Applying for Your First Job in the Music Industry: 7 Tips + Message Templates for Recruiters
Reaching out to a recruiter in the music industry for the first time may be tricky and overwhelming, hands down.
While it’s commonly viewed that people interested in building music careers usually start out as independent musicians, this path may seem unacceptable to you due to various reasons. And it’s totally fine! You don’t have to sail along in this journey, especially with zero experience behind your belt. The good news is that there are plenty of jobs to choose from when building a career within the music industry. And even with so many talented applicants vying for opportunities, you can make your application stand out.
Before reaching out to a recruiter/company, you first need to understand which path to undertake in general, based on your skills and job experience. Deciding which direction to follow for a beginner can be quite a head scratcher — and we totally get you. Especially if you’re passionate about music but need some practical knowledge of how to better apply your skills to be able to make your living and feel fulfilled.
In this guide we will cover what can be some promising career options for beginners in the music industry, and also, where to find job opportunities — with and without a degree required. We will also have all the job opportunities classified for your better understanding.
Let’s dive in!
Music Creation
Music Creation refers to the process by which music is created in the first place. It can be manipulated and distributed further, but that would be another process that involves other specialists. At the beginning, music is created.
If you want to start out as a musician who creates music first-hand, you can consider career opportunities as a composer, songwriter or arranger.
Songwriter/Composer
Song writers are skilled in writing melodies and chords. They have good command of key signatures, musical chords, and scales as well as the different rhythms and beats used in songs.
If you’re just starting out here, you’ll need to record a demo of your song and only after that reach out to music publishers.
Arranger
Arrangers edit and alter elements of music, reimagining an original piece into a modified version.
Manipulating sound electronically requires strong tech skills, so in order to succeed in this profession, you’ll need to take a course. Once it’s finished, you can begin searching for career opportunities.
Educator
Music teacher
A music teacher's job is to educate and instruct students in the art and techniques of music. Music teachers work with students of all ages and skill levels, from beginners to advanced students, and may specialize in teaching specific instruments or styles of music. Their responsibilities typically include designing lesson plans, preparing and delivering music lessons, evaluating student progress, providing feedback and guidance to students, and preparing students for performances or exams. Music teachers may work in a variety of settings, including schools, universities, private music studios, or as freelance instructors.
By presenting yourself as knowledgeable, passionate, and experienced educator you can increase your chances of securing a job in their desired field. A great tool to use to make your lessons more engaging and fun is Solfeg.io. It will give you hundreds of popular songs and quizzes for your students to interact with. You can sign up for free here.
Private teacher
Private music teachers provide one-on-one music instruction to students in a variety of instruments and musical styles. These teachers typically work independently and may operate their own music studios or offer lessons in students' homes. Private music teachers may also help their students prepare for music exams or performances, and may provide advice on purchasing or renting instruments.
Musical Performance
While some composers can play musical instruments, there are also musicians who are skilled in performing music written by other people, and only that. They’re not involved in music creation. If this is your case, you can pursue career opportunities as a musician (professional instrument player) or singer.
Musician
If you’re playing any musical instrument, you can work as a solo artist or may participate in a band and orchestra. Normally, professional players build a career as concert players, which lets them play in concert halls, conservatories or live events.
The path toward becoming a professional musician typically involves obtaining music education and receiving a diploma. Some undergraduates can go straight into an orchestral position, but if it’s not your case — don’t worry, there are still plenty of ways to get in touch with orchestras/bands and get auditions. European cities, for instance, are a goldmine for classical music, and the industry never runs out of opportunities.
If you possess a diploma, you need to include this in your CV, and instantly start reaching out to music bands/orchestras. We will explain how to do this in detail further in this article.
If you want to learn how to play any musical instrument, the Solfeg.io mobile app for students is for you. The application has excellent opportunities for comfortable learning to play any musical instrument. Cost from $3.75 per month.
If you dream about a career as a classical music player, here are some tips to consider to get yourself a spot in an orchestra/band.
Singer
Unless you’ve established a popular TikTok influencer or Youtube blogger, it’s quite daunting to spark a career as a singer and launch yourself into a stardom. But impossible is nothing. If you’re a talented singer looking for places to perform, you can start with local organizations or theatre productions. Of course, you’ll have to learn how to reach out to show directors and those in charge of artists.
However, running your Youtube channel won’t harm, and in today’s fully digital reality, we’d say Youtube is imperative to tackle. Artists like Justin Bieber or the Weekend started their career by recording Youtube amateur videos.
Music Production/Marketing
If you’re looking for opportunities in the music industry to explore this business “from inside” and just don’t know where to start — sometimes there is a point in getting involved in music distribution. Here are positions to consider:
- Music production coordinator
- Event manager
- Concert manager
- Music tour manager
How to reach out to recruiters in the music industry
Now, since we’ve all the job opportunities classified, we’re good to go defining the best sources of career opportunities.
