Pam:  I can certainly identify with your situation--at least in some
particulars.

 

I was laid off from my museum job in March 2002.  Reasoning that the hole in
my resume was in the area of fund development, I began learning, teaching
myself, volunteering, and seeking work in this field.  Unfortunately, it is
very competitive, and with development professionals changing jobs every 18
months or so, there was always a pool of experienced professionals from
which hiring officials could choose.  I was never among them.  I kept
looking for museum jobs, but there were few at the level I was seeking (I'd
been a curator of some years' experience, and I was actually looking for a
higher management job).

 

After I ran out of unemployment, and my husband ran out of patience, I went
to work in my local grocery store, where I stayed for nearly two years.  In
January, I finally secured a job as a Museum director, and am grateful every
day that I got this very good position.

 

The keys to my success seem to have been these:  I never stopped learning
about my field or keeping up with it--I worked on a long-term project that
had begun when I was still employed, and wrapped it up while I was at the
grocery store.  I did freelance work in my field(s).  I continued to be
involved with the state museum association when I was available, chairing a
session at the annual conference one year.  I kept up my contacts (I seem to
have a lot--I'm not quite sure how that happened).  I was open to what came
along.  And I went outside the usual channels of references to have a friend
and professional acquaintance make a phone call on my behalf to one of the
hiring officials because I found out they knew each other.

 

This sounds a lot like what you have been doing, although I got the sense
from reading your post that perhaps you are not so good at the networking
part (my pardon if I err).  As you already seem to have observed, it is
often not what you know, but instead who.  Use your usual references, but be
alert to times when you may know someone who knows someone on the hiring
committee.  Seemingly spontaneous phone calls of support are often welcome,
and extremely useful.  (Hiring officials also often want to talk to someone
not on your reference list because, of course, your references should say
only good things about you.)

 

As many others have said, it is a tough tough market out there.  I've now
seen that first hand, but I've witnessed lots of young graduates of the
proliferating museum programs struggle for years to get that one break.  I
continue to believe that we all need to work harder to ensure that not only
are the jobs in our institutions paying a living wage, but we need to ensure
that they tend to be fulltime, with benefits.  Those of us in a position to
do so, should try to find the funding necessary to make this happen.  And we
all need to educate our boards to the fact that museum work is no longer for
dilletantes (and has not been for a very long time).  This is a profession,
staffed by people who are very well educated and ought to be respected
enough to be provided with work that satisfies their personal and monetary
needs as well as the intangibles.  The impetus must come from the boards and
museum leaders--I do not believe that it can come from the bottom up.

 

It sounds as if you might be a little more flexible about a location change,
now that your son is off to college.  I have always felt that willingness to
relocate increases your chances of finding a position many-fold (and it was
one of the things that held me back this last time, as we had agreed not to
relocate until our daughter had graduated high school--she'll be a junior
this year).  At this point in your life, perhaps a great leap of faith is
just what you need.

 

I, too, rethought my professional choice.  Frankly, I do see the museum
field contracting right now, rather than expanding (the glut of newly-minted
MA's notwithstanding).  I expect this contraction to run for at least the
next 10, and possibly 20, years.  That makes it doubly difficult for us all.
I was ready to redirect my life when this wonderful opportunity came along
for me.

 

I wish you only the best, and I do understand your frustration.  Do not
focus, however, on the people (however unworthy) who got the jobs you
wanted.  In many cases, you probably dodged a pretty big bullet (after all,
do you think you want to work for someone who prefers an unqualified
friend-of-a-friend to a true professional?).  Work is not just about the
work you do, but the environment in which you do it--people pay a huge role,
and a lousy manager can ruin your entire life.  Hang in there.  If this is
truly what you continue to want to do, re-look at your accomplishments and
see how you might package them differently.  Keep up your contacts, and get
involved in the state and regional professional associations.  Network your
heart out--it really does work.  And keep on keepin' on.

 

Best wishes,

Claudia Nicholson

Executive Director

North Star Museum of Boy Scouting and Girl Scouting

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Pamela Silvestri
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 1:36 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [SPAM] [SpamAssassin=3.66] Re: [MUSEUM-L] public history grad
program

 

Good points you make. But, there are so many babyboomers that even if 3/4
stay on working, enough jobs are going to be able to open up. At the same
time there are new positions being created. I am a babyboomer btw, though at
the tail end.

 

I should have pointed out that most of the museum jobs I was referring to
and have applied to are at the state and federal level. My immediate
supervisor is set to retire in 2 years (she'll be 54). A friend of my who
worked at a state university (not a museum job) was offered a 'golden
handshake' and couldn't resist. She was 45 and started working there when
she was 19.

 

At 80% of her salary and full bennies! - no need to look for other work or
plenty opportunity to start a new career. So not everyone is going to have
to depend on SS benefits, though many of us still will.

 

Everyday, I am online looking for museum work. I check about 10 different
websites daily. There ARE a lot of museum jobs. The 'new museology', a
direct result of the phenomena of post-nationalism, is truly amazing. We are
at, or close to the 'hey-day' for museums. Maintaining interest with the
younger generation is vital, and I think all of us are doing a great job
with this. Renewed patriotism in more recent times has been a great boost.

