Do You Need to Start Over as an Assistant to Relaunch Your Entertainment Career?

We hear all the time from job seekers that as part of their plan to make a career transition to a different side of the entertainment industry, they want to start back at the bottom and become an assistant to work their way back up. 

There are times when this makes sense. For example, if you’ve spent your several years as a stage manager for theater productions, but you want to grow as a creative executive in film, you probably do need to take an assistant role – especially in this crowded, thinning job market for CEs. You’re simply not going to be as competitive for a job that demands a strong knowledge of story and a vast network of writers, directors, talent, and reps if your expertise is more in running rehearsals, planning logistics, and developing relationships with crew members in the theater world. 

It’s not necessarily easy to take this step back. You’ll encounter hiring managers who will wonder whether you’ll be happy in a lower-level position that lacks authority and that often comes with a lower paycheck. You’ll be competing with people who’ve built solid relationships, gained relevant experience through internships, and come off as more “moldable.” But it is possible, and if you have a strong desire to grow your career in a certain way, the means to stretch your budget, and the patience for a longer job search, we’d encourage you to go for it. However, we also recommend thinking about what skills you can develop as you search to make you more competitive for slightly higher-level roles. Can you do freelance script reading? Take a course in writing and story structure? Judge a film festival? Help a playwright adapt their material? 

Most of the time, career transitions don't need to be as drastic. For example, if you’re a talent agent looking to become a CE, a story producer looking to get into creative marketing, or a line producer looking to jump to live events, there’s a lot from your existing career profile that will be beneficial to your future employer. In these cases, you can – and should – make more of a lateral shift. Read through job postings for your desired target roles carefully and ask yourself whether you can prove you have the skills listed in the role breakdown. If you can clearly explain when you’ve done something similar (even if not exact) successfully, then you should apply!

Often, the pull to start back at the bottom doesn’t come from a realistic assessment of your skills and experiences. Rather, it comes from a mix of outside noise and old habits. 

The outside noise is from the well-meaning but unimaginative people in your network telling you how they got their jobs and suggesting you replicate their linear path. In these cases, you’ll want to explain to your contact why you think you bring something to the table that’s beyond entry-level. Not in a cocky way, but in a realistic way. When you confidently frame your experience and value-add, your contacts won’t see you as akin to the recent grad who’s never worked in the industry.

The old habits are your own memory of what it felt like to break in. For many job seekers, the biggest career transition they’ve made was the one from no job to first job, and when you make the next big one, your mind goes straight to what worked then. You dig back for the advice you got when you first started out, which was probably something like “put your head down, take any entry-level job you can, and work really hard to prove yourself so you can move up.” And it likely worked! But now you are “up” and the rules have changed. It’s time for a new job search strategy that honors your current experience.

There’s nothing wrong with starting back at the bottom, but it’s not always the easiest or most effective path to success. Keep in mind most skills are transferable, your past experience matters even if you switch your path, and your outside perspective can be really valuable. If you can thread a clear, concrete narrative for why you’d be a good fit for an open role at your level with the experience you have now, that’s all you need to know to make this decision.