In a message dated 00-09-07 19:02:45 EDT, Dr. Laura Petznick asks:

<< What am I doing wrong? Is it because I attended a foreign university for my
 graduate work? Is it because I have a Ph.D.? Should I have limited my
 education and tried to enter the field after a B.A.? Is it becuase I live in
 the South? >>

Certainly the above factors would not, in general, disqualify anyone from a
museum job!  It seems to me your problem is primarily mathematical.  There
are 'way too many qualified people seeking jobs within a very small, finite
pool of possibilities.  Job-hunting is an extremely complex undertaking when
you think about it, since within each applicant pool for each specific job
there will be a wide variety of strengths and weaknesses (and employer's
idiosyncratic preferences), and you may be ranked near the top on one job, in
the middle with another, and at the bottom on still another, depending upon
the nature of your competition. And you have almost no chance of ever
discerning the nature of the competition with each application, unless you
follow up and interview the successful applicant to find out what he or she
had that you didn't--or try to find out from the employer why you were
unsuccessful (and good luck on getting an honest answer).

Anyway, it seems to me that it's a mathematical certainty that many qualified
applicants will NEVER succeed in getting a museum job as long as the market
remains as competitive as it is currently.  I don't mean to say that if there
are 10,000 applicants and only 500 openings in the field, 9500 people will
never get a job, since obviously that's not exactly true.  The museum job
market does fluctuate and there is turnover, so perhaps over a period of time
1000 of the original 10,000 applicants will get to fill those 500 jobs.

An important factor in a job market like that is pure luck, by which I mean
the laws of chance--being in the right place at the right time.  That's
essentially how I got my job, although admittedly there were far fewer people
hunting museum jobs in those days.  But it so happened that a college
classmate of mine, without my knowledge, had applied for the same job a few
weeks earlier and could well have been hired before I was even aware of the
position.  But my boss held out, waiting for someone else to come along who
had slightly higher qualifications.  If he had been more anxious to fill the
job, I would have been too late and would have lost out.  (Ironically, after
I had already been employed for a couple of months, I received a form letter
saying there were no openings!)

I sometimes feel that finding a job in an overcrowded field is a bit like
trying to find a parking place in a city which simply doesn't have adequate
parking spaces: sometimes the only way to get one is to be lucky enough to
find a car leaving a space and  be ready to pounce.  I hate to be a wet
blanket, but I'm afraid there are too many pollyannas who will tell you to
keep trying and eventually you'll find your dream job--because that's simply
untrue.  Of course, the only way to get a job is to keep trying, but to
harbor a fantasy that persistence will always succeed--I'm afraid it just
ain't necessarily so.  When you try to enter an overcrowded field, you have
to be prepared for a series of delays and disappointments, but you also have
to be realistic and set a time limit on futility.  Sooner or later you may
have to move on and take a less than ideal job in a related field, or even an
UNrelated field.  You may have to resign yourself to continuing to seek your
dream job on a part-time basis while working at something else.
Unfortunately, some dreams never come true, and I think that's a statistical
certainty.  It isn't necessarily you, it may be just the numbers.

David Haberstich

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