A one sheet is more than just an important music marketing tool: it is also a great way for music industry professionals to showcase their accolades and achievements in their career. The one sheet is perfect for having information that goes beyond what is on a resume while concisely highlighting accomplishments in a creative manner. As someone who has prior music marketing experience, I decided to create a career one sheet for myself to supplement my professional profiles and job applications. This exercise gave me great practice in marketing and asset design, alongside having a consolidated portfolio of career highlights.
The main difference between an artist one sheet and career professional one sheet is the type of content presented. While a musician’s one sheet contains streaming and social media data, a professional’s one sheet contains information such as education, links to portfolios and a resume. However, the key principle is the same: the one sheet serves as a visual medium that focuses on career highlights beyond a resume (or in an artist's case: basic info and data about their music.) This version of a one sheet swaps out artist influences for music industry sectors of interest, social media and streaming numbers for quantitative data from my career, and press coverage for companies I’ve previously worked at. The principle is similar between artist one sheets and professional one sheets, yet the content is tailored to the achievements of my career.
I highly recommend everyone working in the music industry, especially on the creative and marketing side, to create a one sheet for themselves. Here is what I included that I would consider essential features for a professional one sheet:
A Short-form Biography
Similar to the artist biography, this should range between 3 to 5 sentences about you, your background, and your interests. I personally included adjectives that describe me and what I’m passionate about, what areas of the music industry I am interested in, and the companies I previously worked at in my biography. This can be based off of your LinkedIn “About Me” section for reference.
Career Highlights Taken From Resume
Both showcasing quantitative and qualitative bullet points, I took 7 of my most impactful accomplishments and had them highlighted in a section. This should be an area to showcase what you are most proud of on your resume!
Resume Access
Although the one sheet paints a great impression on career achievements, it’s important to have a connection to your resume for someone to see the big picture. I converted my resume to a PDF using Adobe Acrobat and have it linked prominently on my one sheet for reference.
Education
I have basic information with my education credentials on my one sheet to highlight that accomplishment of mine, alongside opportunities that require a degree. I also have it in place just in case an alumni of my school or program comes across it for networking opportunities.
Contact Information
As I stated earlier, one of the most important features of a one sheet is contact information. Unlike an artist one sheet, a professional one sheet only needs the information that would be on your resume: email, phone number, and LinkedIn profile. If you want to include social media handles outside of LinkedIn you can, but it’s not necessary.
Not essential, but good to have if you want to include:
Portfolio & work samples - important for design but not needed if you don’t have either
Location - personal preference, so many opportunities are remote or would require relocation so it depends
With that being said, I love creating one sheets, as they are a great medium to share information in a succinct manner tailored to the specific subject the one sheet is about. Whether it is for an artist or yourself, one sheets are such an important tool to have in your music industry toolkit. If you want to learn more about the former, check out Part 1: The Ultimate One Sheet Guide For Artists, Bands, & Musicians.
Here is the one sheet I made for myself - feel free to use as inspiration!
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