Plot Twist Jobs

The gigs that don’t look like much — until they rewrite your whole career.

Every now and then, a job pops up that doesn’t really sound like much. It’s not paid. It’s not fancy. It won’t go on your CV. It just sort of appears — usually at a moment when things are a bit quiet — and you have to decide whether to say yes, even though on paper it’s not that exciting.

I call these Plot Twist Jobs.

Not long after I finished training, work opportunities were quiet mid-strikes. I was keeping my eye out for anything that might come in. Leda, who runs the school I trained at — which, by the way, is really good at helping you find work when you finish (and even sometimes while you’re still there) — got in touch to see if I’d be available to assist a friend of hers on a film reshoot.

It was two days, unpaid, helping with continuity hair colour for a couple of actresses. Nothing glamorous, no credit, not a lot to do except clean up, pass foils, be helpful. But I had a feeling about it. I said yes.

The designer I was assisting turned out to be brilliant — and I really liked her straight away. We got on well and I went home thinking, that was lovely, even if it doesn’t lead anywhere.

Except it did.

A few months later, I was encouraged to send my CV to a designer who was crewing up for a major film adaptation — Hamnet, which is due to be released this autumn. It’s the adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley.

I didn’t hear anything at first, so I assumed nothing would come of it. But what I didn’t know was that the person I’d helped during those two unpaid days had already told the designer about me. She’d said something like, you might really like this person.

And it turned out she was right.

I got the job — 10 weeks on Hamnet, working as a trainee on the principal team. It was a total game-changer. I learned so much, met amazing people, and built relationships that are still shaping my career.

One of those relationships was with the crowd supervisor on Hamnet. She recently brought me in as a daily trainee on a big Amazon film and I’ve been lucky enough to have kept going back. She’s been giving me a real foothold in the world of crowd hair and makeup, and that all came from a job that didn’t even make it onto my CV.

So yeah. Plot Twist Job.

It didn’t sparkle on the surface. But it ended up opening the doors that are still opening now - and my career change was suddenly supercharged.

And look — part of what I’m building with HMU Collective is all about paid gigs and helping freelancers move toward proper financial freedom. So I’m definitely not here to say “just keep doing unpaid work.” But I am saying: now and then, one of those unpaid or low-stakes jobs might feel different. It won’t be long. It won’t take up too much time. But it’ll have that energy — the potential to lead somewhere real. I hope this has helped you recognise what those Plot Twist Jobs might look like, so when one turns up… you’ll know.

Final thought:

Next time one of those slightly random, slightly underwhelming jobs shows up in your inbox, don’t write it off too quickly. Sometimes those small yeses are the ones that change everything.

Sunset on location. Hamnet unit base.