I’ve got tech recruiters from agencies all over Los Angeles calling me everyday - almost twice a day pitching me jobs and my number is not even listed anywhere. Tech recruiters have always used somewhat “grey” techniques in trying to find candidates such as asking people to refer their friends or colleagues to receive a referral fee, or cold calling companies asking for random people until they find a tech person who they can pitch a candidate, or pitch a new job. Now these agencies are trolling LinkedIn cold-calling companies and lying that they are connected to you through LinkedIn. What really annoys me is their fake way of trying to establish a friendship with you asking “what are your plans this weekend?” I’M NOT YOU’RE FRIEND! Why the hell should I tell you? And do all tech recruiters use the same script? I’ve been asked the “what are your plans this weekend” question multiple times by multiple recruiters at multiple agencies. AND NOW the new technique they are using is “I’m not calling to pitch you a job, but to ask you for a reference”. TWO recruiters from TWO different agencies almost used those exact words. Is there some shady tech recruiter conference that these people all go to?
I should open up my own tech staffing agency - but run it like the Hollywood studio system back in the old days. Hollywood studios used to sign actors with whom they saw potential and would groom them to be movie stars. I would sign top programmers who could not only code but were attractive and had really good presentation skills and then represent them through their entire career through the myriad of jobs that tech people go through - or help them start their own company. Top Hollywood agents and managers do this now and just collect a 10%-15% agency/management fee or establish a back-end deal with the actor.
On another note - why do tech people need to use recruiters anyway? In this day and age of LinkedIn and other social networks it should be easy enough for anyone to find a job through their friends and end up with a higher salary since they aren’t going through a recruitment agency. The true hustlers will never need to use an agency. They will find business opportunities for themselves or even better, create their own opportunities.
Don’t get it twisted. In many ways I’m not mad at this situation. There’s obviously no recession in the internet/tech sector.
Scientific American has an incredible article based on a discussion with three experts on creativity. Here are some quotes from the article which resounded with me:
“There’s so much power in a new idea taking shape and changing the way people live and act. Often the rest of us are in awe, or we are even afraid of a new idea, and sometimes our fears spur us to learn more about it.”
“There are four different skill sets, or competencies, that I’ve found are essential for creative expression. The first and most important competency is “capturing”-preserving new ideas as they occur to you and doing so without judging them. ”
“The second competency is called “challenging”-giving ourselves tough problems to solve. In tough situations, multiple behaviors compete with one another, and their interconnections create new behaviors and ideas. The third area is “broadening.” The more diverse your knowledge, the more interesting the interconnections-so you can boost your creativity simply by learning interesting new things. And the last competency is “surrounding,” which has to do with how you manage your physical and social environments. The more interesting and diverse the things and the people around you, the more interesting your own ideas become.”
“You have to put up with dry spells and keep creating in the face of them.”
“You have to learn not to fear failure and even to rejoice in it. ”
“The creative individual thinks of failure as a new opportunity.”
“…failure actually stimulates creativity directly. It really is valuable.”
“I think that creativity is contagious and that the best thing we can do for children is to model for them what it’s like to be a creative individual.”
I’m burning the candle at both ends and in the middle. But I have nothing to complain about. This year has been incredible and I’ve been blessed with so many opportunities. I’ve got work raining down on me - and I’m not even talking about my day job. Unfortunately I’m not talking about acting either, but rather outside technology/internet projects. I can barely keep up. I feel I need to grab as many opportunities as I can while they exist ’cause ya never know what tomorrow will be like. Hollywood is quickly trying to converge into the digital/internet world and I’m a part of it in every aspect and from both ends of the business. It’s exciting albeit exhausting talking to so many people about so many different ideas, projects, opportunities. My own creative projects as actor and producer are also proving to have big possibilities - I just need the time to concentrate on them. At this point it’s a race to the new year as I have a couple projects I need to finish and deliver before Christmas all while taking care of holiday errands and doing XFlowsion (a high energy yoga/cardio) 4 times a week trying to reach my goal of 10% body fat by year’s end.
It’s amazing to think how much I’ve accomplished since the beginning of the year. I’ve been very blessed.
In ‘97 I moved to LA to become a rich and famous Hollywood actor. I worked the graveyard shift at Cedars-Sinai hospital supporting computer systems. Long-story short, I was fired for hacking into a computer system (which was a joke gone wrong) and a temp agency placed me at a dot-com company. Now somehow, even with my gangsta-ass attitude and me constantly declaring “I’m an actor and this is just a day job” people kept giving me bigger job titles, more money, stock options, etc, etc. Years later after all the crazy rockstar-esque parties and watching colleagues literally make millions, the industry I kept dissing is now taking over Hollywood and our daily lives. I’m at the top of my game in the internet industry and I’m about to change the game with an original webisode series I’m self producing and acting in called “IT Gangsta” which has already received over 12,000 views and combines web 2.0, Urban 2.0, Hip-Hop and Technology.
I just found out this morning that if you are a SAG member, you cannot
be an employee of SAG. I guess it’s a conflict of interest - but isn’t
the president of SAG a SAG member? I feel snubbed.
The job seemed cush - 32 hour work week + overtime managing, fixing, creating SAG web properties. But I would have to take an “honorable leave” from SAG in order to take the job.
So when the choice came up between a six figure job and my flailing acting career I chose: my flailing acting career cause you couldn’t pay me any amount of money to give up my dreams.
Plus, I already have a job at a company that doesn’t care that I’m an actor that goes on auditions from time to time.
