Museum job titles and focus areas have been shifting over the last decade, responding in part to the expanding functions of museums in relation to audiences and interpretation. One of the key resources to learn more about what jobs exist (and are available) is the American Alliance of Museum's Job Board (called Job HQ): http://aam-us-jobs.careerwebsite.com/c/search_results.cfm?site_id=8712
Visit the site and explore. What is the range of job openings? Do they cluster around certain departments? What do the job openings say about the needs and/or nature of museums today? Or about specific institutions themselves?
Respond in at least 4 sentences, noting examples of jobs you discover, including what museum listed the opening(s). Upload no later than Monday, September 19, 5pm.
I was surprised to see just how many openings there were. I suppose I should have taken into account that the AAM would be pulling job openings from around the entire country, but I was really just expecting to see job openings on the East Coast. Everything from "Executive Director" to "Senior Exhibit Technician" is represented here, thouhg, and seeing postings such as the one for the Director of Development at the Museum of Moab in Moab, Utah, quickly proved me very wrong. While the openings' departments appear to be relatively varied, Education seems to be the one popping up most often. I find it interesting that there seems to be multiple names for very similar positions. I would assume that the Manager of Educator Programs and Resources at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, MO would have very similar responsibilities to the On-Call Educator at the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito, CA or the Associate/Senior Museum Educator at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR. This wide-ranging number of titles suggests to me that, whether the museum community wants to admit it or not, most museums share a common lack of quality educational programming and employees. The fact that so many places are looking to fill these positions, though, also suggests that they are interested in improving on this shortcoming.
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ReplyDeleteThe range of job openings across the US is very broad. Everything from "Collections Cataloger” for the Shaker Museum to "Oral Historian" for the Smithsonian Archives of American Art to “Executive Director” for the American Research Center in Egypt in DC is presented. A wide range of different director jobs are available from Executive Director to Director of Cultural Affairs. The department that seems to be in the most need of employees is the curatorial department with educational being close behind. The curatorial jobs range from head curator to assistant curator to interim curator, as well as curators of specific items, such as photography or drawings. This shows that museums are in constant need of curators to be responsible for the aspects of planning the exhibitions and may or may not mean that either the museum is looking to expand their collection or there is a quick turnover with the employees within these museums for reasons such as poor salary or something similar. The fact that a few educational jobs are also available show that museums are placing emphasis on educational programs so that they can further connect the visitors to the exhibitions. I narrowed the range to Virginia and found the most frequent (of the 6 jobs available) to be centered around the membership and fundraising departments. This reflects that museums, along with one job titled "Member Services Coordinator" at the AAM, are always searching for more ways to reach and engage with their visitors especially through membership programs and events. In particular, I saw that VMFA is looking for a “Director of Membership” and a "Collections Information Specialist”. I viewed the job description for the information specialist and found that they are looking to digitize the collection information in all forms, which is definitely a reflection of our tech-savvy culture today.
ReplyDeleteMost of the positions range from the “Director of Communications and Marketing” to “Curator of Education” to the “Head of Conservation Services”. Most of the jobs are leading the conservation and display of exhibitions as well as promoting and educating the museum to the public. This tells me that the museums are having difficulties setting up the museums in a way that gets the public’s attention and draws them into the museum. There are also a lot of curatorial fellowship jobs open, which further tells me that the institutions are having problems with raising money to support the museum. I feel like this is especially prominent in smaller museums that aren’t particularly well known. Also, I found a lot of colleges, like Wellesley College and Amherst College, are looking for marketing and financial assistants to help bring in people to their museums. Another job that was prominent was technological assistants, which reveals the growing importance of using technology in museums. It is important for museums to hire someone who could help digitalize collections and create and manage a website, as well as use the various types of technology used by the museum.
ReplyDeleteAfter looking at the American Alliance of Museum’s Job Board I noticed that the majority of the positions available are higher level jobs. Museums are looking for chief officers, and directors in various departments. Going through multiple states like Virginia, California, Florida and more each had positions open in the education department. I think that a museum offering some type of learning is a great way to boost attendance. Museum have begun to realize this and are starting to put more emphasis on educational programs and exhibits. There are also many options for people looking for curatorial or exhibit design/coordination. For example, Stanford University has three curator fellowships available in three very different topics. This shows that universities cater to a wide variety of students with various interest and their collections and exhibits need to reflect so. When I searched for jobs in Virginia and Washington D.C. I found that most of their jobs were focused on Membership, Gift Officer’s or Advancement. Fundraising is really important in non-profit museums. Museums like the Smithsonian need to create bonds and maintain connections with donors as many of the multiple ways to remain successful. Along with fundraising, membership is also important to museums. Cultivating that relationship with visitors is key to the growth and success of museums.
