Ask the Crew: What Do You Actually Look for When Hiring a PA?

Here's the secret nobody tells you: when a UPM or a 2nd AD is hiring PAs, they're usually not looking at your film degree or your reel. They're asking one question: Will this person make my day easier or harder?

That's it. That's the job interview.

The bar isn't a credential. The bar is you.

PA is one of the few jobs in this industry where you don't need anything on paper to get in. That's freeing and a little brutal. Nobody can tell you you're unqualified, and nobody can promise you the gig either. What gets you hired, and hired again, is how you show up.

What we're actually watching for:

1. You communicate. You answer the radio, repeat back what you heard, and tell someone the moment something's off. Telling the 1st AD that talent isn't in the van is uncomfortable. Not telling them is worse.
2. You're on time, which means early. Your call time is when you're ready to work, not when you pull into the lot.
3. You solve problems without creating new ones. You figure out what you can, and you ask when you can't. Guessing on something that matters is how small problems become big ones.
4. You're the same person at hour thirteen as you were at hour one. Anyone can be pleasant at call. The PAs who get called back are still easy to work with when everyone's tired.

None of this shows up on a resume. All of it shows up on set, and crews talk.

What we won't pretend to know

We're not going to throw day rates or hiring numbers at you in this post. They shift by market, by budget, and by union status, and bad numbers cost you real money. When we cover that, we'll do it properly.

Do this

Pick one of those four and come up with a real story that proves it. A job, a class project, a shift at a restaurant: it all counts. That's your answer when someone asks why they should take a chance on you with no credits.

Then go work a short. Free, small, chaotic. It's where you find out if hour thirteen is for you.

And if you've landed a PA job recently, tell us how it actually happened. Word of mouth? A posting? A friend of a friend? We'd love to share your story.

Whatever's next for you, we want to help you get there. Reach out anytime with questions or just to talk career goals.

All the Best,

Liv

olivia@myfirstjobinfilm.com

Today's New Jobs

138 roles are up for grabs today, with 15 added since yesterday — those have barely been touched, so you'd be near the front of the queue.

Recommended Job of the Day

Production Company Internship is our pick. It's with a busy production outfit juggling features at every stage, and the work is the real thing: reading scripts in development and writing coverage, taking notes in meetings, chasing contacts and setting up meetings. It's built for people who want to produce or write and direct, part-time and flexible, with remote considered. The useful move is to write one page of coverage on a film you've seen recently and have it ready to show — nothing proves you can read like reading. Send it today, because coverage-heavy roles get picked from the first applications in.

Others of note...

Production Intern sits with a smaller production services company, remote or hybrid, and that size is the point: you'll be in the day-to-day of what they've actually got shooting rather than parked on admin. It's unpaid, so go in clear-eyed, but the exposure to how a production runs is genuine. Smaller teams read their inbox daily, so don't sit on it.

Assistant is a permanent Los Angeles job at a world-leading film and television studio, supporting two senior television business affairs executives. Diaries, correspondence, status reports, deal logging and payments, with a route into drafting agreements if you show an interest. If the deal side of TV is where you want to end up, this is how people get there — and desks like this fill fast.

• Paid internship / fixed term: 42 live
• Volunteer / expenses-only / unpaid: 51 live
• Permanent job: 18 live
• Paid entry-level crew (runner, trainee, production assistant): 16 live
• Paid junior office / production / development role: 9 live
• Work experience: 1 live
• Apprenticeship / structured scheme: 1 live

Browse the whole US job board

MFJF Monthly Career Clinic

Christina Northrup Workshop leader

Starting a career in the film industry is a lonely business, but just imagine each month if you could speak with an experienced filmmaker and get answers to all your questions and concerns. Better still you can share your worries and listen to others, compare notes and learn all the tricks and tips to getting ahead in the Film Industry.

Well, now you can via the MFJF Monthly Career Advice Clinic!

Come along each month to get your questions answered and learn from our amazing community.

The clinic takes the form of a virtual 60-minute workshop hosted by experienced filmmaker Christina Northrup. Christina will present each month and take live Q&A from anyone who wants to talk, if you want to just listen that is absolutely fine.

The overall aim of these monthly workshops is to help you establish your film career!

Starting a film career can be very lonely, constantly thinking you are on the outside looking in, desperate for somebody to recognise you have what it takes.

And the truth is you are not alone, everyone feels the same.

Sharing our concerns, listening to others and having an experienced filmmaker pass on her guidance is one very large step in the right…

MFJF Monthly Career Clinic

Christina Northrup Workshop leader

Starting a career in the film industry is a lonely business, but just imagine each month if you could speak with an experienced filmmaker and get answers to all your questions and concerns. Better still you can share your worries and listen to others, compare notes and learn all the tricks and tips to getting ahead in the Film Industry.

Well, now you can via the MFJF Monthly Career Advice Clinic!

Come along each month to get your questions answered and learn from our amazing community.

The clinic takes the form of a virtual 60-minute workshop hosted by experienced filmmaker Christina Northrup. Christina will present each month and take live Q&A from anyone who wants to talk, if you want to just listen that is absolutely fine.

The overall aim of these monthly workshops is to help you establish your film career!

Starting a film career can be very lonely, constantly thinking you are on the outside looking in, desperate for somebody to recognise you have what it takes.

And the truth is you are not alone, everyone feels the same.

Sharing our concerns, listening to others and having an experienced filmmaker pass on her guidance is one very large step in the right…

Film Independent x Humana Foundation Shorts

Selected teams get a $100,000 all-in budget plus publicity, marketing and distribution support for their short.

Stage 32 + Millennium Media Action Thriller Screenwriting Contest

The winner goes into development and packaging with a real production company, a rare direct path for a new writer.

Atlanta Film Festival 2027

One of roughly two dozen Academy Award-qualifying US festivals, with a screenplay track alongside the films.

My First Job In Film

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