The Perfect Audition Checklist

I consider myself a pretty good auditioner. But really, it doesn’t matter what I think. I let my hire rate speak for itself. At one point, out of 14 consecutive auditions, I received six likes and was awarded four jobs. Not bad stats. Of course, I don’t have these kinds of results for every batch of auditions I do, but I can always bet that if I dedicate a day to submitting good auditions, they will result in jobs.

How do I do this? Well, of course it helps to have training. But booking jobs is only half about having acting chops. If you’re the best voice actor in world, but you submit bad auditions, you aren’t going to get work. Which is why it’s so important to make sure every audition you submit is perfect. Here is the checklist I use to do just that.

• Make sure your recording space is quiet. Really quiet. Any type of background noise in your recording is an instant turn-off.
• Make sure there is no echo or reverb in your recording space. You can usually take care of this by arranging sound dampening acoustic foam on your walls. Or for a budget method, just hang some blankets.
• Check your equipment. Make sure you’re working with a good microphone, and that all your settings on your mic, your pre-amp (if you’re using one), and your recording software are optimized so that you get a good, rich sound. Play around with this until you find the settings that work best for you.
• Check the audition. Only audition for jobs that match your capabilities. Doing otherwise wastes your time, and the client’s time.
• Audition early. When I first started, I auditioned for jobs based on their deadline. Then I wised up and realized that my auditions had better chances of being heard if they were among the first to be submitted. But I only recently learned about the trick of arranging jobs in order of their job number. Just click on the job number column twice to arrange the jobs in order of most recently posted. Then you can make sure you are auditioning for jobs in the right order.
• Don’t slate your audition. I’ve heard that a client makes a decision as to whether or not they like your audition in the first few seconds. You might as well use all of those seconds to showcase your awesome read, rather than say your name (which they can clearly see with your audition anyway). As a rule of thumb, unless you’re submitting multiple takes, it isn’t really necessary to say your name when auditioning online.
• Edit your audition. And edit it well. I think that this is where a lot of auditions are won (and lost). A lot goes into the editing of my auditions. It’s an art that I am still working to perfect, but I make sure that I put in as much effort into editing my auditions as I do my paid jobs. And it pays off. Specifically, I…
  • Normalize my auditions to -3 db.
  • Remove all breaths
  • Remove all mouth clicks and other sounds
  • Include only the best 20-30 seconds of the read
  • Splice together my best parts to create one super-read

Click here to get my detailed video on how I edit my auditions

• Keep my note to the client short, sweet and to the point. I typically will tell the client a bit about my recording setup, how fast I can get the recording to them, and about my excellent recording quality. Pro tip: Make sure to spell check your note. I was spelled my own last name wrong in the first template I made.
• Bid appropriately. In short, bid what you feel you’re worth. But try to stay within the client’s posted budget. If your audition is good, you don’t need to try to undercut other talent. If the client likes you, and your bid is within their budget, then they will have no problems with your rate, even if it isn’t the lowest bid they receive.
• Send it and forget it. Once you have submitted an audition, don’t obsess over it. Don’t check back constantly to see if it’s been liked. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done, and move on to the next one.