 

For a book pertaining to this subject I highly recommend: Zulaika, Joseba.
Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa. Museums, Architecture, and City Renewal. Center
for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno 2003.

 

It is true that the low paying, volunteer, etc., work is soooo difficult and
hurts the SS earnings and quarters. I am VERY aware of SS earnings as two
years ago I had to go on SS Disability in order to have Medicare to pay for
eye surgery that I have had to put off for 15 years. I simply could not put
this off any longer.

 

As I mentioned before, many of the issues I have faced with securing
employment in a museum have been my own doing (or not doing). Being out of
the workforce for 2 years has hurt too. It kills me when I see people who
are applying for jobs that I am trying to get, that already have good jobs
and they are just simply doing lateral transfers, etc. But I can't be bitter
over that because they are certainly entitled, etc., and have their own
circumstances. But I did once find myself wanting to scream, 'Wait, look
over here, hello I am making nothing'.

 

Thanks to the internet, I can keep track of what's going on. For many of
these jobs I've applied for, I have gone onto the museum's website and have
found the names of the people who were hired for jobs I applied for. Then I
can do a search for their names and find out more information. I do this to
assist in my job search. So for one, the person's name came up so many times
in the search. Tons of newspaper articles and clearly, this person had done
a lot of wonderful work and was well qualified.

 

I'm not looking to see whether the person is well-qualified to see if I was
considered fairly or not, but I'm comparing their background to mine and I'm
looking to see what else I would need to be competitive. All the people I
have found so far who are getting these jobs, are not unemployed. And often
I can find what job they left, and as far as I can tell that they were doing
related (non-museum) work, and are moving into full-fledged museum work (was
interesting to note). But they do have related MA's and it looks like they
may have had to accept other types of related work (perhaps at the time they
were looking for museum work, there was nothing much available).

 

Whenever I can find what position they have held before, interestingly
enough I discovered that the jobs these people are leaving, are jobs that I
do not qualify for and they are high-profiling, good paying positions. So I
do think this is really curious. But also, this clearly indicates that you
have a better chance of getting a job if you already have a (paying) job.

 

One of the last jobs I applied for was a museum at a state university. I
searched the internet and found all the 2004 salaries (from professors to
maintenance workers) for every employee at that university. I found the
salary for the person that held the position that I was applying for. 

 

Based on that (and in another search I determined that this person had
worked there for 8 years) I was able to figure a salary I could negotiate
for if I were offered the job. So I went up just a tad from the starting
salary for the position, but went lower than that of the person vested 8
years. Once again, I never got to the point of salary negotiations. I'll be
ready though when the opportunity arises.

 

I was trying to stay 'calm' during my recent job searches but it hasn't been
easy to do so. Not only am I very anxious to get back to work in general,
but it looked like I wasn't going to be able to send my son to college this
year if I didn't get a job and quick. I'd have to say that this broke my
heart like never before. Of course I could foresee this occurrence years
earlier and tried to prevent the possibility, but to have it become a
realization was something I never felt before and really can't put into
words.

 

Without any of these jobs materializing,  I quickly got my motherly
instincts refocused and went right over to the college and calmly asked for
more financial aid for my son. Although I still have to pay a bit, I managed
an extra 10k! After the FA counselor made the offer, I broke down and
finally cried over all this.

 

Back to my point about my job search - I'm sure my anxiety and desperation
showed through during my interviews...I was sooo nervous. People who are
already in a job or otherwise not in a desperate situation have a far better
chance of getting these jobs. Often, they don't have the stress to be out of
work, may be going for a higher salary, etc., and simply give a 2-week
notice.

 

Now that I am calm and my son is entering college, I am focusing on what I
need to do to get a full-time, permanent museum job (not the volunteer,
small grant, possible seasonal funding which is down from possible full-time
to, 'maybe' 3k). I have a whole different perspective now. If I have to
volunteer and/or do an internship to update my skills, I'll do it. Then I'll
start applying for museum work again (and keep trying to calm down already).

 

I know I am not the only one out there in this situation. And I will
certainly have to work beyond retirement age just to pay off my once dinky
student loan. 

 

I have suffered through a lot. Five years of being a full-fledged
(waitressing,and working at a hospital too) shovel bum had left me with
everything from lumbar spinal stenosis to Lyme disease. I went several years
undiagnosed with the spine condition because not too many people in their
30's get that. So now you know, Micki that I AM one of the people you are
referring to! I have experienced the occupational effects from this work.
But I'm all patched up and ready to go!

 

I have to disagree with you about doing volunteer work though. I have
faithfully volunteered for one museum for 10 years now. Every year - a used
book sale and X-Mas craft show fundraisers -I inventoried all their Indian
artifacts, among other projects. 

 

Unfortunately, all volunteer work does is quite the opposite of what you
might think. It tells a potential employer that you are willing to work for
free (so why should they pay you 40k+ a year) and that you perhaps aren't
'good' enough to do paid work.

