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 [log in to unmask] Looking for a Job? Try Got Links?, Your One-Stop Portal http://victorian.fortunecity.com/stanmer/414 ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . 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