How Assistants and Junior Execs Can Grow Their Entertainment Careers in 2025

The last five years in the entertainment industry (and the world!) have been wildly unpredictable, and that’s been especially tough for people in the first decade of their careers. With fewer roles available, and higher-level execs vying for traditionally junior roles, it can be tough to grow your career the way you’d planned. The most important thing you can do to support your career right now is to be patient and keep your eye on your long-term vision (or pivot, if patience isn’t an option for you), but there are also more tangible ways you can nurture your professional growth.

The first thing you can do – and this is true at any level – is find and build community. Schedule coffees, drinks, and calls with friends and colleagues. Now’s a great time to meet that assistant you’re always emailing to schedule meetings, and when you do, learn about their aspirations, share your own, and see how you can help each other. Is there someone you can introduce them to? A script you can share? An invite you can extend to an exclusive Discord group? Deep networking now will help you get referred for open, higher-level roles when you’re applying for jobs down the line. It’ll also help you become indispensable to your boss – when you’re plugged into what’s going on at other companies, or have a way to reach the assistant of a notoriously hard-to-reach contact your boss is targeting, your boss will know you can do more than just answer calls and schedule meetings, and you may get opportunities to stretch your role and earn a promotion.

You can also build community by attending events or joining professional organizations (like our partner, The Ladder!). In addition to growing your network, you may learn new perspectives or insights from attending workshops or panels, which you can leverage at your job. You might also consider starting your own networking group, writing group, or accountability circle. This can help you cultivate a reputation as a leader and surround yourself with others who are focused on achieving similar goals.

If you’re feeling stagnant in your role, carve out learning opportunities. For example, you can experiment with new technologies to see how you can improve processes for your boss or department. Not only will you be learning skills you can bring to a future job, but one of the best ways to prove yourself for a promotion is to make the company better than it was when you found it. If you can use AI to streamline a workflow, that’ll open up time for you and your boss to dedicate to bigger-picture projects, and you can advocate for a seat at the table to contribute to those projects.

Similarly, be on the lookout for new material or content trends. Read and watch as much as you can, and form an opinion on the content you consume. Maybe there’s a project you can pitch to your boss, or you can create a tracker to monitor content trends and present your findings to higher-ups, or share the tool with your network to establish yourself further as a thought leader. Transform your boredom into headspace for creative side projects – write that pilot script, give development notes to your friends, line produce a student film, shoot a music video for an influencer, or tinker with Blendr to animate a microshort. Basically, when there are no open doors, grab a metaphorical chainsaw and create an opening for yourself.

It’s possible that you can do all of these things and still find yourself stuck in an assistant or other junior role for longer than you’d like. But the industry will bounce back, and it will be the people who invested in themselves relentlessly who will be first in line for promotions when it does. That can be you!