone to listen to your demos, you need to post within the day and preferably within an hour or so of the job posting.  There are a lot of actors on this site and many are near their computers all day, so they can answer right away.   Another batch usually arrives in the afternoon.  I do "triage" and delete jobs that have been around all day, or are at the edge of my abilities.  For example, I can sound young and bright, but I don't have a trendy gen y sound, so I delete those.  I am a dialect coach and do dozens of accents, but these are best used in short projects or games, so a narration requiring a native British speaker is also out.  Aim to do 10 -20 auditions a day, from among THAT day's postings.  Do a couple of takes of each read and vary them, to show range.  Remember that people who are posting in a price range are typically looking to book the lower number you see, so bid as close to that as you comfortably can, especially in the beginning.

Good luck.

Comments

Hi Jon - I just visited your page.  In addition to being a voice-actor, I've coached and produced demos.  You may want to break out your demo into separate demos to generate more leads.  Also - try doing some character stuff and a few more high-energy reads for contrast.  Although the subject of each of your examples was different, the voice kind-of sat in a similar place for each.  You can reach me offline through my website (www.deborahsalebutler.com) if you want more ideas (I'm not fishing for a student, don't worry).  I started at Second City too ; - )

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Wow, Debroah. I'm really grateful for your time and input. Especially listening to my short demo. I've actually been working on other demos that I see many talents have here like IVR, or eLearning, and should have those up pretty quickly. I just wanted to get that first demo up and in.

Thanks again!