The job market can be tough for young people lacking significant professional experience or university degrees, but that doesn’t mean ambitious teenagers need to wait until graduation to pursue a money-making gig, particularly in a performance-related or creative field. With the advent of remote work, the uprise of social media and increasing job opportunities in the content and digital media space, many teens have decided to work remotely at a job that pays more and has more flexible hours than a minimum-wage retail or fast food job and actually pertains to their talents or passions, and this includes voiceover jobs for teens who’ve aspired to work as a voice-over artist. A good voiceover artist can get jobs doing commercials, TV shows, live events, digital ads, YouTube outros or intros, and even cartoons. The work is always there and the pay is better than you might think, so let’s find out more about voice acting jobs for teens and how you can pursue these unique opportunities.
What Types of Companies Need Voiceover Talent?
A voiceover specialist is a lucrative job that both teens and adults can do, and some of the jobs they’re hired for include the following:
- Reader for ebooks
- Training films (educational videos)
- Cartoon character (films, TV shows, etc.)
- Audio greetings for business websites
- Advertising for radio, television, and the Internet
- Corporate training films
- Actors for podcasts
- Phone messages for various companies
- Video game character
- Informational videos
The thing is, you likely don’t realize how many jobs are out there for people who wish to do voiceover work, but there are two main challenges when you want to do this type of job. The first one is the challenge of finding these jobs, and the second one is the fact that you can’t necessarily just apply for the jobs and get them. There is more to it than that, but it’ll be much easier after you read this article.
Steps to Becoming a Voiceover Artist
A voiceover artist can stay very busy with various jobs, but if you’ve never done this type of work before, you’ll have to prepare. Voice jobs require some acting skills and sometimes even foreign languages, but let’s start at the beginning. If you wish to do this type of work, you have to have the right voice. Many companies are specifically looking for people who have a teenage voice or even a real kid voice because they want someone who sounds young for the role required, product their selling, or audience with whom they’re connecting in the planned video content. This is especially true for animated films. Regardless, let’s start by taking a look at the steps you need to take to do this type of work.
- Practice Your Voice Skills
One of the best ways to practice your voice skills is to read aloud so you can hear what you sound like. It doesn’t matter what you’re reading – a news article, a chapter from one of your favorite books, or something else. Try to enunciate properly and read very clearly. You don’t have to read with a monotonous tone, either; instead, you can change the tone of your voice depending on what you’re reading. Still, you should sound professional the entire time you’re reading.
- Make a Recording Studio for Your Home
Professional voice actors need a professional space to do their job, and you can create your own recording studio for very little money. You’ll be using various character voices in your jobs, but you can’t do any of them without the right environment. Create your home studio by adding four items: a good microphone, some soundproofing foam for the walls and ceiling, a computer, and the right software. Once you have all of this, your recordings will be much clearer and easier to hear.
- Create Your Demo Reel
A demo reel is important because no company or client is going to hire you without hearing what you sound like first. The reel should be one to two minutes long and no longer, and you should include your best work in the first 30 seconds of it. It’s a great way to show off your voice and let your potential clients know that you can handle all types of voice jobs. If you’re not yet working in the field, just read an advertisement or something similar – anything that allows them to hear exactly how you sound. To be clear, this demo reel can be used to market yourself in many ways across platforms (from social media to casting calls, freelancing platforms, and agency applications).
- Find an Agent (or Go the Freelancer Marketplace Route)
You can find casting jobs without an agent, but it makes the task a lot more difficult to get well-paying traditional voiceover work (like that for commercials, TV, or traditional ad campaigns by Fortune 500 companies). Making extra money with this type of work is lucrative, but only if you are working regularly. To do this, find a good casting agent to represent you. You can find a list of these agents online, and remember to send each of them one of your demo reels because without this, they won’t be able to help you. More and more of them are looking for teen voice professionals, and if you have a unique voice, you’ll likely get even more jobs.
That said, these days you don’t actually have to put the full fate of your voice acting career in the hands of an agent to get well-paying, steady work. If you’d rather be more hands-on and entrepreneurial with your voiceover aspirations, you can set up a freelancer account profile on a site like Fiverr or UpWork and create and promote your voiceover gigs (using that demo reel and clips of past client projects you’ve done) or apply to listed voiceover job opportunities. These freelancer marketplaces allow you to work when you want, on what you want, at a price that you’re happy with, while also opening up the door to an avalanche of potential clients who could turn into longer-term ongoing projects.
You might be surprised just how many diverse voice-over jobs pop up on these sites, so the only difficulty is that you’ll have to put yourself out there and compete with other talented voice-over professionals for the available gigs. Despite the stiff competition, building up your own book of voice-over work as a freelance artist is one of the best ways to collect significant testimonials (and demo samples), set your own rates, and begin crafting a professional reputation that could turn into a lucrative and enjoyable long term career (that brings in a respectable full-time income from the comfort of your own at-home professional studio).
- Practice for Any Audition You Get
Whether you pursue the more traditional voice realm (and get work through an agency) or use a freelancer marketplace or job board, you still may have to ace auditions before landing competitive gigs. One of the best ways you can increase your odds of getting narration jobs or others is to make sure you practice. You can think of yourself as a performer, because in a sense, that’s what you are. Industry leaders want professionals who take the job seriously, and regular practice makes that happen. Whether you’re going to do a child voice in a cartoon or an emcee for video games, you have to practice regularly. This includes staying well-hydrated by drinking lots of water and rehearsing on a regular basis. Still, you should remember that it isn’t often about having the “best voice”, but rather the right voice for the specific job at hand, so researching the company and understanding the project at hand is key to ensuring your performance delivers upon their goals.