ReplyDeleteAlmost every kind of jobs in museums is available, but the openings are so different among departments. I found that the museums need curators, educators, directors and director of development. Each of them has around 20 job openings among 125 totals, which indicates that the museums really value collection, education, the museums’ mission, and fundraising. The curator is what the museums lack most, which shows that the interpretation of the collection and exhibition is really important in museums. If collections, the core of the museum, are not given life by curators, the museums can’t do other things such as education and fundraising. The curators should be very professional, most of who are required to have at least 5 years job experiences with master degree, as I noticed in the AAM websites. I also found that most of the museums or the colleges who need the curators are related to art. I think it indicates that the interpretation is very crucial for art because they don’t like history or science museums having truth or facts. Moreover, I realized how important the cooperation between the curators and educators is. The curators should work with educators to make the public be aware of the collection, which shows that museums really aim to increase the public’s enlightenment. I found an interesting job title in the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza has a new position called “Curator of Education”, who needs to work with the Director of Collections and Interpretation and the Education Programs Coordinator at the same time. The Curator of Education is like their bridge to connect both departments. I think it also shows museums really hope that they can interpret the collection clearly and bring the knowledge to the visitors.
ReplyDeleteI found that there was a wide variety of museum positions available: from Director and President to curatorial assistant, tech support, historian, and all the way to an on-call educator. Most of the positions I saw listed were for jobs in the education and curatorial departments; however, there were a lot listed for development departments as well. I think this may be because the people who typically take these positions either move up or leave; I did find a curatorial assistant position that had a term limit of 2 years. We know that museums always need people who are good at bringing in money so finding a lot of these positions is not surprising. I did find that most of the positions for university museums, like Stanford University, were for curatorial positions; this, I don't find surprising either since universities' central focus is education, so therefore, they would need a large and well-manned education department. There was also a lot of positions for directors of several departments available, which could mean that the museums are looking to refresh their administrations so that their ideas can change with the times.
ReplyDeleteContrary to popular belief, the museum jobs are there and open. It takes a little digging, and of course, in order to be hired, some sort of experience. This seemed to be a recurring word throughout each job opening. The museums want to hire people who have had at least 1 to three years, sometimes five years, of experience with either the management of a collection, a particular database, or just experience with working in a museum setting. I like how AAM separates the jobs into sections based on their functions. It makes the search easier because if you are specifically looking for a conservation job, for example, all you have to do is click conservation. I preferred, though, to scroll through all of them because you never know what kind of opening you may stumble upon. The range of job openings varies, but I did see a lot of director or management positions. It'd be awesome to start out as a director, but that word "experience" kept popping up under the qualifications section. I'd say that's fair though, you have to build up to these higher end positions. Since I did see a lot of director openings, I think that can say that museums are searching for new leadership, of either the whole museum or specific departments, in order to keep up with the changing world we live in. Museums want fresh perspectives and eyes on how they can keep up with an audience fascinated with new technologies, so a new director could be the answer to bringing in the fresh outlook on how to either change or maintain the way a museum will connect with the public through its collection. Same with the museums hiring manager positions. As I scrolled, I couldn't help but think that these institutions are looking for new leadership to guide their team of employees, either as a whole or in a department, to keep up with evolving interests of visitors and to also get new people to visit the museum.
