No Modeling Jobs?

We updated our modeling job board the other day, and noticed that it had been roughly 38 months (just over 3 years and 2 months) since a modeling job offer had been added to our modeling job board, and that it had been updated at all.
Is this intentional?
Yes, and no.
We have had modeling job offers. We just did not post them because we did not want to waste the time of the models who take out the time to use our site as a resource. If there are no job offers posted on our site, those models should be out finding leads and booking their own modeling jobs, anyway, and not be dependent upon us or any modeling and talent agencies to get work. Our site aside, it is our opinion that any model who allows themselves to be dependent upon a modeling and talent agency to work and to have a career is a fool. That is so old-industry, and to be dependent upon anyone is to weaken your career and your ability to model.
Some may think that the lack of jobs is because of the draconian, perhaps even “dickish” measures and rules (not our descriptions, but complaints that we have heard. One angry email writer even said that it was the end of this site. Well, good luck finding any talent resource site likes ours or our sister sites, because we own all of the best talent resource sites; there are no others to find, and we have no competition, especially when others do not know the industry like we do and have not spent years figuring out what we know. We KNOW how to make this work, and we will soon DO it; it will be worth the wait.) that site editor C. A. Passinault imposed upon Florida Models when he took over the site in September of 2012. We can have these job offers, but not those, those, those, those, those, or those, even if the site had accepted them before.
Well, Passinault knows that he is doing. Some of those “jobs”, in our opinion, are not good for models. Although models should be able to discern how good a job is for them on their own, AND we do NOT accept liability for any job offer posted on our site, we are not going to bog down everyone with job offers that they have to continually second guess.
Thus, cue the cob webs and the tumbleweeds as the hot Florida winds howl through our empty job board.
Is this the end of our job board?
No. Not at all.
In fact, this is a new beginning, and the silence before a revolution. We set out to clean house, and that is exactly what we did. We had to clean everything up and overhaul some things before we could proceed with our plans. While we cannot reveal any details about what those plans are, they are very comprehensive, and integrated with others relevant efforts, and will prove to be very effective.
Regarding legitimate, and relevant, modeling job offers, Florida Models has always been swamped with promotional modeling job offers, not a problem in itself, as those jobs ARE legitimate, but a symptom of a larger problem. We don’t care how many legitimate, professionally relevant modeling job offers that we get, such as promotional modeling jobs, because if we are not getting the modeling job offers that the agencies get, our modeling job board isn’t a success, in our opinion.
We are going to go after the modeling jobs that models used to have to go through an agency to get. That is our goal, and that it what we care about. Models care about that, too. A modeling resource web site is not as good as it should be without those jobs, models won’t realize that they do not have to be dependent upon agencies and that the agency way is not the only way, and people won’t take sites likes ours as serious as our sites deserve to be taken until we have those jobs available. That, and we simply need to put the modeling and talent agencies, which are a middleman and overstep their appropriate bounds, in our opinion, because they are supposed to work for the models whom they represent, in their place. Agencies have always acted like employers, and this is not appropriate. At all.
Are agencies still relevant in the careers of professional models? Of course they still are, as long as they are put in their place and managed. Models managing agencies? Why not? Agencies are supposed to work FOR the models, aren’t they? It’s not like agencies actually hire the models as employees and give the models work.
In our opinion, models should find and book work on their own. After all, they still have to attend the go-see and book the modeling job on their own even if the agency refers them, especially since the agency does not tell the business with the modeling job what to do like they do to the models whom they are supposed to work for; the business with the modeling job would not tolerate that, and neither should models. In our opinion, models should obtain the representation of more than one modeling and talent agency and use them as one of many sources of modeling jobs, and nothing more. Oh, and model management? What do you think? If you worked for a business, would they put up with you telling them what to do, especially while working for their competitors, and then managing all of them? Sounds screwed up, doesn’t it? Yet, this is what the arrogant agencies think, and it is what stupid models whom are conditioned to accept this and allow the agencies to do.
Modeling management does not work in Florida, in our opinion, and it can’t work. If you are a modeling “management” company (we are not claiming that all model management companies are scams, but a lot of scams call themselves model management companies), you MUST be a licensed talent agency with a TA# issued from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation in order to make money by finding and referring models into any jobs. It is the law. If they can’t legally make money by doing what they claim to do, how can they make money? How do they make their money? If the model “management” business gets models to contact them and to come into their door by advertising modeling jobs (which they can’t make money referring models to if they are not an agency), and are not the business actually producing and offering the job, is it misleading if the models contact them for the consideration of booking work and then are sold classes and portfolios? Is it wrong to require or suggest that models buy something before they can be considered for a job? Why can’t they be honest about what they are really in business to do?
Advertising jobs to trick people into responding just to sell them something is, in our opinion, a deceptive business practice, it is misleading, it is bait and switch, and it is fraud, which makes it a scam, in that case.
We have never seen any modeling job advertised on the radio, on television, or in the newspaper, which costs a good deal of money to advertise, turn out to be legitimate. Models need to realize this. If we haven’t been able to find legitimate modeling jobs that way, it is highly unlikely that they will, either.
Again, think about how they make their money. If they are spending money by consistently running job ads or by advertising jobs, you need to figure out how they are making their money, as they have to be making money to make that sustainable. You need to ask how they are making their money. If they are making money at the expense of models, stay away.
IF the model “management” business IS a licensed talent agency in Florida, and they work for models by finding them and referring them into jobs (which they would be legally able to do in this case), would they be able to manage them? Would you want someone who is supposed to be working for you telling you what to do and giving you career advice when they are doing the same thing to your competition, who would be other models whom they also represent? In our opinion, any agency trying to manage models is a working conflict of interest because of this. Can you trust them? As a result, that is why it is our opinion that model management companies don’t work, and cannot work.
Going back to modeling jobs, don’t be discouraged by the drought of modeling job offers on our modeling job board. Soon, the job offers will be back, and they will be better than ever.
Another reason that we are not pushing for new modeling job offer posts is that we are packing up this emulated, legacy, classic Florida Models site as we prepare for a new beginning.
For those of you who have read this entire thing, we have news, too. An all new Florida Models web site will be launched in September 2016, and we have more surprises, too. At that time, the existing Florida Models web site, which is an emulated version of the original Florida Models web site, will be turned into an archive and an online museum, and all of the updates, including job offer posts on a brand new job board, will be on the new site, which everyone will be on automatically once it launches.