How to write experience with zine, secret santa, writing projects etc. to your resume
All work is work. All work is valid to your resume. You have deadlines to follow, you have to manage your own time, you have specific requirements you need to respect and if you are in the mod team you have to organize, market, manage etc.
Here’s guide how to add hobby projects into your resume as a work experience, as that’s what it is. I will concentrate on zine experience as modern zines are pretty much professionally made and organized projects, whether the result is a printed or a PDF book.
- Always add international there, as all online projects WILL have people all around the world (unless it’s a very underground fandom project). Even if you had just one foreigner there, it’s an international project. Sounds fancy and resume’s purpose is to make mundane things sound really fancy.
- If it’s a fanfic zine, you can use a novel anthology.
- If possible, add the number of participants. It’s a really good polish to your reputation if you can say that you organized a project with 60 international participant than just say you organized a random event.
- For Secret Santa and other non-zine events, you can use these same examples. I have written to my resume Secret Santa event hosting as “Event organizer, an international online art project with 100 participants, 2022″.
- Your drawing and writing time is work, too. You can utilize these in your resume.
- You CAN and SHOULD act as each others’ referee in resume and work application from events and zines! Includes beta readers and their work!
Working Experience in Non-Fandom Language
Shortly you write what did you do, in what field, year, and what the project was. You can edit these to fit your resume, as every country emphasis different information in the resumes.
You can also specifying what you did; Marketing material designer, 2022, an international art book project. Printed merchandise material designing, key chains, posters, stickers.
Event or Zine organizer: Event and project manager, 2022, an international art book project (with XXX amount of participants). For events, like Secret Santa: Event and project manager, 2022, and international online art/writing project (with XXX amount of people)
Zine’s social media moderator: Social media manager, Social media marketing, 2022, an international art book project (with XXX amount of participants). [Add here the social media platforms you used if you want; Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram interest businesses the most]
Zine artist/author: Artist/author, an international art book project, 2022.
Merch artist: Marketing material designer, 2022, an international art book project.
Discord manager / Person managing the applications / person checking the participants how they’re doing: Team manager, 2022, an international art book project (with XXX amount of participants)
Web page designing: Web page designer, 2022, an international art book project.
Designing event banners, social media icons etc.: Graphic designers, social media and web page, 2022, 2022, an international art book project. [Add here what social media platforms were used; Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest interest businessses the most]
Layout maker: Graphic designer, a book layout, 2022, an international art book project.
Cover artist: Graphic designer/Artist (depending which you did), 2022, an international art book project.
Any mod position were you are in the management position and others help you out or follow your lead: (XXX*) Team manager, 2022, an international art book project. [*Specify, if possible, what kind of a team you managed like Social media team manager]
Handling a physical zine and its shipments: Online shop manager, order distributions, 2022, an international art book project.
Making videos: Video editor, social media marketing*, 2022, an international art book project. (*if the videos are for something else, for example just for fun, you can leave this out)
Animations: Animator, social media marketing*, 2022, an international art book project. (*if the animations are for something else, for example just for fun, you can leave this out)
Gif making: Graphic designing, small animations/gifs, 2022, an international art book project. (*if the gifs are for something else, for example just for fun, you can leave this out)
Calendar: Graphic designer, marketing material, 2022, an international art book project.
Streaming: Streamer / Stream management, Social media marketing*, 2022, an international art book project. (*if the streams are for something else, for example just for fun, you can leave this out)
Beta reading: Proofreading, communications, 2022, an international art book project.
How to Tell More About Your Fandom Project(s) To Normal People
If you are asked to tell more about the project you participated in, don’t worry. You don’t have to start to explain what a zine is, what shipping is, why these characters are kissing steamily, or why the fic you wrote was explicit hurt-comfort otp fic.
You can simply use general terms:
Zine = a book or an anthology project.
Secret Santa = an online art or writing project
Fan video = a full video made for purpose X by editing or drawing fully.
“I participated as an artist/author to a zine of my OTP and drew/wrote this kind of art of them” = I participated in an international art book project/anthology book project. I applied and was selected from many applicants*. The book was put together in X month by multiple people and it was printed. I’m familiar with print requirements, time management, following dead lines and managing my own work.”
*If there was no application process but the event was open for all, you don’t have to speak about the application process at all. If asked, you can say that the event called for artists/authors and I decided to join in.
What you want to emphasis, no matter what you did, is that you can manage your own time, you can follow dead lines and you can follow given requirements. You wouldn’t believe how much there are people at paid jobs who can’t manage their time, hassle with dead lines and require lots of guidance. If you can honestly do something you are asked by a deadline given by the needed requirements - like write a 1500 word fic in 3 months - that IS an asset! You DID manage your time, manage yourself and respected the dead line. As remote work is increasing in many fields, employees who can do those three important things are gold nuggets to companies.
If you are in a mod position, you want to emphasis that you can lead and manage projects, communicate with everyone, keep up with dead lines and schedules, organize, and think also what risks might appear and how to prevent or handle them (like in zine; how many artists/authors might drop out and what do we do in that case?).
What every business and employer needs, no matter what the field, is good communication, proofreading, social media management and marketing, content creators, graphic designs, web designs, and marketing materials.
And those, my friends, are what every single zine project and fandom event contains.
blakekathryn
tangentwithtanner