Job Sources
There are plenty of websites that will help you firestart a career in the music industry. Here is just a handful of most popular (UK and US):
- https://www.musiccareers.co/
- https://www.upwork.com/freelance-jobs/music/
- https://www.music-jobs.com/uk/jobsboard, https://www.music-jobs.com/usa/jobsboard
- https://www.music-jobs.com/uk/
When it comes to building a professional career in the music industry, the obvious and most effective source for finding job opportunities is, of course, LinkedIn.
It is a go-to platform for finding job opportunities. What’s best about it is that it lets you connect with potential employers in a not-too-formal manner. Talking to a potential employer via LinkedIn adds to your chances of getting seen and heard: you can engage with their content, or message them from time to time to pursue the best possibility for you.
LinkedIn offers numerous job opportunities, however, in order to dig up the most luscious offers, you need to know how it works and what are the search mechanisms behind it. To succeed in job finding on LinkedIn, stick to these simple rules:
- Have your profile designed appropriately and bio filled out
- Use keywords to find job opportunities
- Reach out to employers/recruiters massively and regularly
- Learn how to write spectacular & working connection messages
- Employ a system to monitor your success and not miss out on replies & offers
Closely to speed up your outreach 3x times
When it comes to LinkedIn outreach, the more messages you send, the better chances of getting replies from at least anyone (this is especially relevant if you don’t have any experience at all). There are special pieces of software that’s called outreach automation (some of them are free) that will let you write a message once and send it to up to 50 recruiters per day, boosting chances of getting replies/job interviews much faster.
Closely is an example of such a tool. It works in the cloud, providing you with your personal account, where it collects replies and builds analytics.
Here is a quick guide to LinkedIn recruiting outreach
1. Design your profile so it looks attractive & shiny
Who would want to employ a person with a gloomy/deserted profile?
- Insert life into your profile by adding a pro picture, banner, and filling out bio. Find a full guide to designing your LinkedIn profile to make it glowing and intriguing here.
- Add at least 100 people to your connections prior to starting to reach out to headhunters. Empty profiles look suspicious and decrease reply rates.
- Consider inputting relevant hashtags to your headline.
Hashtags are there to help you get visible in the LinkedIn search result. For instance, this lady on the pic above showed off that she’s open for opportunities as a music producer and music supervisor. Take a glimpse into this full guide for using hashtags, in case you’re truly serious about getting visible by your potential employers.
- If your friends are on LinkedIn — ask them to endorse your skills.
After receiving your message, headhunters will look through your profile — that’s an opportunity to showcase your skills. It’s best when your skills are endorsed by others, and not you. That’s why it’s advisable to have your skills endorsed by others — it always adds up to your expertise and how you’re seen by other people.
2. Search relevant people
Type the keyword “talent acquisition” in the LinkedIn search result and select Musicians in the Industry field among all filters that are suggested. This way you’ll find recruiters in the field you’re interested in.
3. If you choose to use Closely for outreach — here is what you can do.
1. Copy the link to the results of your search. Create your account at closelyhq.com Log in & connect your LinkedIn account (they have video instructions in the Help Center, it's a very straightforward and quick process) and head to LinkedIn Campaigns.
2. Hit Create new campaign. Think up a name for your campaign.
3. Paste the link from your search result and specify how many recruiters you want to reach out to (at once).
4. Very well! Almost there. The next step is to write a message sequence. A message sequence will consist of a connection request and a follow-up message. You can also add steps like profile visits or post likes, to show recruiters that you’re interested in their profiles and whatever they post there. But this is not mandatory.
Any outreach automation tool will let you use variables (pieces of text in brackets on the screen) that will make your messages tailored to each recruiter. These tools will auto populate data about people you’re reaching out to. This way you’ll refer to each of them by name and include relevant personalized information in messages, like their company name or industry name.
On the right side of the image you can see what your message will look like in their inboxes.
Think up a follow-up message, like on this screen and hit Start.
The tool will send 50 messages to 50 people, as you asked, and send your follow-up message to those who accepted your connection request. If someone replies, the campaign will stop running for this person, and you’ll get the reply in your Inbox. That’s convenient. No need to switch to LinkedIn and back and do lots of manipulations. Write messages < hit send > wait for replies.
In your Inbox (it’s embedded in your account) you’ll see all the replies and can instantly start communication.
4. Find headhunters in databases
What’s also cool about outreach tools is that they usually also possess databases of business contacts. Such a base can contain millions of records of business contacts.
Use of multiple filters like shown on this screen allows you to get to the decision makers that you need to reach out to. Just specify job title, location and keywords to pull the needed segment of people.
Once all the filters are applied, you hit search and get the results right away.
Just look at this — 79 people for your search query. Pretty amazing, and you can now open their contact details or message them right through the tool.
Typically, the tool will open their emails and LinkedIn profiles. You can add the needed contacts to a list and message them in one click. You can take their email addresses and craft an email.
