The Sad State of Museum HR Departments
Posted in Individualism, Politics, Presentism on 26. Feb, 2009
Amy Fox (of @museumtweets) blogs about an email she received that is endemic of a real problem in museums today. After applying for a job at a local museum and not hearing anything, she decides to follow up with another email. This is what she got in reply.
I have received many applications. Yours was not given consideration because you do not have any significant length of employment (3 years or more) with any employer. Stability is very important to our organization.
[Museum director's electronic signature here]
There is one good thing here that I wish to get out the way first. The reason for rejection was (brutally) given. We asked for three years, you don’t have three years, that’s the breaks. I only point this out because of my hatred for rejection letters that say, “Thank you for you’re application. Unfortunately, we had many applications and you were not successful. Please try again.”
I’ve had many a fight about the need for proper feedback. You have to give reasons for rejection. Otherwise, what are you saying? “Sorry, but we chose people at random”? Without a reason, you look like a bunch of amateurs. Amy, in all fairness, did get a reason.
Unfortunately, the reason is absolute nonsense.
This is the lie about “experience”: That it matters at all. Three years experience, I hate to tell you this, isn’t much difference than one years experience repeated three times. Experience in normal conversation only matters when you reach double figures (i.e. I’ve been doing this for FIF-TEEN years).
This is the truth about “experience”: it’s a cheap HR trick to cull applicants and to make the job sound more important than it is.
Here is the contradiction about “experience”: This happens a lot with lower level positions. You offer an average wage, yet ask for several years of experience doing that job. This means the only people you will consider are those already doing that job somewhere else. Who in their right mind is going to make a massive sideways jump in their career? You want to to apply for a better job for feel you deserve rather than the same job in a different location? Right?
Which means, think about it, the people successfully applying (by definition, already doing this job) are those with stalling careers, and want to move because other people won’t promote them. Or were already fired. Ask yourself why that happened. I don’t see this as a stabilising factor.
Okay, okay, sometimes people do go sideways for changes of scenery/moving house etc. But I refuse to believe the entire industry is set up to cater for these people.
This is also part of a greater problem: the restrictions in place of this culture of hiring. New talent and creative thinkers are not able to get started in this industry. This is not about being a “competitive industry”. You know what industry is competitive? Oil. To come through the ranks of the oil industry, you have to be intelligent and ruthless. The oil industry therefore only hand picks the best graduates to train them up.
The museum/culture industry isn’t the oil industry. It’s not competitive. it’s “closed”. They are so slow to bring in new talent and so reluctant to get graduates in that this only spells disaster. You know what other industry is “closed”? Journalism. You could only become a journalist if you knew a journalist or were related to one, no matter where your journalism degree is from. Otherwise, you just make a living doing freelance. And look now, all the creative and innovative writers went and set up blogs or small start-ups just to keep writing and print media is hemorrhaging profits and readership.
Same thing with the nepotastic music industry, who are resorting to suing their own customer base.
Unless the museum/culture industry wants to suffer the same way, some serious reform is needed. Creative and innovative people aren’t the type to be sitting in an office for seven years. If someone like Amy Fox can’t get a job in a museum, then its a sad day for museums. Simple things like GIVING A PROPER REPONSE TO APPLICATIONS. Not only is it good manners, it will honestly help people to be better.
To the commentor who said they shouldn’t be giving personalised responses. YES THEY SHOULD. To all 75. Otherwise, don’t offer the job. If you can’t be bothered to reply to people who have given up their time to apply (probably after agonising days to get it right) then you don’t deserve to be in a position to offer it. Hell, I wouldn’t mind if this was all automated. You get a email receipt saying “Thank you, we got it” and if you’re rejected, an email saying “You were rejected because of:…” then you put the list of things to why off a checklist. It could run off a MySQL database just like I use to deal with spam on this blog. Check all, approve/delete.
Question time to all you museum professionals out there who read this: How did you get started? How did you get to be were you are now? I know a lot of students and grads who read this who are probably feeling worried by all the news of museum job cuts. Give them some advice/hope with your own stories and advice.
It would need to be anonymous because if you’ve been in the field awhile you hear about, or know about, the “bad apples” but everyone is afraid to call people out for their rotten behavior in public forums.
