Ware, it sounds like a couple of things may be coming
into play here.

The first thing that comes to mind is money.  They may
presume, given all your background, that you would
require more money, or more sooner, than someone fresh
out of college.

Secondly, the next thing that comes to mind is good
old fashion Age Discrimination!  It's a violation of
American law (the ADEA), but don't tell me it doesn't
happen.  It does all the time.  20 years of
experience, combined with the number of years of life
it took to get that education makes me suspect without
knowing that you are +40, possibly closer to 50.
Employers are not supposed to discriminate on that
basis, but fact of the matter is they do.

The next thing that comes to mind is the potential
that the group in which you might have been working
with is a younger group.  Each organization is
different, but fact of the matter is, when attempting
to fill a position, they often want someone who will
match the dynamics of the rest of the organization.
When they're hiring, beyond qualifications, they look
at the fact "Will this person be a fit for positive
interaction with the rest of the group?"  It's one of
those subtle things they just don't tell you about.

Regrettably (as someone with 30 years of work
experience overall--shhh, don't count my candles!),
the bias is that someone who is older may be less
flexible than someone who is younger.  The opposite of
that pendulum is that someone who is younger may be
less mature and stable.  Neither are guaranteed to be
a fact.

There's an additional possibility.  They could simply
have had a candidate in mind and interviewed to make
it look like they were an equal opportunity employer.
Sometimes someone's favorite child gets the job over
an unknown, but they have to talk to a couple of
unknowns to give the appearance that they are not
discriminating.

Job searching is a tough, frustrating process.  You
need a dose of reality as in what's going on in the
job market (found in the status updates on
MuseJobs--i.e., unemployment is up, down, or benefits
are running out), your rights as an employee (found in
the employment law updates posted on MuseJobs--and
Ware, if you do think it's an age discrimination
issue, go to http://www.findlaw.com and research your
rights in that regard), interviewing and resume
pointers (also found on MuseJobs), and plenty of job
leads (found on Global Museum for the international
crew and on MuseJobs for US, Canadian, and UK folks).

Sorry you are having to endure this.  With all the
rugs they have pulled out from under us Boomers, we're
simply going to have to keep working til we croak.
They're going after our the Ponzi schemes of Social
Security and Medicare just when we go to collect after
paying our whole lives.  Healthcare is becoming more
and more cost-prohibitive when our bodies are getting
to the point where we're going to need it.  We will
have to keep working into our 70s just to be able to
take advantage, and that's going to skew the status of
the job market in general.  We won't be leaving the
job market, which is going to make positions harder to
find, in general, and harder still for the new kids.
Finding jobs is going to be harder because people
still discriminate on age at both ends of the
spectrum.

Keep your head up, and if you want me to privately
review your resume for some ideas about how to get
ahead, let me know (i.e., older employees may not wish
to put all their experience on the resume--there's no
reason it has to be the kitchen sink).

Good luck!



--- Ware Petznick <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Warning to the list: Frustrated and dedicated museum
> professional wannabe vents
>
>
> I agree in theory with much of what Pamela has to
> say. In theory, someone with more skills "should" be
> hired over someone just out of college if it is
> understood that for the same salary a museum could
> benefit from all of the extra value a more
> experienced candidate can offer. However, this has
> not held true for my own experience.
>
> In a recent interview I was asked directly, "why
> should we hire you with all of your experience, when
> we can hire someone just out of college?" The
> just-out-of-college candidate was offered the job.
>
> So, I have a breadth of experience that Pamela
> recommends -  a PhD, collections, development,
> customer service, special events planning, database
> management and design, education programming,
> publishing, volunteer recruitment, project
> management, customer service, digital photography
> and web design, etc etc etc, and yet, I have been
> looking for a museum position, entry level included,
> for four years! In this time, I have attended AAM
> conferences and other museum conferences in the
> hopes of taking advantage of recruiters present.
> Aside from the quick interviews at such events, I
> have had less than 10 museum interviews in the last
> four years ( and many of those have placed other
> candidates who, for unknown reasons, are no longer
> in that position and the museum has searched for the
> same position again!).
>
> I have worked for museums as a volunteer or intern
> or contract employee for nearly twenty years. I
> foolishly thought that my resume was hard to beat.
> The Whitney Museum of American Art, Colonial
> Williamsburg, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Museum
> of Fine Arts Boston, The National Trust for
> Scotland, Frist Center for Visual Art, Belle Meade
> Mansion, Scotland's Secret Bunker, Historic Rock
> Castle, etc!
>
> Please fellow listers tell me what else I can do to
> make my next applications more attractive to hiring
> managers so that I can meet them in an interview!
>
> Frustrated temp,
> Ware Petznick
> www.geocities.com/staforlife/museumresume.html
>




=====
Indigo Nights
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