Facing that reality is how I finally got my dream job. And the reality I was facing? My friend Roscoe was dying.
From the age of 16, I wanted to be a director, and was thrilled when my first-choice college, Carnegie Mellon, accepted me in the drama program.
In junior year, I met Roscoe Gilliam, an acting major whose dancing and singing talents made him a triple threat. After graduation, while I floundered in Atlanta trying to figure out how to pursue my directing career, Roscoe shot straight to the top, landing a part on Broadway and in the national tour of A Chorus Line.
A decade later, I was living in Manhattan, and still didn’t have my dream job.
I was close. As an Associate Director on the soap, Guiding Light, I sat next to my dream job (Director) at least twice a week. But I hadn’t fought to get a shot at that job—hadn’t even asked for it.
Roscoe and I spoke often. He hired me to direct a staged reading of a play he wrote and planned to launch Off-Broadway. But his big dream was to write, produce and star in a movie about Nat King Cole. He took active steps every single day toward his goals, and I knew he would achieve them.
Then he got the diagnosis. Terminal AIDS.
It made me ashamed. Persistent, hard-working Roscoe had talent and dreams, but not enough time and health left to make them come true. I had talent, dreams and health and was wasting all the gifts.
Motivated by my grief over Roscoe, I asked for and—after facing some resistance from bosses—got two directing shots on Guiding Light. That left me with a very short (less than 15 minutes) director’s reel. But with that reel, and job-hunting steps that had already worked for me, I was moving to California to get my dream.
7 steps to land your dream job
Step One: Get Specific
I wanted a contract job as a director on the first fully integrated soap opera, Generations. Generations was groundbreaking because, from its inception, it featured an African American family.
After five years of being the only Black person on the production staff of a soap opera, I wanted to work in a place where I felt included.
I didn’t know anyone who worked on Generations, and only knew a handful of people in LA, but I was determined to do this thing.
Step Two: Get Your Head in Shape
The only thing predictable about going for your dream job is it will push you out of your comfort zone. It’s inevitable. Prep yourself for that by getting your head in the right place.
- Have a Big Why. My whys were: I LOVED directing and wanted to get paid at least union scale for doing it, honoring Roscoe, carving out a strong financial future for my mother and me, and I wanted to have fun at work every single day. Your “why” should be something that touches your heart and gets you revved every time you think of it.
- Have a Daily Mindset Routine—Physical. My physical routine varied. Sometimes I would do workouts like swimming, walking or yoga, focusing before and after (sometimes during) on my dream job.
Get your heart pumping and those endorphins flowing. You can do whatever you like—dancing, jogging, kickboxing, stretching, weightlifting, etc.; but you’ll need a daily physical release from the stress of job hunting.
- Have a Daily Mindset Routine—Mental. My mindset exercises were prayer, visualization, and affirmations. I would begin and end each day reading my goal out loud, visualizing/mentally experiencing what I would feel, see, hear, smell and taste while I was directing, and praying about any fears or roadblocks.
Choose your mental adventure. It could be meditation, a vision board, chanting, playing a musical instrument, or counting Oscars in your head. Make time at the beginning and end of each day to focus on your dream job.
Step Three: Ask the Expert
No one knows more about your dream job than the people making money at it. For years, I had worked alongside TV directors (and had directed twice), so I knew what the job was like firsthand.
If that’s not the case for you, talk to/research people who have your dream job. How do you meet those people? Ask everyone you know. Odds are someone in your orbit (former classmate, cousin, neighbor, mechanic) knows someone who has done or is doing that job. You’ll never know until you ask.
When you score a meeting, come prepared with questions. You’ll want to know what goes into an average day, and what challenges can pop up. Ask about how they navigate working with bosses, people they supervise, and/or co-workers in different departments. What’s fun and not so fun about the job? What does it take to be the best of the best? What are the roadblocks or challenges you might not see coming?
Step Four: Get the Untold Story from the Village
There are people who work with and around folks with your entertainment industry dream job: assistants, technicians, janitors, security, drivers, etc. Jump at the chance to talk to these folks to ask what they’ve observed about what goes into doing your dream job well.
Don’t forget to research and talk to people who are involved in hiring. Casting directors, agents, and producers can give you information about what the people who are hiring are looking for; and they may be on social media offering tips and workshops.
Step Five: What Skills Do You Lack?
When I arrived in California, all I lacked was years of experience directing. But when I first started in TV, I didn’t know how to move cameras around, how to stay on schedule, how to edit a show, or how to work with the teams in lighting, sets, props, and costumes.
I learned as I went along, but I knew how important these skills were before I got my TV job because of the conversations I’d had with people working in and around soaps.
Use your industry conversations to get information about the skills you need to excel at the job.
Step Six: Get the Skills You Lack
I became skilled at directing by working my way up from Production Secretary to DGA Production Assistant to Associate Director to Director. It was on-the-job training; and the best way to learn. If you can get an entry level gig, go for it. But if you’d prefer to go back to school, take a long look at the skills you want to gain before you take on that expense. Do you need a four-year degree? Maybe you could get the skills needed with an associate degree, or classes, or workshops.
Step Seven: Ask for Your Dream Job
Less than 12 weeks into my job search, after talking with relatives, friends of friends, and countless entertainment professional acquaintances, I was sitting in the office of the Executive Producer of Generations.
This was the person with the power to give me my dream job.
He criticized my director’s reel and doubted I could keep a shooting day on schedule. I leaned into the criticism, acknowledged my mistakes, shared what I learned from them, and assured him I was more than capable of doing a good job.
Then I gathered my courage and offered/asked to observe his directors for a couple of weeks. [“Observing” is common in the industry for directors. When you observe, you show up without pay, and stay for a full day shadowing the director. By asking for two weeks, I knew I could observe all three contract directors and get a sense of how the pace, energy and technique of Generations differed from Guiding Light. It’s a big ask, though, because you’re standing around watching with no actual function. That’s an added headache for the production team. If I wasn’t a member of the Directors Guild and didn’t have five years of experience in soaps, the executive producer probably would have said no. It helped that I presented myself well in the interview.]
When the observing period was up, I asked the executive producer if there was anything I could say that would convince him to give me a directing shot. He quipped, “You can tell me how to improve the ratings.”
Wait. What?
I left that meeting knowing my dream job would never happen. It was an immense disappointment. But I followed through and sent the exec a thank-you note with ten ways I thought he could increase the ratings.
A few weeks later, I happened to meet the Head Writer/Creator of the show. She had heard about me from the Executive Producer, read my thank-you/rating ideas note, and offered me a consultant job on Generations, which I gladly took.
When that went well, the Executive Producer gave me a directing shot, and then a directing contract on the show.
Four months after landing in LA, I got my dream job.
What Happened After I Got My Dream Job?
Roscoe died shortly after I moved to Los Angeles, but he’s always with me. And my dream job? That one was short-lived. Generations was canceled less than a year after I was hired. But I had quite a few directing jobs after that on shows like Ghostwriter, Sesame Street, and My Brother and Me.
How did I do that? By making more connections and gaining skill and experience. When you love what you do for a living, it’s no hardship to learn and grow. It’s fun.
You Can Get Your Dream Job
“I Hope I Get It” is the opening number from A Chorus Line. It’s about the fear, desire and self-doubt wrapped up in auditioning.
How it feels to put your heart on the line and go for your dream.
Roscoe made me believe I could have the career I wanted, and he was right. With decades of great entertainment jobs on my resume, I can tell you for a fact these steps work.
You can have your dream job. Just take the first step.
