---
title: "Talent Director"
description: "Audition and interview performers to select most appropriate talent for parts in stage, television, radio, or motion picture productions."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/talent-director"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Talent Director

**Category:** Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media · **SOC code:** 27-2012 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 27-2012.04

Audition and interview performers to select most appropriate talent for parts in stage, television, radio, or motion picture productions.

Also advertised as: Artistic Director; Casting Agent; Casting Coordinator; Casting Director; Extras Casting Director; Model Booker; Talent Producer; Talent Scout.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $90,360 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $43.44/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $45,780 to $198,540, with the middle half between $62,670 and $134,800
- **Total US employment:** 143,120
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.9% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 12,800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 32/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 143,120 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $45,780 |
| 25th | $62,670 |
| 50th (median) | $90,360 |
| 75th | $134,800 |
| 90th | $198,540 |
| Mean (average) | $113,300 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CA | $129,790 | $117,224 | 34,110 |
| NJ | $119,840 | $110,142 | 2,970 |
| NY | $107,550 | $99,656 | 27,990 |
| DC | $104,270 | $94,876 | 2,640 |
| CT | $88,260 | $85,185 | 2,200 |
| OR | $87,460 | $84,616 | 1,640 |
| RI | $84,250 | $82,372 | 560 |
| WA | $81,550 | $76,206 | 2,270 |
| IL | $81,080 | $81,114 | 3,170 |
| MA | $80,970 | $76,562 | 3,440 |
| GA | $79,950 | $83,028 | 5,010 |
| FL | $79,920 | $77,282 | 7,160 |
| MD | $79,350 | $75,601 | 1,610 |
| NV | $78,480 | $78,496 | 1,630 |
| CO | $78,060 | $75,748 | 1,960 |

36 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 51 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/talent-director/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/talent-director.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 167,000 in the 2024–2034 base year to 175,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 8,300 jobs, or +4.9%. Faster than average: 4.9% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 12,800 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** Less than 5 years.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 42.3% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 18.8% |
| Master's Degree | 10.9% |
| Some College Courses | 10.2% |
| Post-Baccalaureate Certificate | 8.6% |
| First Professional Degree | 7.5% |

## What the work involves

- Audition and interview performers to match their attributes to specific roles or to increase the pool of available acting talent.
- Serve as liaisons between directors, actors, and agents.
- Maintain talent files that include information such as performers' specialties, past performances, and availability.
- Select performers for roles or submit lists of suitable performers to producers or directors for final selection.
- Prepare actors for auditions by providing scripts and information about roles and casting requirements.
- Review performer information, such as photos, resumes, voice tapes, videos, and union membership, to decide whom to audition for parts.
- Read scripts and confer with producers to determine the types and numbers of performers required for a given production.
- Contact agents and actors to provide notification of audition and performance opportunities and to set up audition times.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- English Language — importance 4.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Personnel and Human Resources — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Enterprising (E), Artistic (A), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| E — Enterprising | 5.93 |
| A — Artistic | 5.69 |
| S — Social | 4.27 |
| C — Conventional | 3.57 |
| I — Investigative | 1.42 |
| R — Realistic | 1.22 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ENFJ | 81.5 |
| ENFP | 80.5 |
| ESFP | 74.1 |
| ESFJ | 66.4 |
| ENTP | 58.9 |

Best-fitting types: ENFJ, ENFP.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Agent and Business Manager of Artists, Performers, and Athletes](https://nuecareer.com/careers/agent-and-business-manager-of-artists-performers-and-athletes) — median $82,890
- [Producer and Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/producer-and-director) — median $90,360
- [Music Director and Composer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/music-director-and-composer) — median $73,710
- [Media Programming Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/media-programming-director) — median $90,360
- [Choreographer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/choreographer) — median $55,310
- [Writer and Author](https://nuecareer.com/careers/writer-and-author) — median $76,910
- [Musician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/musician) — median Not published by BLS
- [Public Relations Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/public-relations-specialist) — median $74,750
- [Art Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/art-director) — median $114,850
- [Media Technical Directors/Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/media-technical-directors-manager) — median $90,360

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/talent-director