Jobs / Design, media, and writing / 27-2012.04
Talent Directors
Audition and interview performers to select most appropriate talent for parts in stage, television, radio, or motion picture productions.
- US jobs
- 143,120 (SOC 27-2012 group, "Producers and Directors")
- Median wage
- $90,360 a year
- Job family
- Design, media, and writing
Can agents do the work of talent directors?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Design, media, and writing:
- Task levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. OSWorld-Verified includes tasks in image, slide, and document apps, and the best agent passes 90.2% of all its computer tasks. No task-level benchmark in our collection scores the quality of design or writing work.
- Project levelNot yetOn the Remote Labor Index, which includes graphic design, video, 3D, audio, and web projects from freelance platforms, the best agent completed 15.8% of projects to a standard a client would accept. GDPval deliverables score higher (84.9% wins or ties against professionals, reported by OpenAI), but those tasks are one-shot and fully specified.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in design, media, and writing, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
- OSWorld-Verifiedby HKU, Salesforce AI Research, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Waterloo90.2%Intelligence-Indeed Agent · 25 Jul 2026Saturated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Audition and interview performers to match their attributes to specific roles or to increase the pool of available acting talent.
- Prepare actors for auditions by providing scripts and information about roles and casting requirements.
- Select performers for roles or submit lists of suitable performers to producers or directors for final selection.
- Contact agents and actors to provide notification of audition and performance opportunities and to set up audition times.
- Serve as liaisons between directors, actors, and agents.
- Negotiate contract agreements with performers, with agents, or between performers and agents or production companies.
- Arrange for or design screen tests or auditions for prospective performers.
- Review performer information, such as photos, resumes, voice tapes, videos, and union membership, to decide whom to audition for parts.
- Maintain talent files that include information such as performers' specialties, past performances, and availability.
- Read scripts and confer with producers to determine the types and numbers of performers required for a given production.
- Attend or view productions to maintain knowledge of available actors.
- Direct shows, productions, and plays.
Other job titles for this occupation (14)
Artistic Director · Casting Agent · Casting Coordinator · Casting Director · Extras Casting Director · Model Booker · Talent Producer · Talent Scout · Artist Manager · Contestant Coordinator · Entertainment Agent · Pageant Director · Repertoire Manager · Talent Agent