How to Start Your Modeling Career

Starting your modeling career, you will find that preparing yourself is the best thing you can do in order to achieve the goals you set out to. It is like anything in life and in any career. If you were to apply for a position in an art gallery, you would have to have knowledge and a love for art, and if you were to apply for a hair dressing position, you would not go to your interview with bad hair. Looking the part is very important, but also having the right attitude will go a long way to ensure you get noticed by the right people.

Starting out, make sure you know your limits and prepare yourself for an audition or interview with an agency. When you go to an agent, it is not going to help your cause by arriving there late with messy hair, no makeup and tatty clothes. Be presentable and natural. You don’t have to dress up and overdo the makeup; just have a light, natural look and wear presentable clothes that show off your best assets. Professional modeling agents are very good at what they do and will be able to see your potential even if you think you don’t have any. So, if you really want to be a model and don’t think you can, the point is to try anyway. You might find that an agency will be able to turn you into one of the best hair models; even if you went in thinking that you could be a catwalk model.

Before you contact an agent to meet them, make sure you have the time to go to all the jobs they might get you, because many of them will be during the day.Most agencies take girls from a young age and you will have to explain that you are at school, college or any other commitments you have. If you really want to make this your career, there are some things that you will have to sacrifice to show that you are dedicated like working over weekends. It will depend on you and your parents if you miss school or go to modeling shoots and fashion shows until late at night. For adults the tough part may be having another job to deal with. If you want to do this career, you should not have another job that will interfere.

The best place to start becoming a model of any kind is to find a reputable agent. Don’t look for agents in the phone book or yellow pages, but rather get recommendations from other models or have a look at the agency names in magazines that have been responsible for the cover shoots and fashion pages. This will ensure that you are getting one of the best agents around who has a lot of clients and will also offer you the best representation.

Ex-Model Catherine Faulkner comments on her first days, “I was 14 when I started modeling and I made sure I found the best agent in the city. My mother and I had heard of too many scary stories of models that were led down the garden path when they first started, and I did not want to end up like them.”

She maintains that getting one of the top agencies, no matter how difficult it may be to get in, is the key to success. She also urges new model hopefuls to keep trying if they don’t get in the first time.

“It may be the season and what agents and companies are looking for at that specific moment. While one year might favor blondes, the next year they could be looking for red heads, so don’t give up, and definitely don’t compromise by finding an unknown agency that will take you. This could get you into trouble and ruin your reputation.”