Summary: Production assistant jobs in sports broadcasting are the starting point for a career in sports broadcasting - but how do you get them? what can you expect? what is the goal?<br> <br> <a title="WorkinSports.com" href="www.workinsports.com">WorkinSports.com</a> Director of Content Brian Clapp, a 13-year veteran of sports broadcasting, explains a little more about what production assistant jobs are really like, and he should know...he was one, and he's hired many!<br> <br> Entry Level Sports Job PA<br> <br> <br> wistiaEmbed = Wistia.embed("6hujtxfg9a");<br> <br> <br> <br> Video Transcript "What Production Assistant Jobs Are Really Like"<br> Brian Clapp, Director of Content, WorkinSports.com: <br> <br> I’m going to spend a little time today talking about an entry level sports job that has a very high ceiling and it comes from the world of sports broadcasting.<br> <br> <br> <br> If you have this dream of working for ESPN, Comcast SportsNet or a network like Fox Sports One chances are your career is going to <a title="Production Assistant Jobs from WorkinSports.com" href="http://www.workinsports.com/usrjobresults.asp?q=production+assistant">start out as a production assistant </a>(PA).<br> <br> Production assistant jobs require a wide variety of skills, there isn’t one set thing that you do every day there are a lot of various expectations, and it changes often.<br> <br> To get hired for production assistant jobs you need to:<br> <br> * Have done <a title="Seven Deadly Sins of Sports Internships" href="http://www.workinsports.com/blog/the-seven-deadly-sins-of-sports-internships/">multiple internships</a>, hopefully at a local TV station sports department and maybe a regional sports network so you get both types of experiences.<br> * You need to <a title="Five Skills You Need to Master for TV Jobs" href="http://www.workinentertainment.com/blog/five-skills-you-need-to-master-for-television-jobs/" target="_blank">know non-linear editing</a> so you can jump into an edit bay and cut highlights, vo’s and soundbites<br> * Helps if you know a little bit of camera work which will make you a much more versatile employee<br> * And you also have to have a vast knowledge of sports<br> <br> Chances are if you are applying for production assistant jobs, before you get hired you will be put through a sports quiz. When I first got hired as a production assistant at CNN/Sports Illustrated I had to go through a sports quiz, I had to nail it to even get to the next phase of the interview. The sports quiz is kind of the gateway; if you can’t do well on that, you don’t even make it to the real interview.<br> <br> The cool thing about being a production assistant is that every day is a little bit different, one night you might be cutting the highlights for the lead story on that night’s program, the next day you might be researching to build a full screen graphic for a show, you also might be doing les glamorous tasks like running teleprompter.<br> <br> The point is, this is an <a title="Entry Level Sports Jobs with Real Growth Potential" href="http://www.workinsports.com/blog/entry-level-sports-jobs-with-real-growth-potential/">entry level sports job</a>, where you get your foot in the door, work you butt off and you prove that you’ve got what it takes.<br> <br> At this point you are really just proving to hiring managers and executives that you are willing to learn, you can take on challenges and you put your all into each task whether it is the most glamorous job or the least glamorous.<br> <br> From there you start moving your way up the chain.<br> <br> I was a production assistant for about 9 months to a year and was promoted to Associate Producer, then on to show/line producer, to coordinating producer to executive producer to news director…it’s really like the sky is the limit in the production world,