 

If you are looking for museum work and want to volunteer your time, you are
far better off with a short-term internship, even if it's unpaid. The reason
for this is that potential employers know that an established internship
usually requires that the intern work under the supervision of a
professional with at least an MA.

 

In small, all-volunteer museums, you are less likely to work in a
state-of-the art, professional environment. There are exceptions, of course
and I have spent a lot of the last 10 years learning from a Museum Director
(and town historian) who has a Ph.D. She's in her 80's and retired. I do
make sure I properly use her title when I list her as a reference. 

 

I volunteer for my own personal benefit (something productive) and those who
benefit from my much needed work. So on one hand, I may express my need to
volunteer in order to maintain my skills but I it is not the way to go for
museum employment.

 

And being a research junkie, I have studied volunteerism while I was a VISTA
volunteer and when I worked on my social services degree. While I was a
VISTA volunteer -is where I learned about grant writing and many other
skills that I have been able to apply to museum work. People volunteer for
many reasons, but it does not aid in an effort to pursue professional work.
It did get me a nice barrister bookcase that the museum no longer needed.

 

Now you see that perhaps the reason I can't get the 'right' job is because I
am seriously a total research junkie, maniac employee that none of you out
there in their right mind would consider hiring (no sah, just kiddin' I'm
not that bad) . But I am taking a leap of faith with sharing my personal
experiences here to get some points across, and I would like to hope that my
name hasn't ended up alongside the word 'Delete' on your keyboard! And
besides, I know that many of you are also really totally serious research
junkies that are working like maniacs on dozens of projects!

 

Pam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a message dated 8/22/2005 9:12:49 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

Oh dear, Pamela. You anticipate older baby boomers on the brink of
retirement to move out of their jobs? They, but obviously not you, are all
too keenly aware that Social Security moves further and further from their
grasp, now requiring people to work until they are nearly 70. When Social
Security does kick in, the payment does not begin to replace earned income,
due primarily to the part-time, low wage and employed/not employed
insecurity of museum work. Retirement plan? A great idea, but not one that
museums tend to think is worth the trouble. Nest egg? When property taxes
rise to skyscraper height, when aging brings not only the comfort of a life
much enjoyed but the expenses of medical crises-- replacement knees from
carrying those heavy boxes of archives, for example, and dealing with cancer
or diabetes complications-- or the loss of spousal retirement plans and
retired employee health insurance, absence of domestic partner recognition
for benefits, the expense of helping your grown kids out when they lose
their high-tech jobs, then their unemployment and health insurance, then
their house... the nest empties its eggs pretty rapidly.

 

No, all of these things have not happened to me (yet), but I've seen all of
them in the lives of colleagues all around me, and I'm pretty sure I will be
lying in a pine box before I can consider quitting work.  This phenomenon of
hard to find jobs is not limited to the museum or public history world, and
not limited to recent graduates or  ambitious youth.  Times have changed,
big time, and we are all caught in the world we created, one that pours
money into wasteful war, looks the other way at executive stealing, and
tolerates a "me and only me" attitude throughout every layer of society
around the world. We're not approaching an economic crisis, we are smack in
the middle of it, and losing more daily.  I see money out there, cruelly
used in many cases and simply insensibly used in others. But I don't see it
being used to solve the acute economic problems we face at this moment.

 

However, I do agree with you on one important point: it is indeed rare for a
job to go to the best qualified person. I think it is that "me and only me"
phenomenon that puts incompetent people in places of leadership and relative
high income; people reward their friends in return for something for
themselves.  It is cruel for those with the power to hire and fire to
withhold a job from someone who upsets the status quo by working to her best
capacity! And, it perpetuates both this lopsided, unfair system of rewards
and growing acceptance of incompetence.

 

At this moment in time, I don't know what to advise a young person seeking
museum or public history work. The museums are not all going to close, so
there will be work there.  There is benefit in doing any kind of paid work
(or volunteer for that matter, but volunteering puts nothing on the dinner
table); you learn the discipline of working to someone else's line, you
build a network. I've been surprised at the growth of museum studies
programs in recent years, and just as surprised when I see how little the
graduates have learned. I think there are as many well qualified, competent
grads as there have always been-- but because there are more grads there are
more average and below average grads, and fewer non-profit museums too (but
a huge increase in industry supported ones).

 

Anyone have other thoughts? How can we encourage good students, excellent
teachers and competent grads, because we do need them to carry museums into
the future. Has there been a sea change in museum expectations, favoring
less competence, or favoring for-profit sensibilities?  Where are the models
for dealing with a surplus of graduates in such a specialized field? Does
there need to be a big change in the way Museum Studies and Public History
are taught? Uh oh, where is Pogo when we need him?

 

Micki Ryan

Museum & Archival Services

 

 

Pamela Silvestri, Museum Assistant
Northeast States Civilian Conservation Corps Museum
Shenipsit State Forest
166 Chestnut Hill Road
Stafford Springs, Connecticut 06076
(860) 684-3430

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