FlightWay / Careers / Producers and Directors

Creative & Media

Producers and Directors

Produce or direct stage, television, radio, video, or film productions for entertainment, information, or instruction.

Sector: Creative & Media
Preparation: Zone 4 — considerable preparation needed
O*NET code: 27-2012.00

What you'll actually do

The activities O*NET rates highest for this occupation, most important first. Numbers are out of 100.

Getting Information

central to the job — rated 92/100 for importance.
Thinking Creatively

central to the job — rated 90/100 for importance.
Working with Computers

central to the job — rated 85/100 for importance.
Identifying Objects, Actions, and Events

a major part of the work — rated 81/100 for importance.
Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates

a major part of the work — rated 81/100 for importance.
Making Decisions and Solving Problems

a major part of the work — rated 78/100 for importance.

Produce or direct stage, television, radio, video, or film productions for entertainment, information, or instruction. Responsible for creative decisions, such as interpretation of script, choice of actors or guests, set design, sound, special effects, and choreography.

What it takes

Two numbers per line: the level the work expects, and how important it is to doing the job well. Both are O*NET ratings, already on a 0–100 scale.

Skills

Active Listening

Needed at a high level (63/100), and rated 85/100 for importance.
Monitoring

Needed at a high level (61/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Speaking

Needed at a high level (61/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Critical Thinking

Needed at a solid working level (59/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.
Reading Comprehension

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.

Knowledge

Communications and Media

Needed at a high level (71/100), and rated 93/100 for importance.
English Language

Needed at a solid working level (57/100), and rated 72/100 for importance.
Telecommunications

Needed at a solid working level (50/100), and rated 69/100 for importance.
Computers and Electronics

Needed at a solid working level (56/100), and rated 64/100 for importance.

Abilities

Oral Expression

Needed at a high level (66/100), and rated 88/100 for importance.
Deductive Reasoning

Needed at a high level (63/100), and rated 78/100 for importance.
Oral Comprehension

Needed at a high level (61/100), and rated 78/100 for importance.
Speech Clarity

Needed at a high level (61/100), and rated 75/100 for importance.

How people get in

O*NET places this occupation in Zone 4 — considerable preparation needed. That is a statement about what employers typically require, not a rule about you.

Education

A four-year bachelor's degree is the usual entry ticket.

Experience

Two to four years of related work, internships or research on top of the degree.

Training

Most of the learning happens before you are hired, not after.

What it pays

These are typical creative compensation bands by employer tier — sector-level figures, not a measured salary for Producers and Directors specifically. Treat them as the shape of the market, then check a real posting for the number.

WPP · Pentagram · Google

$100k – $180k

Mid-size Agencies

$70k – $110k

Freelance & Boutique

$45k – $80k

How the work tends to run

Each line below is read off a single O*NET activity rating for this occupation — named, so you can disagree with it.

Most of the day happens at a screen.From “Working with Computers”
Long-running relationships carry the work; the same people come back.From “Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships”
Part of the job is other people’s output, not only your own.From “Coordinating the Work and Activities of Others”
There is real room to invent — the answer is not in a manual.From “Thinking Creatively”

How FlightWay scores your fit against this

No black box. Here is the whole method, factor by factor.

1. You answer a short quiz: Your answers build a profile across the same 161 O*NET dimensions this page is describing — skills, knowledge, abilities and work activities. Same axes, so the comparison is like-for-like.
2. We correlate the two profiles: Fit is a mean-centered cosine — a correlation between the SHAPE of your profile and the shape of Producers and Directors. Centering matters: raw similarity between any two occupations sits at 0.70–0.85 because all work shares a common profile, so without it every career would look like a match.
3. The number you see is personality fit only: "Would I want this work" and "am I ready for this work" are different questions, and averaging them answers neither. So readiness — what your résumé, coursework and projects prove — is scored separately and shown next to fit, never blended into it.
4. Every factor is visible: You can open any match and see which dimensions pushed it up and which pulled it down. If you disagree with the number, you can see exactly where it came from.

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Occupational data on this page comes from the O*NET 30.3 Database, published by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). O*NET is a registered trademark of USDOL/ETA. FlightWay is not endorsed by, and USDOL/ETA is not responsible for, anything built on that data — see our terms. What is ours is the comparison, the score and the plan.