How to Find Talent, Receive Submissions, Save Résumés, and Contact Applicants in Bulk

Casting directors, agents, and employers can use BackStage.com to find actors, models, performers (dancers, singers, comedians, musicians, and more); manage submissions; and then contact the job applicants individually or in bulk.

To start your talent search, visit the Casting Center Toolbox and then "Post a Notice" to call for cast and crew.

And to supplement your search, visit the Back Stage Multimedia Résumé Talent Database and use advanced search criteria (including gender, age ranges, skills, union status, geographic location, etc.) to find even more actors, models, and performers.

Plus, you can set up Saved Résumé Searches and Alerts to automatically search the Talent Database for you; your Resume Alert Agents will email you resumes that match your search criteria until you've finished casting.

Once you've received a ton of Multimedia Résumé submissions thanks to the Casting Notice you posted on BackStage.com – and/or after you've found some great actors in Back Stage's Talent Database yourself – visit your Résumé Inbox & Applicant Manager to view, organize, tag, sort, and filter through the submissions you've received and resumes you've found. (Quick tip: use the "Advanced Filter" option in your Inbox to manage the résumés more effectively.)

Then use the following options to contact the actors you'd like to audition:

1) INDIVIDUAL CONTACT:

- While viewing a resume, you can either use the details in the "Contact Info" field near the top of the resume (which usually lists the actor's email address and phone number) or scroll down to the bottom of the resume and click the "Contact Actor" button.

- The "Contact Actor" button will open up a pop-up window where you can enter a message. After clicking "Send," your message will be sent as an email to the actor.

- You'll also receive Resume Submissions via regular email, which you can respond to via a regular email (simply click "Reply" when viewing the email) or by using the contact info listed at the top of the resume.

2) BULK CONTACT:

- Visit your Résumé Inbox & Applicant Manager to view the resumes saved in your Inbox.

- Click on the check-box on the right-hand side of the screen next to each actor you wish to contact.

- Only select actors from the page of résumés that's currently visible; do not move on to the rest of the pages of resumes yet (if you've received a lot of resumes, then your Inbox will span multiple pages; you can only contact on page's worth of actors in bulk at a time).

- Choose the "Contact Selected Applicants" option from the drop-down menu at the bottom of the screen.

- Click the "Go" button.

- A pop-up window will appear; enter your message in this box. Click "send" and an email will be sent to ALL of the actors you've selected at once.

- Move on to the next page of resumes, and repeat the above steps.

3) SORTING & FILTERING ACTOR RESUMES BEFORE CONTACTING

- If you add a "Rating" number to the actors that you want to contact, then you can use the up-and-down "sorting" arrows in the Rating column of your Resume Submissions Inbox to sort together all of the resumes you like. For instance, if you mark all of the actors you want to contact with the number "1" and then sort the resumes so that all of the "1" resumes appear before the un-rated "0" resumes, then you'll be able to more easily contact all of the actors you want all at once, since your favorite resumes will all appear grouped together for easy bulk-contacting.

- You can also sort the resumes by geographic location, the names of the applicants, the dates the resumes were first added to you Inbox, and whether or not the resumes were added to your Inbox by one of your Talent Database seaches (these are labeled as "Added by Employer") vs. resumes that were sent to your Inbox by an actor directly when they applied to your casting notice (these are labeled as "Added by Job Seeker").

- Additionally, you can use the "Advanced Filter" option to view only specific types of Resume Submissions at once. For instance, you can filter your inbox to only show Resume Submissions from actors of a particular gender, age-range, or union affiliation – which can make bulk-contacting actors even easier.

- You can also tag each resume with Notes (private comments that only you can see) and Job Codes (for instance, you could use a Note or Job Code to remind yourself that you want to audition an actor for a particular project or role).

- View the screenshots below for an overview of this process: