The Secret to Finding and Landing your VA Jobs – Lizzy Hofe

Lizzy Hofe is a singer-songwriter who has almost five years of voice acting (VA) experience under her belt. Having booked multiple roles in several projects, she shares four tips to finding and landing VA gigs.

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​Tip 1: Maximise Your Chances of Landing A Role by Having Great Acting Skills
 
The most important thing is to make sure that your acting chops are solid. No matter what your voice sounds like, if your acting chops aren't there, you'll have a difficult time booking jobs.
 
Develop Your Skills and Build an Audience by Starting a YouTube Channel
 
Interestingly enough, a large portion of the growth of my YouTube channel can be attributed to my voice acting career, as many fans of my channel started out as fans of voice work that I had done on other projects. It can be pretty difficult to grow your channel, especially with YouTube's current algorithm, but I think one of the best ways to do so is to try your best to upload consistently.
 
I've occasionally had project directors approach me because they saw my demo on my channel, but for the most part I would say that my voice acting career is what helped to grow my YouTube channel, and not so much the other way around.
 
Take Classes about Voice Acting
 
Voiceover classes, or even just general acting classes or coaching, are important for making sure you're where you need to be. Even actors who've been consistently booking jobs for years take classes to brush up on their skills. Just make sure you're taking classes from a reputable teacher!
 
Tip 2: Create Awesome Content by Having Great Equipment
 
For quality home recording, I think the most important things are an XLR mic (with some sort of preamp to hook it up to your computer), a well-treated recording space, and a DAW to edit and render files with (there's a lot of them out there – Audacity is free!).
 
There are tons of options and ways to go about this, but in general it's difficult to get good quality sound with a USB mic, and even more difficult to do so in an echo-y recording space.
 
Tip 3: Check Out Audition Rosters or Forums
 
Barring a few exceptions, the vast majority of voiceover jobs I've booked have been through auditions that I sought out, or from casting pools/rosters that I'm part of, rather than directors reaching out to me personally. It's important as a voice actor to be proactive in seeking out audition opportunities, as directors will rarely come to you.
 
In my opinion one of the best ways to access auditions is to be on rosters and/or have an agent, but you can also occasionally find decently paying work on sites like voiceactingclub.com, through casting calls on Twitter, or through some voiceover Discord servers.
 
Tip 4: Believe in Yourself
 
It might sound a little cheesy, but believe in yourself! People are going to tell you that it's hard, and it definitely is, but that doesn't mean you can't do it. It's not your job to worry about how difficult or competitive the industry is, it's your job to play pretend and bring characters to life. So if you really love it, do it and enjoy doing it! Make sure you don't equate your work or your acting ability with your worth as a person, either. Remember that no matter what happens with your voiceover career, just by being a human being, you have value and worth.

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About the contributor

Lizzy Hofe originally comes from a background in theatre, and has been a voice actor in primarily games and animation for roughly 5 years. Some of her most notable roles include Ska'drin Ash in “Paladins,” and Belladora and Whiprider in “The Lost Legends of Redwall: The Scout.” She is also a singer/songwriter and releases her music on her YouTube channel www.youtube.com/princessrizu