Small Worlds

Congrats to my friends on Days of Our Lives, which was just renewed.  For years, the world of soap production (even when there were many shows) has been oddly small, so people I worked with early in my career are there now, and I'm happy to hear that they still will be.

The small size of the soap world always struck me as interesting--how producers and writers from one show would end up on another, and another, and another.  And, as I explore the non-soap universe, I'm discovering that many other worlds are small too. There may be hundreds of reality shows, but the same names come up over and over as working on them.  There are certainly a large number of children's programs, but they seem to be run by a small number of people whose niche has long been children's programs.
   
I guess none of this is all that surprising--people look for people they know for sure can do a job, and what better way to know than to see that a person has done a very similar job somewhere else?
 
How, then, does a person travel from one world to another? Yes, the worlds are small, perhaps with good reason, but how does a  person take what he or she has learned in one world and use it to travel into another?
 
I read an article today about how criteria in job postings are not only un-diversifying the workforce, but also causing companies to miss out on some of the most qualified candidates.  In many cases, if a candidate doesn't have the requisite number of working years or the desired number of keywords, no one even looks at that person's accomplishments or special skills, so a potentially excellent employee is left sitting at home, sending resumes into the ether, unable to travel from one small world to the next.    

I have seen firsthand the desire to have a new hire just be able to jump in to a job, and, believe me, I have been right here when no number of words translating my skill set to another medium lets me travel from World A to World B.  I can't say I have the solution, but I do hope that, having now seen it from both sides, I will be more open to newcomers in the worlds I inhabit.  The worlds may be small, and getting smaller every day, but that doesn't mean there can't be room for new ideas and new talent alongside the regular inhabitants.

So, congratulations to Days of Our Lives, and to all those who keep working and start working, I hope your small world is the best it can be.