Greetings.

I have been reading thru older posts in regards to "special skills" and it has made me realize in trying figure out if I have special skills; that I can not think of anything "special". I appear to have more hobbies than any special skills.

My agency has requested that I send them a list of special skills and I am just completely at a road block with everything.

I was wondering if any of these listed below would be o.k. to add as a special skill (even though they are pretty generic-all non competitive but I can do on an excellent level) and I do believe one or two are deffinately conversation starters since they are a tad silly.

Bicycle riding, Roller skating, Roller blading, Swimming, Singing (Alto), Basic Spanish, Manual Transmission Driver, can hoola hoop for a long period of time, can place my feet behind my head.

What should be left and what should be removed or anything like to be explained?

Also, I have questions on somethings, would they be considered a special skill or more of a hobby or should I leave it off?

1) Volleyball, I never played in school but I play every summer with friends and I am pretty well with it. Same goes for badmiton.
Neither of these I have played on a competitive level - just leisure against friends and family.

2) Photography (but to me that is more like a hobby instead of special skill)

3) Assist working on car/mechanics (again would seem more like a hobby than a skill)

4) Drag racing on a drag strip with street cars (once again, seems more like a hobby than a skill - but i always get pretty good reaction times off the line lol)

What about any of those?



Also, I know NOT to list things I am currently learning but would it be ok to inform my agency of some potential skills that we will need to add to my list?

I am in the process of learning to ride a motorcycle (will be licensed) and I am also learn a certin style of belly dancig called american tribal style belly dancing.


Thanks in advance for any and all help...I just feel like I am a fuddy dud and have no special skills lol.

A piece of advice I got when I passed mine up the chain to my school's audition technique teacher was to state each skill in as few words and in the simplest form possible. For instance, I was told to change "horseback riding" to "horseback." So, instead of "Bicycle Riding," you might want to try "Bicycling" or perhaps even "Cycling." Instead of "can hoola hoop for a long period of time," you might want to try "hoola hoop for long periods." Also, avoid personal pronouns. Try "can place feet behind head" instead of "can place my feet behind my head" ... although I wouldn't wear a skirt to meetings with that one unless you want to give 'em a thrill.

Oh, and nice website, Mandy!

the safe bet is if on a moments notice they need you to do whatever skill is on your resume, and you can do it then keep it on.

Fishgurl---what is the reasoning behind the shortening of all the phrases? I get the idea of taking a long sentence and shortening to a couple words, but was curious what the rationale was on changing short words to even shorter. I'm not judging the idea just wasnt sure why your teacher thought horseback riding vs horseback, etc would make a difference?

I'm not sure exactly what her reasoning was except that she's a big fan of brevity. It could well be just her own preferred format and nothing more. I won't take her class until next year and only met with her for a few minutes, so I didn't get a lot of 'whys.' Just mainly a lot of talk about gerunds, singular nouns and "Tonto language" - i.e. an almost complete absence of pronouns, articles and auxiliaries. She's all about Tonto and was pretty disappointed I didn't know who he was! LOL

I don't think you should stuff like photography and being mechanic because if they needed someone to do these things in a film, the actor really wouldn't have to be proficient at it. Same with drag racing, they wouldn't have the actor do that; it would be stunt work for a stunt man.

The rest of your list seems fine to me.

thank you very much

only list stuff you are good at.

and that not everyone can do easily.