There are various other tools similar to this one. Simply google LinkedIn outreach automation and you’ll get the list of most prominent solutions.
Company Websites and Emails
You may already know who you want to work for, including the company's name. In this case it’s good to reach out to their HR department directly via email.
For instance, if you want to work for a particular brand, just google its official website, and head to the Contacts page. Sometimes companies have Careers page as well, but Contacts page should contain email addresses you can use for your outreach.
Another way is to use Closely again or any other B2B contact database to fish up the emails and other contact data of the company you’re interested in.
By entering a company’s name, you’ll get a list of all this company’s employees, produced for you on the screen.
Craft an email or reach out via LinkedIn — it’s up to you, since now you have all the needed data at your fingertips. And what’s even greater — once you’ve run out of one piece of data, you can always look up another one. Tweak locations and other filters to find new recruiters all the time in case your endeavor hasn't ended up in the result you wanted.
As you can see, there are lots of means to reach out to that very recruiter that you deem can help you get the job of your dream. We hope this guide was insightful and practical.
And now, as promised, grab these ultimate message templates for headhunters in the music industry. Feel free to flesh them out and apply to your cases.
Message Templates for Recruiters in the Music Industry (LinkedIn)
Template #1
STEP1. Connection request message.
Hi {first_name}!
My name is {my_first_name},
I’m a professional musician, working with [names_of_companies].
Would love to connect with you here.
STEP2. Follow-up.
Hi {first_name}! Thanks for connecting 🙂
I’m currently looking for job opportunities in the music industry. Would be very grateful if you have something for me, or if anything pops us — let me know.
Here is a link to some of my works: {{link}}.
Thank you in advance!
Respectfully,
{my_first_name}.
Template #2
STEP1. Connection request message.
Hey there! My name is {my_first_name}.I’m expanding my network and will be happy to connect with you 💁🏻♀️
STEP2. Follow-up.
Hi {first_name}1 Thanks for connecting! I’m looking for job opportunities in the music industry. I’d be grateful if you can come up with suggestions for me, in case you have something.
Thank you very much in advance! Here are my works: {{link_to_a_steaming_service}}.
Sincerely,
{my_first_name}.
Template #3
STEP1. Connection request message.
Hey {first_name}, just saw your profile because of a mutual connection we have. I’m {my_first_name}, I’m a professional musician, playing piano and creating songs for [specify].
Would be glad to have you in my network.
STEP2. Follow-up.
Hi! Thanks for connecting with me. :) I’d love to share my works {{link}}.
Perhaps you’ll have any job opportunities to suggest for me in the future.
I worked with [specify].
Thanks!
Respectfully,
{my_first-name}.
Template #4
STEP1. Connection request message.
Hello {first_name},
Being a big fan of {company_name} myself, I’d like to connect with its frontrunners.
My name is {my_first_name}, I’m a musician, recently working at {my_company_name}.
Hope we can connect 🙂
STEP2. Follow-up.
Hi {first_name}, thanks for connecting. 🎈
I’m currently looking for opportunities in the music industry. I’m skilled at [list down].
Perhaps you’ll have something to offer for me. Thanks ☺️
Template #5
STEP1. Connection request message.
Hi {first_name}! My name is {my_first_name}, I’m a professional musician. I play [specify] and create music. I’m also involved in [list down current projects]. Would love to connect with you. 🙂
STEP2. Follow-up.
Hi {first_name}, thanks for connecting with me.
I’m currently open for job opportunities in the music field. In case you have something to offer now or in the future — don’t hesitate to contact me. I’d love to answer any questions you might have considering my education & experience.
Thank you very much in advance!
Sincerely,
{my_first_name}.
Template #6
STEP1. Connection request message.
Hi there {first_name}!
My name is {my_first_name},
As a professional musician collaborating with [names_of_companies], I would be delighted to connect with you through this platform.
STEP2. Follow-up.
Hello {first_name}!
I’m glad to have connected with you. Right now I’m looking to advance my career in the music industry. Please let me know if you have any available positions, I would gladly apply my skills and experience towards creating something valuable as part of your team.
You can listen to some of my work here: {{link}}.
I look forward to your reply! :)
Best regards,
{my_first_name}.
These templates can come in handy if you decide to reach out to recruiters on LinkedIn. We recommend that you read the article on the topic "How to Reach Out to a Recruiter on LinkedIn". This article provides detailed tips and message templates for LinkedIn.
To Sum Up
The music world is a thrilling and rewarding field, but it can be tough to break in and catch recruiters’ attention. That's why we’ve listed these essential tips, job classification, and message templates to help you nail that first job application.
To succeed in job search, you absolutely need to fill out your LinkedIn profile and reach out to potential employers constantly, till you get yourself an audition or job offer. You can also scour job websites and reach out to companies you’re interested to work for directly via email. Consider also using contact databases, like the one in Closely to get the needed phone numbers and emails of headhunters.
Good luck! :)
