At 11:37 AM 6/5/98 -0700, you wrote:

>research, I found that even though hiring organizations list Qualifications
>at BA and only a few years experience, they are hiring people with Masters
>degrees and many years of experience.  Between the two of us we make the
>perfect candidate, education and experience, but without one or the other
>you will have a difficult time, I know I am.  If you are interested I have
>info on the most frequently requested skills, breakdown of regional
>differences in qualifications, etc.

From someone who just got finished with a job search, I can also
sympathise.  I think a good chunk of the problem is the lack of museum
positions and those that are available are mainly lower level admin
positions.  Since most of the management level positions require several
years experience in museum work, sometimes the only way to get started is
through the admin-type positions, especially in the larger institutions.
Thus people who want to work for these larger places like the Smithsonian,
start out in whatever position they can get hired for, usually an admin
position since they are high turn-over and a good way to meet people to
network up.  I know plenty of people with masters degrees doing admin work
at the Smithsonian just because it was a foot in the door.

In my opinion, this is sometimes a bad practice because it means that once
someone has mastered all the office procedures and daily routines after a
couple of years, they finally have enough time under their belts to work
their way into another position.  This creates a position where someone is
always being trained and thus the work is never done as efficiently as
possible.  Contrast this with the "business" admin world where the salaries
are much better and people usually stay on longer or move up to other admin
positions in the same company.  Plus in the museum world, there seems not
to be the "market" for professional admins like there is in big business,
especially in the smaller museums. Thus the people who do get hired as
admins are not trained to be admins but liberal arts students who learned
MS Word really well from writing all those research papers and have spent a
lot of time temping.  :)  (I fall into this category. )

Unfortunately, I don't see a good way to change this since museums are
strapped for money and can't afford to create entry-level positions for all
areas of museum work like education, curation and research so students
fresh out of college can get practical museum experience without having to
start off as an admin.  Nor can museums afford to command a high enough
salary to attract the professional admins who can make upwards of $40K
working for the big companies for several years.

My advice is to just keep plugging at it.  All museum positions are hard to
get these days no matter how much experience and education you have.  Keep
sending out those resumes and networking around and you'll find something
eventually.  Most people I know have job hunted around a year before they
found something that paid a living wage.

Good luck!!

Deb Fuller