Excerpts from career article on Medium.com “Taking The Unconventional Way To The Next Level ”
My career history in the Entertainment Business is long and filled with all kinds of twists, turns, janky freelance offices, big corner offices and long hyphenated titles. I took the long way, which is always more interesting, if you’ve got the time. In conclusion, looking back at it all; It was a journey worth taking. But today for the sake of wrapping up this series, I’ll cut-corners and get right to the good stuff.
“Always look for the side-entrance.”
Kristin cruz
When you want a job in this business there are 2 options:
A. The traditional route.
B. The other way.
As a Mother of 3, I now know that this theory is akin to raising children. I am a Mom that usually goes with “the other way” when it comes to parenting. But I’ve come to learn there is always a time and place to go back to the traditional route. Take everything on a case-by-case basis and stay flexible. Keep an eye out for the next opportunity to move closer to your goal.
THE BACKDOOR INTO HOLLYWOOD IS JUST DOWN THE HALL
After a couple years Hosting Love Songs at a CBS in San Diego, I knew I wanted to get back to my hometown of Los Angeles. I missed it, and I was about to need a pay bump. (LA Radio Market is the #2 largest market in America, behind NY. But it’s the #1 money-making market in America.) I was on air full-time in San Diego which is the 20th largest US market.
A Broadcasting Career in Major Markets
It’s a rare and lucky circumstance to start any broadcasting career in a big city. Normally they tell you that beginning broadcasters must move to some podunk town in Idaho where they’ll hire anybody. I chose to start higher up on the ladder, but it wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t the biggest market, but it was in a much nicer place than cow country. After getting into a major California market, I knew I could go to LA if the right opportunity opened (even just a crack).
I’m not sure if you know this, but there is some law stating that companies have to advertise when they looking to hire an employee. Not sure if it’s a “fair hiring practices” type of thing, but they do have to publicly let someone know that there is a position open (Even if the company already plans to give the position to the Boss’s nephew.)
Always Look For The Opportunity To Improve
Like most traditional offices, Radio and TV stations have a lunch room or break room that has a cork-board hanging on the wall. The board is cluttered with pin-ups of boring things that no one ever looks at like the Building Evacuation Plan in case of emergency and the company’s Sexual Harassment policies. You know that board, right?
Looking closer, you’ll probably find a stapled-together stack of papers pinned there purposefully by an HR person. If you flip through it (I recommend doing this after office hours. Self-explanatory.) then you will find job listings for other companies that do the same thing your company does. I’m pretty sure that the job listing I found in the paper posted on my radio station’s wall was from the California Broadcasters Association. All available jobs in California were listed in tiny print, right up there on the board for anyone to see, if they could find it.
How To Get A Job In Radio
During my long over-night radio shift from 12:00am to 6:00am, I often had downtime. Sometimes I had a required station element that I had to play, or there was a long commercial set, or a long song (like just Spandau Ballet “True”) that would play forrrrrever. If I didn’t do something I might fall asleep. So, I would then go downstairs and make some coffee or herbal tea, depending on where the clock was at in my quiet graveyard slot.
After I got the Love Songs show I continued a pattern of going down to the first floor of the radio station at a certain time to decompress from being up in the booth all night. I would take a walk to the kitchen just before 12:00am. Radio DJ’s tend to be creatures of habit. My habit at the end of the Love Songs shift was to let the last 3 songs roll uninterrupted to the midnight hour, when I’d then sign-off and hit the road. One late night I made my usual cup of hot tea for the drive home. There I stood, listening to the station on the speakers, waiting in front of the community fridge while it steeped. I was contemplating if instead of the tea, I should just drink the last Diet RC Cola leftover from the Summer Luau Ratings Party. So bored, and tired. My gaze wandered over to the bulletin board and I started reading the CA Radio job listing papers. That’s the moment when my blurry eyes focussed in on a post that read “LA heritage radio station looking for Kelly Ripa type to co-host morning drive.”
You can’t hit a bullseye if you don’t have a target.
I’d found my next job. Now I had a target to shoot for. I could not stop thinking about it. I had to do something. I grabbed the Diet RC, made a xerox copy of the job listing and hid it in my locker until I could get home and totally freak out!
And of course, devise some kind of a plan.
There would have to be a lot of luck involved in this move: Timing. My husband’s job. My current contract. Did I mention the baby? Or that I had zero experience on a Morning Radio Show? Or that pretty much everyone and their mom wanted the job too?
NEXT: Answering your questions about broadcast jobs.
ICYMI: Go back and catch up! More posts and backstory here.
Leave me a comment below or on my Instagram so I can answer YOUR questions in the next post. I’ll tell you how I ultimately got the job, what my Voice Demo sounded like, and what the whole long audition process was like.
