Career Advice

Top Tips To Land Your Dream Internship With Sony Music UK’s Talent Acquisition Manager, Charlotte Tindle

In partnership with Sony Music UK, we spoke to Charlotte Tindle about her top tips for music industry job applications!
Anna Sykes

August 30, 2024

Designed by Fran Papageorgiou. Image courtesy of Charlotte Tindle.

As part of our partnership with Sony Music UK for their 2025 internship applications, we spoke to Charlotte Tindle, Junior Talent Acquisition Manager, about her top tips for your internship applications. Charlotte has worked in Talent Acquisition at Sony Music UK for five years and helps teams around the company recruit the best talent. Supporting young people starting their music industry journeys is important to Charlotte, which is why she’s so passionate about managing the internship program recruitment each year. 

Most music industry job applications involve sending in a CV or resume, and a cover letter. If these catch the attention of recruiters, you’ll also be invited to interview. In this article, Charlotte offers some top tips for each stage of the application process. Whether you’re planning on applying for the Sony Music UK internships this year or not, we hope you find these tips helpful for your future music industry job applications. 

GA: Starting at the beginning, what are your three top tips for music industry CVs/resumes? 

CT:

  1. Keep it concise and relevant - no need for too much text. Remember, you are marketing yourself here.
  2. Tailoring - talk about the specific role, share relevant skills for the role, talk about music and the label/company you are going for.
  3. Show your personality - Don’t be afraid to show the reader who you are as a person. 

GA: And, what is one common mistake in CVs/resumes that you’ve seen?

CT: Not being clear enough about your responsibilities in a piece of experience or a project. Tell us what YOU did and how it ties into this job. Bullet points are fine here but really think about what you want to say.

Try and put yourself in a recruiters shoes. They are viewing hundreds of application and might be a bit tired of seeing the same thing over and over. Try and pitch yourself in a way that stands out. What makes you, you? Share it with us!

GA: If you could go back to your first CV/resume and change one thing, what would it be?

CT: Tailor my CV carefully. My first CV should never see the light of day again, I didn’t have any work experience and it was 3 pages long. I think for the first CV, when you don’t have any experience is to really focus on the skills you have that link in with the job. I could have explained where I got those skills and why they would be a great match for the role rather than writing so much text that wasn’t relevant. I also didn’t realise that people might be interested in the projects or volunteer work I'd done, but the skills I learnt from these were so valuable, they are essential for an entry level CV.

GA: What are your 3 top tips for music industry cover letters? The Sony Music UK internship applications ask for a video cover letter which may be a bit daunting for some, could you give us one tip for these too? 

CT:

  1. Try not to go into too much detail about what you’ve already written in your CV.
  2. Talk about the company and why you applied.
  3. For video cover letters: Think about how you are going to make the video cover letter work to your advantage. Do something you are comfortable with and focus on your message, and don’t panic if you’re not great at editing videos.

GA: What are your 3 top tips for music industry interviews?

CT: 

  1. Don’t be nervous, show who you are and be proud to be you!
  2. Research, research, research - think of all the different questions you might be asked, and practice them with family or friends.
  3. Make a list of things that you want the hiring team to know. This will make you feel like you’ve done all you can when you finish the interview.

Bonus tip: Have a list of interesting questions to ask the hiring managers. Sometimes they can answer the questions you had prepared anyway, so think of some more to pull out of the bag.

GA: And finally, do you have one extra secret tip to help applicants stand out from the crowd in application processes? 

CT: There’s no magic formula, so don’t try to fit into one. A secret tip would be to find out the team’s names and address them in some way, they’d love that!

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