Andrew FennellHave you been wearing pointe shoes since you could walk? You probably know by now that dancing can be a fiercely competitive industry, so if you want to stand out, you need to create a captivating resume.
You want your application to reflect your years of experience and showcase your knowledge of different dance techniques.
To help you do this, we’ve created a job-winning dance resume example for you to use, along with an accompanying guide full of our top tips.
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Dance Resume Example
The example Dancer resume above shows you how a professional resume should look, along with the type of content it should contain.
You’ll notice that the information is well organized across the page, and its easy for busy hiring managers to spot the candidate’s important skills.
Keep this in mind as you write your own resume.
Dance resume layout and format
The format and layout of your resume can make or break its success.
Sure, it’s great to pack your resume with lots of impressive skills and knowledge, but if the page is not structured clearly, hiring managers will struggle to find the important stuff!
Above all, your resume should be easy-to-read and professional looking.
Follow these formatting tips to get noticed.
Resume formatting tips
- Length: Keep your resume to 2 pages or under. You’ve probably heard that recruiters and hiring managers don’t have lots of time to read every resume, so keep yours brief if you want to ensure that they read all of the important info in yours.
- Font and text: Complex fonts are a readers’ worst nightmare and will leave recruiters struggling to understand your message. Use a clear simple lean font in a color that stands out against the page, and break your text up with bullet points to make the content easily digestible.
- Design & structure: Allow recruiters to skim through your resume with ease, by dividing the page into clear sections with headings and borders. The design of your resume should be eye-catching but not overly complex – keep the style and color scheme simple and clean.
- Photos and images: It’s not mandatory to add a photo to your resume in the USA but it if you’re applying to organizations within the creative fields, it can be beneficial.
Quick tip: Formatting a resume to look professional can be difficult and time-consuming. If you want to create an attractive resume quickly, try our partner’s Resume Builder and use one of their eye-catching resume templates.
Resume layout
Include the following sections when you write your resume.
- Name and contact details – Make it easy for employers to contact you, by putting these at the top.
- Resume summary – An intro paragraph sitting at the top of your resume, summarizing the reasons why you should be hired.
- Skills section – A short snappy list of your most important skills, that can be quickly digested
- Work experience – Reverse chronological list of your previous jobs – voluntary work and college placements can be included if you have no paid experience.
- Education – List your qualifications and professional training.
- Additional info – An optional section for things like hobbies and interests.
Now here’s exactly what you should include in each of these sections in your resume.
Resume Contact Details
Add your name and contact details to the very top of your resume, making it easy for recruiters to get in touch
- Name and profession title
- Cell phone number – or another number you can answer quickly
- Location – Add your local area such as San Diego or New York – not your full address as that will take up too much space.
- Email address – Use your name or close variation – no nicknames from high school.
You can add a link to your LinkedIn profile if you have one – you do not need to include personal details like date of birth or marital status.
Dance Resume Summary
Your resume summary is like your introduction to the recruiter or hiring manager – it should grab their attention and leave them eager to read more about you.
Achieve this by writing a snappy overview of your skills, knowledge and what value you can bring to an employer.
Tips for creating an strong resume summary:
- Keep it brief: You only have a few seconds to grab a recruiters’ attention and make them commit to your resume, so keep your summary between 4 – 7 lines.
- Tailor it: Ensure your profile makes an impact by matching it closely to the requirements of the job description, copying as many key terms as possible.
- Avoid cliches: You might be a “highly motivated go-getter who thinks outside the box” but generic meaningless cliches like that don’t tell employers much about you – stick to factual information in your summary.
Example resume summary for Dance
What to include in your Dance Resume summary?
- Summary of professional experience: Provide an overview of the type of work you have done in the past and the impact you have made at previous employers.
- Relevant skills: Highlight your skills which are most relevant to Dance jobs, to ensure that recruiters see your most in-demand skills as soon as they open your resume.
- Essential qualifications: Showcase your level of education with a quick mention of any qualifications that are essential for the Dance roles you are applying to.
Quick tip: Choose from hundreds of pre-written summaries across all industries, and add one to your resume with one click in our partner’s Resume Builder. All written by our recruitment experts and easily tailored to suit your unique skillset.
Core skills section
Next, you should create a bullet pointed list of your core skills, formatted into 2-3 columns.
Here, you should focus on including the most important skills or knowledge listed in the job advertisement.
This will instantly prove that you’re an ideal candidate, even if a recruiter only has time to briefly scan your resume.
Best skills for your Dance resume
- Solo, duet, and trio – Creating and performing beautiful chorography pieces solo, or as part of a duet or trio.
- Positional awareness – Extensive awareness of personal space in relation to other dancers or objects, and able to respond to changes in spatial relationships, time relationships, and relationship to music.
- Rhythmics – Moving appropriately to the beat of the music for each piece, staying in time.
- Movement patterns – Creating and performing distinctive dance sequences, structured to create a specific dance or demonstrate a specific effect.
- Choreography – Creating a sequence of steps or movements that produce a dance composition.
Quick tip: Our partner’s Resume Builder contains thousands of in-demand skills for every profession that can be added to your resume in seconds – saving you time and greatly improving your chances of landing job interviews.
Work experience section
Now that you’ve reeled recruiters in with your awesome summary, it’s time to delve into your work experience.
Here you’ll list your previous jobs (starting with your most recent and working backward) and showcase how you apply your skills in the workplace.
Provide lots of detail in recent jobs, and less in older roles.
If you have no relevant paid experience, you can include voluntary work and placements – but if you have lots of experience, you can leave out some of the really old jobs.
Structuring your job descriptions
Resume job descriptions contain lots of information, so its crucial to structure them well.
Use the structure below to ensure hiring managers can consume the information easily.
Job outline
Start with a 1-2 sentence outline of the role, summarizing what the goal of your position was, who you reported to (or managed) and the type of organization you worked for.
Key responsibilities
List your notable responsibilities in short sharp bullet points to demonstrate your input and how you contributed to the organization’s success.
Highlight the skills that are most important to the roles you are applying for.
Key achievements
Finish each role by highlighting some impressive achievements you made whilst in the role.
Anything that benefited the employer can be included from making financial savings, to winning new customers.
Quantify your achievements with facts and figures if you can, e.g. “reduced call wait time by 10%”
Example job for Dance resume
Outline
Touring the USA with The American Contemporary Ballet as Lead Dancer in their productions of “Swan Lake” and “Chicago”, alongside supporting the training of junior Ballet Dancers within the academy.
Key Responsibilities
- Performed complex ballet choreography on stage 4 nights a week and during several TV appearances
- Trained classical and modern routines and learned new choreographies under the supervision of seasoned Ballet Choreographer Joe Bloggs
- Collaborated with other dancers to ensure excellent harmony of rhythm and timing
- Taught choreography, fundamentals, and proper techniques to junior ballet dancers
Quick tip: Create impressive job descriptions easily in our partner’s Resume Builder by adding pre-written job phrases for every industry and career stage.
Education resume section
Near the end of your resume add your education section
Experienced candidates should keep it brief and focus on professional qualifications – and junior candidates can include high school diplomas, college degrees etc.
Additional info for your resume
The additional info section is optional but can be useful if you have anything else to add that could benefit your application.
For example ,you may have some hobbies and interests that are relevant to your job – or you might have awards or publications to shout about.
Writing your Dance resume
Writing a Dance resume can be challenging but following the steps above will ensure that you land plenty of interviews.
If you want to speed up the process and use an attractive professional template, try out our partner’s Resume Builder.
Good luck with your job search!