Finding Work in the Online Adult Industry
When I speak of working in the online adult industry, I am not talking about the types of jobs where you have to take your clothes off. I would rather focus on the other types of positions that are available in this industry that mirror positions in the mainstream arena. These types of positions come with titles such as marketing director, graphic designer, Webmaster, and sales manager. How do the appropriately skilled candidates acquire positions such as these in the online adult entertainment industry?
If you were searching for a mainstream job, you would most likely check out the careers section of your local newspaper or surf one of the large employment websites that are available on the Internet. However, it does seem unlikely that if you were searching for a position with a porn company that you would consult the careers section or an employment website such as Monster.com. What many people do not know is that many of the larger porn companies actually advertise positions with their companies in mainstream publications or on employment websites. Through these mainstream channels is actually the route I took to end up in the online adult business, so I will recap my tale.
It was just around the time that the dotcoms were starting their decline into the toilet. At that time, I was working as a Marketing Manager for a dotcom company that specialized in new media development. When I started to see my fellow co-workers let go one by one, I made the quick decision to get out before the same thing happened to me. I started checking the careers section in my local paper daily, as well as perusing the big job sites such as Workopolis.com and Monster.ca. Due to the fact that many of the dotcoms were sinking fast and many people like me were searching for new jobs, there seemed to be a lack of positions available or they seemed to fill instantly. I kept at it and finally I got called in for an interview to a company that had advertised for a Marketing Manager. Their ad on Workopolis had been pretty vague stating that they were looking for someone to head up their marketing as well as come up with a branding strategy for a new product that they were developing. Their offices were right downtown in the heart of the financial district on the top floor of a trendy office tour. When I showed up for my interview, I was greeted by the receptionist and ushered into the vice presidents office. I was shocked when I first met him because he seemed too young to me to be vice president of a large company. I immediately asked him to tell me a little bit more about what the company did. When he told me that they were involved in the online adult entertainment business, I was utterly shocked. The clean, sterile, corporate environment that I saw when I had looked around me did not quite fit the porn image that I had in my mind. Anyways, we had a very nice chat in which he assured me that the position did not involve me taking my clothes off. He told me a lot about the company, how they started, the industry and what their plans for the future were. I was very impressed and I began to look at porn in a whole new light. Needless to say, I was offered the job and I have been happily working in the industry ever since.
Ok, now that I have bored you to tears with my story, I will give you some tips to finding the job of your dreams in the porn business:
1. Perfect your resume. Re-evaluate your skills and put together a kick-ass resume for yourself and include any relevant experience that you have both in mainstream and adult. Make your resume as formal as you would if you were applying for a position in a mainstream industry.
2. Do some research on the large adult companies. Find out who the big organizations are in the industry, what programs or products they have, and who to get in contact with. Any of the webmaster resource boards will list the large sponsor programs, content providers, and porn websites. You can start your search here at the Webmaster Vault. It does not hurt to send your resume to these companies even if their websites do not post available positions.
3. Check out some of the adult industry job sites. There are employment websites that are specialized for jobs in the porn industry. A few of these include Adult Staffing (www.adultstaffing.com), Sexy Jobs (www.sexyjobs.com) and Adult Help Wanted (www.adulthelpwanted.com). Post your resume on these sites as well as search for jobs that fit your skills and submit your resume to them. You could also try the mainstream employment websites like I did and try searching with keywords such as creative, online, and entertainment.
4. Network via the message boards. Many companies will post new positions to the various message boards. Become a frequent visitor to many of the bigger message boards to find out who is hiring as well as to post inquiries about jobs that may be available for someone with your skill set.
5. Do not forget the cover letter. Do not get lazy when applying for jobs in the porn industry. Follow the same formalities as you would when applying for a mainstream job. This includes attaching a cover letter to your resume, thanking a potential employer for your interview and following up after your interview. These are all very important stages in the applying and interview process.
If you have any questions about proper resume format or need help writing a resume, please feel free to post a message to my attention on our message board and I will be sure to help you out.
Reader Comments: (1 posts)
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Butch says: Geez, that's unbleeivbale. Kudos and such. |
October 29th, 2011 at 2:51am EST Rating:  |