Also, keep in mind that when you go to one of these auditions, you should always show up on time (or deliver the digital voiceover product ahead of the proposed deadline), project a professional demeanor, and be flexible and willing to adapt to the client or company’s requests to get your final version just right and possibly lock yourself in for recurring future projects (as a byproduct of being pleasant and easy to work with and producing a high-quality finished product). In the United States, teenager voices are used quite a bit, thanks in part to the popularity of video games, animation, youth-geared commercials, and more. If you can find out ahead of time what type of project the job entails, you can make your rehearsals even more personalized. You should attempt to rehearse about 30 minutes a day to keep up with this skill and add to the number of different voice type under your belt (for example, female toddler, male youth, Southern accent, etc.).
Traits You Should Have for This Type of Work
If you’re going to do voice overs, you’ll need certain skills, and the first one is the right voice. Unfortunately, not everyone can do this job, especially if they have super-thick accents. Most clients want talent with rather “neutral” accents that won’t make them stick out like a sore thumb. You should be creative (and well-researched and well-rehearsed) so you can do different voices or accents if you need to, and you need to be willing to work hard. Most importantly, you’ll need to articulate all of your words well so that you’re easy to understand and enjoyable to listen to.
Keep in mind that you’re also likely to get both local jobs and remote jobs. This means you’ll be making the recording either in your home or in the client’s studio. Talented voiceover professionals are versatile and can do both, and if you’re a little bit nervous about having to do different voices, all you have to do is practice a little more and that should cover it. As a voiceover expert, you may have to wear a lot of hats, but it’s a lot more fun than you think!
Things You Can Do to Improve Your Voiceover Skills
If you know you have a good, unique, or flexible voice and a passion for creating content or lending your voice for others to do so, being a voice artist is something to consider. To get started, you should record your voice so you know what it sounds like, but just know that your recorded voice might sound a lot different than what you think! When you practice or record your voice, breathe through your diaphragm and not through your nose or chest. Practice deep breathing so that using your diaphragm becomes second nature after a while.
You might also consider doing voice exercises, much like professional singers do. There are several different ways to do this; for instance, you can look up diction exercises online, try humming through a straw, or participate in numerous tongue twisters. Regular deep breathing should be practiced as well, and if you use a different language or accent every now and then in your work, you can practice by imitating some of your favorite actors or actresses.
Finally, if you wish to be among the successful voice actors with consistent work, you can consider taking classes. Acting classes are a big help, but you can choose an online school as well if that’s what you prefer. Since you’re still in high school, you can join the drama club or even the choir because each of these offers great assistance when you’re trying to improve your voice. School (and performing arts extracurriculars) are a great place to start when you’re trying to get into this type of business.
Remember that being involved in voice acting is hard work and can in part require turning yourself into both talent, an entrepreneur, and your own manager. That’s not to say that you can’t do the work on a part-time basis and go through freelancer marketplaces for select gigs that fit your time availability and preferences. It’s just that for those looking for higher-paying gigs and steady work, professionals often seek out well-connected casting agents to help funnel them select opportunities, and given the appeal of voice work (and large talent pool), casting agents can essentially take exactly who they want as a client. So yes, the work is competitive, but if you stay focused and disciplined and regularly practice your craft, it’s a lot easier to keep the jobs coming (and easier if you take a more hands-on, entrepreneurial role in your own marketing and career management).
How to Market Yourself
Marketing yourself is a perfect way to find jobs, but it must be done consistently in order to get results. You can start by setting up a Facebook or other social media page, and try to include YouTube because this allows prospective agents to see and hear what you’re like. As a voice talent, you’ll be a freelancer, so as we’ve mentioned, creating accounts on sites such as Fiverr and Upwork can help quite a bit. Once you list your information on various sites, it’s important to check back with them regularly to stay in constant contact with them and apply for or reply to gigs or requests for work, as well as answer prospective client questions.
And if you’re curious about what voice work can pay you, consider this: the average full-time professional doing voice overs makes around $80,000 per year. If you’re a teenager doing this part-time, you naturally won’t be able to make that type of money, but one thing is sure – you will get paid way more than most other part-time jobs that are being offered to teens, while also working fewer hours and in a more flexible, comfortable environment. Since these jobs are almost always “remote,” you can live out in the middle of nowhere and still get work.
The main thing to remember is to promote and market yourself all the time. You can find both local and remote jobs if you look online, and make sure your social media pages look their best and are always up-to-date. There are also companies such as Snap Recordings, which is always on the lookout for new voices to share with the world. The truth is, it’s much easier than you think to get into the voiceover business, so if you’ve always been interested in this type of work, your first job is very likely closer than you think.
When you promote yourself, you can either target certain types of jobs or simply be a general artist. Whether the client needs to hear audio dramas or wants you to do a short film for their company, they’ll find you as long as you market yourself properly. Don’t forget to put as much detail as you can in your online profile because the client might be looking for something specific. Including a photograph of yourself also helps because it helps convince them that you’re a real person who wants to do a good job!
Conclusion
The best part about doing voiceovers is that it shouldn’t take long to receive a good review, and once that happens, even more jobs will be coming your way. In fact, you may have to eventually turn down offers if you get good enough, especially if you don’t have the time to take care of all of your clients. But working as a voiceover pro can be done either full-time or part-time, and it’s a great job for teenagers simply because of the flexibility it offers.
Various life skills can lend themself to accelerating your professional success, and if you speak clearly and coherently, you can turn that skill into voice acting jobs for teens that evolve into a full-time career with little effort or investment on your part. The main thing you have to figure out is what your particular voice style is (and thus, what types of jobs you can do), and once you do that, the rest is easy. Just don’t forget to practice regularly, promote yourself constantly, be professional, and try to get as much experience as possible under your belt so you can become even better at your craft.