Um … sorry for the previous disjointed comment, the first part of my comment disappeared somehow. What I meant to say was that we need to come up with a way (like those anonymous rate your teacher or college professor websites) to let folks know about the museums that are doing a good job and acting in a professional and polite way, and those that are not.To job-seekers, keep plugging away! I know from my own job and project searches that persistence does pay off, even during tough economic times.
HR is poor all across the board, but especially bad in the non-profit field. I think the fear is the new talent would want the pay that new ideas deserves, and if they cannot offer that pay in a reasonable amount of time that person will leave. If you stick to the old ways you can provide the old pays.I work at one now and we don’t even have an HR department (I am not going to tell you who I work for, simply because I am not the PR person and cannot speak publicly about our situation). There are so many time I have wanted to write about the issues in this place, but cannot. Sadly, without new ideas you cannot gain new visitors. Time sits still for no one, including the older patrons. Once they are no longer able to make the trip to your museum, you have no one.
Well, one problem is that most museums (more than half of all museums are small history museums) don’t have HR departments. The job posting, candidate searching and interviewing are all done by the same overworked director who is keeping the lights on and the place running.But I agree that it’s very hard to break into the museum field, and that institutions (particularly those small museums that are the majority) are less likely than they should be to take a chance on a young person or one with less experience than other candidates. In this case, though, experience isn’t really the bugbear you suggest; in many ways this is still a profession that works on apprenticeship. (The “continuous experience” thing Amy’s interlocutor mentioned is nonsense, though.)
@Paul Orselli – Or, we could write it into an ethics document. Museum employment ethics.
Thanks for posting this and I hope museum professionals respond with advice. I am one of those who read your blog and worry about the museum job cuts. I’ve been applying since November and wonder how long the job search should take. When I’ve asked for feedback sometimes it is similar to Amy’s- that there is not enough experience, other times it is that they don’t want someone relocating from far away. Again what does this do to progress institutional creativity…
Here’s the thing. Imagine you are hiring. No matter what the job posting says, for the same amount of money, would you rather hire:a) someone fresh out of grad school with little experience, but with good ideasorb) someone with a grad degree and five years of experience and good ideas?Now more than ever, not getting a job is not someone’s way of telling you that you aren’t qualified or could not do the job. It simply means that there is someone who applied who is better qualified, has more experience, or would fit with the organization better. This is not a conspiracy to keep young people out, it’s simply a fact that everyone wants to get the most for their money. Now, is the response Amy got rude? Sure. Is the general lack of response rude? Not intentionally so. My spouse once got a rejection on a postcard that I thought was quite rude. For the record, as you are trying to get into the museum field, the easiest way to find your way in seems to be through part time employment (both from personal experience, and that of friends). Part time jobs will pay less, and not have benefits, which means you are competing with other entry level people for the job, instead of competing with people with years of experience.
I would hire the one who impresses at interview.
Not even sure where to start with this comment… I’m astounded by the response this situation has received. It’s turning into a positive experience because of all the support and advice that people are offering. I hope that eventually, I will get my foot in the door, but I never expected it to be easy. However, I try to imagine what my POV will be when I have 5 to 10 years of experience and am applying for a position, or if I am in charge of hiring someone and trying to narrow down the applicants. I imagine I will see my current experience from a new light. And though I agree heartily that people with fresh ideas need to be brought into the field, a major barrier to bringing new blood into museums is the lack of growth in the field. Which is a whole other problem.
And how about that often it is Finance depts that end up doing HR? They don’t have any specific training either! At my current and at my last institution there was an extensive youth internship/part time work network. That way people just starting in the field (anywhere from seniors in high school to post-university age) could get a foot in the door. If it was a good fit it would be pretty clear within 6 months or so. Then when jobs opened up, FT staff had a pool of poeple that they knew, had worked with, and who knew the insititutions culture, audience, etc.
I’ve never read this blog before and I don’t really know what type of job Amy is looking for (so I apologize if I’m out of context), but I do work for a major museum and have been on several hiring committees. Experience is key – what K Landon says is correct. There are lots of talented experienced people applying for the same job, so why wouldn’t the hirers choose the one(s) with more experience? If you want to get your foot in the door, I highly recommend volunteering at the institution you want to work for – even one day a week You’d be amazed at what being a committed volunteer is worth when a job opening finally does become available. As far as how I got my first job in the museum, I took a paycut and accepted a job that I was way overqualified for. But within months, I was able to prove that I could do more and sure enough, I’ve worked my way up. (Oh, and personally, I like the frankness of the rejection letter!)