5 Editing Showreel Mistakes That Kill Your Chances of Getting Hired

What editing showreel mistakes prevent you from getting hired?

Five critical mistakes are killing your chances: creating montages instead of clips reels, including too many different work types, showcasing multiple skills instead of specializing, burying your best work, and targeting everyone instead of one specific audience.

Stop Making Montages — Create Clips Reels Instead

When you sit down to create a showreel, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Most editors' first instinct is to create a fast-paced montage because they think it'll impress people. They include as many cool cuts and effects as possible.

This style might get YouTube views, but it's probably not what's going to get you hired.

A producer wants to see all of your editing skills, and a montage only really shows that you can edit a montage. Montages can be great for cinematography reels or motion graphics reels, but it is not the best format to showcase an editor's abilities.

A more appropriate term for an editor's reel is a "clips reel." It's a group of short finished pieces or scenes that showcase an editor's real abilities. How do they evoke emotion? How do they structure a story? How do they captivate an audience with rhythm and sound?

Focus on One Type of Work — Not Everything You've Ever Done

Is your reel focused on the specific type of editing work you're trying to get hired for? Here's a mistake I made: I once included everything I'd ever worked on — clips from corporate videos, short films, documentaries, and even animation. I thought it would show my versatility as an editor, but what it really did was confuse potential clients.

There's an old proverb that goes something like this: "He who tries to catch two rabbits catches neither," and I think this really holds true for editing reels.

Your editing showreel should focus on the exact type of work you're targeting. My reel is focused on editing commercials, so that's what I included. If you're focused on music videos or maybe narrative feature films, focus only on those. Don't make your audience guess what you specialize in.

Discover the 4-step showreel framework pro editors use to land high-end jobs and position yourself as a specialist in your chosen niche.

Don't Showcase Multiple Skills — Pick One and Dominate It

You're not just an editor — you have other skills, right? And shouldn't you include those too?

I made this mistake early on. I would include sections in my demo reel with motion graphics or color-graded shots or music compositions I had done.

Here's the problem — here's a little tough love: the best editing jobs out there want to hire a specialist. If you submit your reel that says you're an editor, colorist, motion graphics artist, and sound mixer, it will likely get set aside.

These producers with the best editing jobs have a pile of demo reels for each category: colorists who specialize in color submit their color reels, motion graphics artists who specialize in that submit their motion graphics reels, and editors who specialize in editing submit their editing reels. The producer's intention is to hire the best of each category and create a team.

The One Exception to the Multiple Skills Rule

There is one caveat to this. You very well could have multiple skills, which I am not saying is a problem, but pick your very best skills and make a separate reel for that.

My main skill besides editing is sound design, so if I'm looking to get a sound design job, I will create a sound design reel so mine doesn't get looked over as an editor/sound designer.

Only showcase the skill you want to be hired for. If you're trying to get an editing job, don't muddy the waters with other skills. What's the worst that could happen? They might see your editing reel, hire you, and then ask you if you can also provide color and graphics. Maybe you say yes, and that's great — but for first impressions, keep it targeted and clear.

Put Your Best Work First — They'll Only Watch 30 Seconds

I have a question for you: about how long on average do you watch a YouTube video before you decide to click off of it or keep going?

The people hiring editors probably have about the same attention span as the people watching YouTube videos. They might only watch the first 30 seconds of your reel, even if it's five minutes long.

That means you have to start right out of the gate with your very best stuff. Assume they're only going to watch 30 seconds, so you want to start with something unforgettable that'll hook them in to watch more, or that'll make it an easy decision to hire you after only watching a few seconds of your reel.

Pick One Target Audience and Make Every Decision for Them

Take a moment to ponder this question: who is your showreel for?

There are so many different types of editing: narrative, documentary, trailer editing, brand films, commercials, even YouTube content. And there are so many types of people hiring editors: producers, creative directors, ad agency producers, even content creators.

Here's my one best piece of advice: pick one person as your target audience and make every decision on your showreel to suit that one person.

My audience for my commercial editing showreel is ad agency producers. They're in the business of hiring commercial editors, so that was my single target audience.

Next time you sit down to create a showreel, I want you to take a few minutes to come up with the exact target audience for your reel. This is the most important step because if your showreel is not speaking to the right audience, it's not doing its job.

Learning how to build a video editing demo reel that lands high-paying clients requires this level of strategic thinking about your audience.

These five mistakes are what I see over and over in editing showreels. I know they're mistakes because I've made all of them myself. I've been a pro editor for over 20 years and I've also hired a lot of editors over my career, so I've seen hundreds upon hundreds of video editing showreels.

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