For Recent Grads: The Insider’s Guide to Landing Your Second Crew Production Job

Congratulations!  You’ve already gotten your first crew production job. 

In addition to calling everyone you knew in the biz to get job leads, if you lived in Los Angeles or New York, you bought a copy of either the Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday or Daily Variety on Friday when they publish their production listings, and you found the movies in pre-production and in preparation in your area.  If you lived somewhere other than LA or NY, you contacted the local film board to find out about productions in town. 

You cold-called every single one, always being polite and friendly and not being thrown off by the sometimes-abrupt phone manners of the production personnel on the other end of the line.  You emailed or faxed your neat, well-written resume to everyone who said they might be able to use you and then you called to follow up until you heard a no or, finally, a yes.

How do you get your second production job?

On your first job, you follow instructions to the letter and do every single thing that is asked of you, you solve problems yourself if you can and notify your supervisor if you can’t, you jump in and help anyone who needs it, and you don’t complain ever to anyone.  You make friends with the other crew members, especially the assistants in the departments you might want to transition into (the bosses are probably too busy to be your friend), and you stay in touch with everyone who might be able to hire you in the future and everyone who tells you they might know someone who can use you.

And, in case you’re wondering, that’s also how you get your second production job.

Google Yourself

Or, if you prefer, “Yahoo” yourself.

Do you have an online presence? Is it the presence you wish to have?

If you have no online presence, you don’t exist. Well, to be fair, you do exist, of course, but you don’t exist to anyone who hears your name and wants to know more about you. They’re not going to call your mom, are they?

Start with LinkedIn and go from there. Create a profile. It won’t take that long, but it should be as thorough as possible and reflect the you who you want to present to the outside world. If that’s all you do, fine. You now exist.

But what if you do an online search for yourself and it’s not reflective of the you who you want to present to the world? Even your private pages, such as those on Facebook and Myspace, can sometimes be viewed by people you have not made friends with.

I was once doing a search for an executive assistant and I saw on someone’s myspace page where they described themselves as moody and seemed rather committed to staying that way. That person’s resume was in the garbage in about ten seconds.

So clean up your act or get an act if you don’t have one, and if there are things online that you cannot get taken down (party photos of you posted by other people, poorly thought-out or obscene comments made to blogs, etc.), your only option is to start adding content that shows you in the best light. Professional profiles, well thought-out comments to other people’s blogs, even articles about topics you are passionate about posted to websites can push the bad stuff down the page on a search of your name.

And if you don’t have the time, the skills, or the inclination to get an online presence that gives you a professional leg up, you always have the option to hire someone to do it for you, to write your profiles, your blog comments, your articles. As someone who has ghostwritten online content, I know you wouldn’t be the first and it would be worth it.

Personnel Agencies and Headhunters and Hiring Managers, Oh My!

I run into this a lot with my clients who are just out of college or grad school and are looking for their first all-important “career” job. These grads get frustrated because they want to work at such & such a type of company or even a specific company and their personnel agency or headhunter (aka executive search professional) keeps sending them on interviews for completely different types of jobs.

Okay, here’s the deal…

Personnel agencies and headhunters don’t work for you.

Their clients are the companies they work for who pay them a commission to find someone appropriate to fill a specific job. They are not going to call Yahoo and pitch you as a candidate in case there is a suitable opening for you. They may want Yahoo’s business, but they won’t be using you to get it.

So what do you do if you have very specific needs- say, a company that you have been dying to work at?

If their website doesn’t contain a job board, you can call the company and schmooze the receptionist into telling you who at the company is responsible for filling the company’s openings. Contact them directly with a cover letter that is specific (about why you want to work at that company and what you have to offer for likely openings) and a resume that shines like a well-polished gem.

Be gracious and passionate and eye-catching and convey the unique qualities that you possess that make you someone they shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to at least interview. (Hire someone to write that cover letter and resume if you are not able to get it done right- it is worth the effort and expense if you really want to get your foot properly wedged in the door to your dream company).

Follow up via phone with the internal person and if they tell you there are no openings, ask for an informational interview to find out about the field, companies like that one and how to get the right opportunity at the right place. You never know. You could end up with a job out of that interview and, at the very least, you will have good solid insider information to help you on your search.

Be gracious with the personnel agency, too, and don’t rule out the possibility that one of their clients may have the exact right position for you. But take my word for it- the agencies don’t stay in business by landing you your dream job. That’s YOUR responsibility. When the two coincide and they find you your dream job, that’s excellent. When they don’t, candidates often get frustrated. Instead, they should just move along.

Getting OUT of Showbiz

When I tell people who are already in the entertainment industry that one of the things I do is help recent grads and others get jobs in the entertainment industry, they often ask me, with tongue only sort-of planted in cheek, if I can help them get OUT of the entertainment industry.

If you aren’t in entertainment, then you might think they must be kidding. But, alas, they are not. Here are some reasons people might want to get out of entertainment:

THE PAY when you first start out, especially when you are in support positions, can be terrible.

THE PEOPLE in the industry aren’t all nice, reasonable or even sane.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT isn’t always something to be proud of.

THE HOURS are sometimes long and unpredictable, sometimes even brutal and around-the-clock.

THE PHYSICAL TOLL is often too much. The physical nature of the job, as in the case of many crew positions (camera department, art department, costumes, electrical, etc.), makes it difficult for people to continue the work past the point in their lives when they are young and hungry. 

The good news- or maybe just the telling news- is that those entertainment industry veterans who ask me about getting out of the industry rarely do. What keeps them there? What is the upside?

THE PAY when you get established can be very good.

THE PEOPLE in the industry are often some of the most generous and creative you will ever meet.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT is sometimes something you can be very proud of.

THE FREEDOM you have when you are freelance to take time off when you want to can make up for the long hours when you do work. You are ultimately your own boss.

THE PHYSICAL TOLL can often be worked around. When you reach a certain level, you can hire people who are young and hungry to do the heavy lifting.

And when all else fails, there’s always THE SWAG. I am right now wearing a FIGHT CLUB tee shirt that I received when I worked as the Executive Assistant to the Executive Producer of FIGHT CLUB.

I also own a MR. & MRS. SMITH baseball cap from my tenure with his company. And maybe even a FREE WILLY plushy toy. Can you imagine??

So to those who are thinking about getting into the industry: I hope this gives you an idea of what you are getting- and not getting- when you get into the biz. Because I’m not giving you my FIGHT CLUB tee shirt. No way.