ReplyDeleteIt was really neat to see such a broad range of museum job openings – not just in the variety of the jobs themselves, but also of the types of museums hiring. From the Garden Conservancy in New York to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, there are a lot of really interesting-sounding institutions in the mix. There are job openings in almost every department, but it seems like the majority of them are aligned with the public realm, specifically in Development/Membership and Education. I think the focus on Development and Membership is showing that many museums are working hard and needing more help to maintain current members while also bringing new ones in. I think that the attention given to Education, though, is even more of an attempt at reaching out; more emphasis now is being put on getting people interested and involved in museums at an earlier age. The Carlyle House in Alexandria, Virginia, for example, has a job listing for a “dynamic, proactive, creative” Curator of Education, who is “experienced in children’s programming.” I think those qualifications there show the goal of that particular institution to be drawing in kids and making the historic house more fun and appealing to them.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting observation I noticed looking at this list of job openings is that, though it is true there are now many different types of museum jobs, there are even more titles for them resulting in tons of creative ways to say the same thing. There are lots of curatorial positions open which I found interesting, because I feel that there are many people who want to be curators but each museum only needs a few at most. However, a good curator requires a lot of knowledge, education, and experience so maybe the job market at this time is lacking the people qualified to be curators. I’m a little surprised there weren’t more openings for communications and technology since that’s a fast growing part of museums. Perhaps, there are simply more people trained in that field, and that makes it easier for museums to hire people for that position. I think my last two observations could also point out that museums feel they MUST have curators but they don’t HAVE to have a communications department.
ReplyDeleteThe scope of what the job entails can also be seen the title. Bigger museums have job descriptions for very specific needs such as the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art which, among other jobs, needs a Teen Programs Manager. That’s an extremely specific title, it’s not even for all programs, it is only for teen based programs. On the other hand, smaller museums have job openings for positions that oversee multiple areas at once, such as Director of Collections & Exhibitions at Stanford University. I also noted that there were lots of college art museums looking for employees but I’m not sure what significance that may hold.
At first glance, the current listings for the AAM “Job HQ” seem to cater primarily to individuals interested in positions within the Visitor Engagement (Education), Communications, and financial or administrative fields. As you move beyond the first three “preferred” Mississippi museum listings on the site the breadth of available departmental positions becomes much more obvious; the range jumps from such openings as that of the Collections Manager and Exhibitions Registrar at the Newcomb Art Museum in New Orleans posted just a day ago to that of a Preparator posted by the Wichita Art Museum over a month ago. While the last month of listings appears to feature a relatively consistent mixture of positions in collections, development, engagement, and “Institutional Giving” (announced by the Peabody Essex Museum) administration as well as several curatorial positions, these listings are more often than not from one type of museum: that of art and design. Without having the previous month to compare this month’s AAM listings to, I’m not sure that I would call the density of administrative and curatorial positions an ‘uptick’ in sheer number. However, the two relatively broad categories taken together indicate either a recent, seasonal turnover rate in upper-management and collections curation marked by an influx of school-aged visitors and programming. Earlier in the month-long period feaatured, explicitly art museum listings seemed to outweigh any other institutional type, though more recent listings even lean toward site- and subject-specific collections or exhibits. The National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York, NY, for instance, posted a listing for a Head of Conservation Services 10 days ago, merely a day after reaching out for a new Exhibition Project Manager. I personally interpret the proximity in which the two listings were created as indicative of recent turnover with regard to a specific exhibit that either was not treated with ample conservation guidelines or required more conservatory authority than previously available at the institution; perhaps there hadn’t been a position solely for a conservation “Head” before, but a number of people in the department overseeing the operations enumerated in the new position listing.
ReplyDeleteI’m shocked to see such a diverse range of job openings in the museum/art history world. Art and Art History Majors often hear they will never find a job, so this is exciting to hear. Not only are there a wide selection of jobs, but there is also an assortment of locations and types of museums. The jobs range from directors to curators to exhibition designers to technical support specialists to historians. It’s really a wide spectrum.
ReplyDeleteI saw the majority of positions in departments such as curatorial, collections management, and education. I think this is because the museums pride themselves on their collections. They also want to bring people in and educate them about the work they have acquired. I also saw several positions revolving around technology and digitalizing the collections, such as the imaging technician position for the The Menil Collection in Houston Texas. With the world becoming more technology based, museums are trying to keep up.
Upon looking at the website there are such a wide range of job titles. while it is exciting to see so many opportunities, some of the openings are concerning. Many that caught my eye were the Director positions. To me this says the museum is struggling to have a leader or decision maker, or someone to keep things organized. This is crucial for the museums survival and to see many jobs with this tile makes me question the stability of that museum.
