VoiceOver Jobs: Where to Find Them and How to Get Them
Voice over jobs are posted by the dozens every day on just one site. So there are probably hundreds or thousands available daily. Many of those won’t be available to the public, but the ones on the site I mentioned before definitely are. That site is Voices.Com. It’s free to sign up for a profile, and as soon as you do you get to start putting up samples of you voice recordings.
Making The Recordings
That last part might scare some people, but don’t let it put you off at all. If you have a computer, you won’t need to spend more than about $49 to start making professional sounding voice over recordings. And that’s only if you don’t already have a half-way decent mic. $59 is about the minimum price for a USB mic (such as the Samson Q2U) that can yield good quality audio. Then if you don’t have any voice recording software yet, simply download the free tracking and mixing program called Audacity. To figure out how to make recordings with Audacity, do an internet search for tutorials. Or you could check out the Home Brew Audio tutorials on Audacity here: Recording Tutorials.
Audition for The Voice Over Jobs
Once you have some demo recordings you can upload them to your Voices.com profile. But the real potential is in auditioning for open jobs. Voices.com will send you notices when voice over jobs get posted, and all you have to do is go to the listing for the job, find out what kind of voice-over they want, quote your price and send the recording in for your audition.
Each job posting will have specific details, like what their budget range is (the minimum is $100), and what type of voice they need. The listing will also usually (I’d say 90 percent of the time) contain an attached script that will have parts of what the client is looking for. I highly recommend you record from that script for your audition.
This is called a “custom” audition and will be much more targeted to what the client needs, which will increase your chances of getting the job. One thing to be careful of at this stage is protecting your recording.
If a client is looking for just one paragraph for the entire job, and they provide that paragraph as the audition, anyone who reads the entire thing will have given the client what they need already. Less scrupulous folks can (and have) simply use the audition to fill their job without having to pay you. Preventing this is pretty easy. Either don’t read 100% of the script, or insert a “watermark” to make it impractical for the the audition to be used as a final product.
Getting the Jobs
Here is where knowing the reality of a situation can make the difference between success and failure. Before doing any of this, you should know that as with any acting job, voice over jobs are highly competitive. I would venture a guess that you will get a job about every 100 auditions. This sounds bad but really it isn’t. If you know it going in, you won’t be ready to throw in the towel when your 50th audition still has not yielded one job. Do at least 100 before even starting to get discouraged. The people who succeed in this business are the ones who are persistent and focused.
There are lots of tips on the web about how to make the best recordings for voice overs, how to increase you odds of getting voice over jobs, etc. One such source of advice is the Home Brew Audio website. However you decide to proceed, good luck in your new voice-over career!
Free videos from “The Newbies Guide to Audio Recording Awesomeness”
Voice Over Jobs: Where to Find Them and How to Get Them: https://www.homebrewaudio.com/voice-over-jobs-where-to-find-them-and-how-to-get-them
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Hi Ken,
Thank you for sharing your insight! Your article was fun to read and I wish you continued success at Voices.com.
Best wishes,
Stephanie
No problem Stephanie! I’ve been with you guys for a few years now and I think you’re great.
Cheers,
Ken Theriot
Hi Stephanie. Knowing something about performance but nothing at all about VO except suddenly I really wanted to do it, I took a leap and placed every egg in the Voices.com basket even though I live in England. I was amazed, and still am, by the level of support from your team and the professional community you have built. Real work came in, well before the 100th audition, and now repeats and feedback. You have built a brilliant system that works for both sides of the equation. Best of all is the opportunity to improve every day, on performance, studio technique, marketing. I totally enjoy it.