It’s 2.40am. Tonight I answered some emails regarding some freelance web development work I’m in the middle of, then I did some initial MYSQL/PHP coding for this sweepstakes promotion website I need to have finished before the end of this week. I’m now in the middle of setting up subversion across our dev, staging and production machines, importing all the code and establishing a production workflow using subversion to deploy files across the machines. Tomorrow I have a commercial print shoot for McDonalds in the morning. I’m not sure what the usage of the photos will be for (billboard, product packaging, in-store ads, etc, etc) so I could be possibly be appearing in future McDonald ads, or on McDonald product packaging, whatever. I’m just grateful for the job and the chance to make new contacts. You know what they say in Hollywood - it’s who you know. After my commercial print shoot I have an audition for another commercial print gig. This would be for some dog medicine product. It’s all good. Auditions - print, commercial and theatrical have been non-existent this year, especially since my commercial agency dropped me last year. But that’s why I’ve been creating my own projects such as IT Gangsta. IT Gangsta is still evolving and I will be producing one, if not two new episodes this week. It’s just hard when you have to write the script, plan the shots, setup the camera, lights, shoot it, strike the set, digitize it, edit it, score it, then upload it and publicize it. But that’s what it takes to be on the cutting edge.
A Soul Urge number of 1 means:
Your Soul Urge is the number 1. With a Soul Urge number of 1, you want to lead and direct, to work independent of supervision, by yourself or with subordinates. You take pride in your abilities and want to be recognized for them. You may seek opportunities to display your strength and usefulness, wanting to create and originate. In your desire to manage the big picture and the main issues, you may often leave the details to others.
The positive 1 Soul Urge is Ambitious and determined, a leader seeking opportunities. There is a great deal of honesty and loyalty in this character. If you possess positive 1 Soul Urge qualities, you are very attainment oriented and driven to success. You are a loyal friend and strictly fair in your business dealings.
The negative side of the 1 Soul Urge must be avoided. A negative 1 is apt to dominate situations and people; the home, the spouse, the family and the business. Emotions aren’t strong in this nature. If you possess an excess of 1 energy, you may, at times, be boastful and egotistic. You must avoid being too critical and impatient of trifles. The great need of the 1 Soul Urge is the development of friendliness, and a sincere interest in people.
Your Inner Dream number is: 5
An Inner Dream number of 5 means:
You dream of being totally free and unrestrained by responsibility. You see yourself conversing and mingling with the natives in many nations, living for adventure and life experiences. You imagine what you might accomplished.
In the current LA Magazine I stumbled across an article that talked about acting being more of a lifestyle choice than a career. That article was like a cold dose of reality which I think all aspiring actors should read. It contains the cold hard facts: 95% of all actors require an alternate “day job” in order to survive and pay the bills. When they are not working, actors are spending their hard earned money on acting classes, headshots, agency/casting mailings, online casting services, union dues, demo reels, trade magazines, play books, and whatever other service they think will help promote themselves. And it’s not just money. It’s also the time spent on self promotion, finding an agent, or finding the next gig. Acting as a lifestyle is all about living on the hope that you could be lucky enough to become part of the 5% that make a living as a working actor. But the trap of the acting lifestyle is to put your life on hold waiting for that “big break” that may never come.
I chose the acting lifestyle in 1996 when I moved to LA. I was ready to sacrifice everything and put my life on hold for the chance to become a “famous” actor. Lucky for me I unintentionally fell into the dot-com industry where I’ve thrived ever since - and not even from trying. And I’ve still not given up my Hollywood dreams. It’s still a constant struggle to balance my life with my job and with the acting lifestyle. But somehow I manage.
What I find ironic is how similar the dot-com industry is to Hollywood. I feel like every time I land a new job/gig it’s like booking a film or TV show. Every dot-com company is filled with very interesting and unique characters, and there is plenty of twists, turns and drama in the storyline of every company. Over the years many companies never make it, which is like being part of a TV series that gets canceled. And the salary rollercoaster in dot-coms is similar to TV shows. It’s possible to make a lot of money in the dot-com industry, but you never know how long a gig will last. So it’s better not to buy that brand new BMW or Benz until your show is picked up for syndication or your companies goes public with an IPO.
Well I’m not scarred, but that MTV show was the first thought second thought I had after I suddenly found myself on my ass staring up at the night sky with my ankle feeling like it was on fire. And I don’t even have a cool story to tell such as “I was trying to do a 360 fakie off my roof and in mid-air I knew I was in trouble.” No. My story is “I was taking out the trash and on my way back from the trashcan I stepped off the cement into a shallow dip in my yard and suddenly found myself on my ass staring into the night sky with my right ankle on fire”. Fast forward to today where I had to hop on one foot from upstairs to downstairs to the car to the medical plaza building to the elevator down the hall to the doctors office through the hallway of examination rooms to an exam room where the doctor said I needed an x-ray, so I hopped down another hallway all the way down to the x-ray room and then back to my exam room to the check out counter, back down the hallway to the elevator through the lobby and back to the car. Turns out my ankle was not broken but the doctor suggested that I see the podiatrist that afternoon. So a couple hours later I had to do all that hopping back to the doctors office to be examined a second time - this time with a podiatrist. It didn’t take long for the podiatrist to conclude that I had torn some ligaments in my ankle and needed an MRI to determine how many ligaments I had torn. If I had torn all 3 then I would need surgery. In the meantime I was going to be given a special boot and a electro therapy device to help heal and manage pain. WELL it turns out that they RAN OUT of the boots AND crutches because there were 3 other people with sprained ankles today. So TOMORROW I have to hop my ass back to the doctors office to get my boot and schedule my MRI.
How crazy is that? In the middle of doing something so freakin mundane I happen to hurt myself pretty bad.