ReplyDeleteI look at the job postings website quite often. It is refreshing to see that there are a lot of different jobs that are out there. When seeing the titles I am intimidated by the "Executives" or the "Directors". I know that in class we talked about the fact that museums do not hire many people. It is rare for a museum to have an enormous staff. I also noted that every job titled required a master's degree and some required a PhD. It is not surprising that this level of education is needed for such a high position. What really caught my eye was the amount of positions that were open for one museum. I noticed that the Getty alone had well over four openings for big positions. It makes me wonder what could have happened to have that many people switching jobs? I noticed that the majority of the positions available were focused around funding and bringing the money in. I also noticed that there was a big push for the developing "education" programs. I am excited for when I will be able to start applying for these positions in the future.
ReplyDeleteThe job functions with the most listings were curation, development/membership, administration, and education. Many of the job descriptions for these postings indicate a need for museums to a) bring in more money to the museum through outreach and membership programs and b) digitize and organize the collections of museums to provide easier access for other museum employees to the holdings of the museum. I noticed that the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts had at least two postings, one for a Collections Information Specialist and the other for a Director of Membership. Both of these positions require no higher of an education than a bachelor of arts (preferably in art history or museum studies) however they both require at least several years of experience in related work. I sadly noticed that there were no internship or fellowship postings on the AAM jobHQ.
ReplyDeleteThere is a variety of job openings on the website and a few fellowship/internship opportunities as well, which pleasantly surprised me as a college student. There are a few registrar and money management related job openings, but I found that many job openings cluster around the Curatorial and Education departments. The job openings in the Curatorial department say that probably nowadays museums are looking for curators and exhibition designers, who have new and interesting ideas. Today executive directors recognize that in order to have more visitors, museums need to have constantly changing exhibitions, as well as, new interesting pieces need to be added to the existing collection to lure visitors. Thus, a curator, who has a vision, aligned with the museum’s mission, is a very important part of the museum. The job openings in the Education department say that museums want visitors to become active participants by providing workshops or guided tours, so visitors engaged in the process of thinking one way or another. It also seems like nowadays people are more interested in learning, so by having knowledgeable workers in the Educational department, who can come up with innovative and interesting educational programs, it increases museum’s chances of having more visitors.
ReplyDeleteThe jobs currently posted on American Alliance of Museum’s Job Board have a large spread of variety. Postings include everything from curators to financial positions to education departments. I am studying Art Education and have interest in going into the Education world of museums, which causes me to have an eye for these specific jobs. I found the titles of posted education jobs to be interesting. Some include: “Manager of Gallery Learning,” “Director of Education,” “Engagement Site Manager,” “Curator of Education,” “Manager of Educator Programs and Resources,” “On-Call Educator,” “Associate/Senior Museum Educator,” and “Associate/Senior Museum Educator of Access and Inclusive Programs.” These titles come from only the first 50 career postings. I believe that these job openings support the evidence that the engagement/education departments are a huge area of growth for the future of museums. These education jobs also speak for the specific institutions that are filling these positions because it shows that they care about visitor engagement, further learning, and experiential art.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a large range of job openings, but the most common words I picked out were curatorial, education, and development. It seems like most of the available jobs cluster around the curatorial department -- and interestingly, curatorial work overlaps with so many other departments. For example, a lot of the open curatorial jobs were focused on "student programs", "education", and "management." I also noticed that a lot of these jobs were also associates/assistant jobs, which probably means that there are already senior/directors already in the museum/gallery spaces. This could mean that museums are trying to create more specific categories in their spaces - so instead of one person overseeing a large part of the museum (like education), there are multiple people splitting up the work (and bringing new ideas) to the whole department. I think this also means that museums are really working on education and future development. They're focusing more attention on the visitor - and educating them - as well as thinking of new ideas to further develop the museum/gallery space. This could mean that the institutions themselves are trying to modernize their approach to attracting guests.
ReplyDeleteThe range of openings, I noticed, clusters mostly around jobs pertaining to education and interpretation departments. For example, the Albany Institute of History & Art is looking for a Director of Education, the Sixth Floor Museum wants a Curator of Education, the First State Heritage Park wants an Interpretative Program Manager, and the Mississippi Museum of Art wants a Director of Interpretation. I believe that these job openings emphasize how necessary the education of collections and the interpretations to the public and the museum's audiences are. The understanding of an item to the average person can make the museum experience so much better than what would seem like a random object put up on display.
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