I’m really glad to read articles like this one – I’ve been a member at Voices.com for about 8 months now and have to remind myself that persistance is key. I’ve auditioned for about 140 jobs so far and have yet to land one, but I’m staying positive since I know how competitive this industry is. I’ve thought about signing up for a Makeover Monday session sometime because it’s quite possible that my profile just isn’t working the way it should. I’m also going to turn to resources like HomeBrew Audio to help improve my recording ‘studio’ at home…I know there has to be ways to improve the quality of my recordings (I actually think that’s probably what has kept me from getting hired). Thank for the insight – onwards and upwards! 🙂
Amy,
Yes! Stay positive and I think your plan to improve your profile and your recordings will help a lot! I would start with the audio part, simply because you’re in charge of putting that into the hands of those hiring for jobs every day through auditions. I’ve also hired voice over folks and though I’m not saying everyone is like me, I rarely, if ever, look at someone’s profile. I just put the job out there and listen to the auditions.
Good luck and I think you will really be able to improve your audio from our resources!
Cheers,
Ken
Greetings,
I have been surfing the net for some info about getting back into the radio biz from home.
It has been about 11 years since I have done live radio and production. The computer based recording is so cool. I remember the 4 and 8 track reel to reel along with the razor and splicing tape. My radio work was fun. The pay sucked. I worked in Texas. Brenham, College station and Corpus Christi. I loved the live on air, but really loved the production side. Gonna try to give it whirl again from home on my days off. I have to buy a mic. Have the computer and net. I do not have any royalty free music beds or sound efx yet. and as far as billing, if it comes to that..and it will..what is the best protocol on receiving payment for services rendered ? Awesome site guys…best I have found so far.
Thanks,
Rick
Hi Rick,
For billing it depends on the job. Voices.com has an escrow payment service, so they do the billing. You just provide them a PayPal address. If you deal direct with the client, they may ask for an invoice, in which case I I use QuickBooks to generate the invoice. The client will let you know if they do PayPal, check (still pretty common) or direct deposit into a bank account. Does that answer your question?
And thanks so much for the shout-out:).
Ken
Good info., but my question is, “Aren’t there any sites that post these jobs, where you don’t have to spend $300 or so for a “premium” package, just so you can send an audition? There are people like myself, currently unemployed that don’t have $300 to spend on voices.com or voice123.com. I’m borrowing money just to eat! Not that I expect it to ever happen, but it would be nice if someone would create a site or database that would make it a little easier on those of us who are starting out and/or currently have little or no funds.
Thanks for the tips. My wife has been telling me for awhile I may do well with voice overs. Sooooo, I’m going to give it a shot. Yours was the first source that I checked out and the tips were great ! again thanks.
Awesome Bob! You’re welcome, and best of luck:).
Ken
Hi Ken,
What other resources for voice-over talent, other than Voices.com, would you recommend?
Thanks,
Brandon
Voice123.com is another one for finding jobs. for just general support from other VOs – questions and exchange of ideas, etc. there are some FAcebook Groups. One good one that I’m on is called VO community. Hope that helps some.
It’s probably worth hitting up all the pay-to-play sites with a free listing, but don’t waste your time doing thousands of “custom auditions” for a 1:30,000 chance of landing a $100 gig. (As of this writing there are around 30,000 Voice123 members). Just as you can buy a thousand $1 Lottery Scratchers and accumulate maybe $100, you can rack up 1,000 hours of production time to maybe land one $100 gig. Your reward: 10-cents per hour for all of the time you’ve invested. Here are some real stats for one week of Voices123: Of the 7 jobs I submitted proposals for there were 419 bidding against me and that’s almost twice as many of the 240 bids requested. The total value of all of these jobs was only $1,400. As I say, if it’s a free listing, go ahead and post your demos. You’ve got nothing to lose but maybe a half hour of your time, one time. But you’re better off using those hours wasted on responding to pay-to-play bids by making direct contact with large advertisers, ad agencies, video production houses, and mid-sized companies to show them your demo away from so much competition.
Thanks Ken. About that math – my average is to land a ~$200-$400 job for every 30-50 auditions that I do on voices.com. And about one in three of those customers will become repeat clients. The average person (this is pretty much agreed on by Voices.com and just about every other actor of any kind) is that you’ll land a job for every 100 auditions you do. But that assumes good audio quality and good reading/acting. Clearly, if your auditions suck, you may never land a job.
But you are absolutely correct that part of your marketing (a much bigger part than most people act on) should be doing what you said – directly reaching out to those folks directly.