THE TV WATERCOOLER

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Crew Network: Avoid.

There must have been a moment in time where some exec in some office somewhere took a long draw of his cigar, put his feet on his desk and threw out a crazy thought in an ideas meeting: “hey, why don’t we set up a thing where we gather up some TV jobs and then charge people to apply for them”?

No doubt that bright idea was met with some some concerns from someone about whether that was an entirely fair thing to do and how the law kind of forbids companies from doing that kind of thing, save to a narrow range of job grades. And no doubt that was met with a roar from said exec and the lobbing of a heavy ashtray at his or her head and the instruction to “do it anyway!”

Must be the reason why, every month or so, another company has the bright idea of doing the same thing and looks to make a bob or two out of eager – and sometimes desperate – work hungry freelancers despite those jobs all being available to anyone with access to Facebook or a helpful list of free-to-use job sites.

And now here’s another – Crew Network, run by Rhian Howells. It’s pretty much the same as all the others, except the price, looking to charge an eye watering £14.99 a month for access to jobs at various grades (including those forbidden by the regulations). It boasts of beings a “creative crew network community created ‘by the people, for the people'”, which is an interesting way of describing its desire to relieve you of your hard-earned cash.

The best thing to do if you come across that site is – like with all the others – to put your money back in your pocket and move on. Sites like that are quite simply bottom feeders in an industry where everything runs quite nicely thank you without someone trying to make a fast buck out of everyone else.

If you are looking for work in the industry and you don’t know where to start, try Facebook, which is where almost every employer now goes to find workers. Start by typing “People in TV” into the search field, but there are plenty of others alongside those.

And never pay to apply for work. You simply don’t need to.