On February 11, second-year Museology students had the opportunity to attend a career lab with Greg Stevens, the Assistant Director of Professional Development at the American Alliance of Museums–or, as Greg calls it, “the Mothership.” During this event, Greg worked with students students to build their “career toolkit” by learning best practices for cover letters, job applications, networking, résumés, and interviews. The event was a mix of lecture, discussion, and Q&A format, leading to a collaborative atmosphere that helped students feel comfortable voicing their concerns with the job process and seeking Greg’s advice on a variety of issues. Students brought their résumés as well as job postings they’d encountered recently, which made the event useful and directly applicable to their current job searches.
Since our students come from interdisciplinary backgrounds and have varied interests within the museum field, not everyone is interested in the same jobs, and not everyone will go about the job search in the same way. Greg addressed this by structuring his sessions from many angles and bringing in example cover letters and résumés from various points in his own career. He was very open with the group about the fact that his career path was not linear, and that he did not originally intend to work in museums. He spoke of specific job searches and personal résumé choices, fears he dealt with during his time in graduate school and his career, and emphasized that most people in the field, like him, did not follow linear, easy paths to get to where they are now.
In addition to being very relatable by using his personal story, Greg also did a great job making sure that his presentation was tailored to young, emerging professionals in the field who are just figuring out their “philosophy of practice:” who they are as individuals and what they can bring to an institution and the greater museum field. Since he has been in the museum field for 25 years, he knows firsthand how the field is changing, and he was very honest with students about the way things were, are, and probably will be going forward. One of his most impactful points was that of the ambiguity of many jobs today, where you are expected to work independently but be a valuable team member. As Greg said, “owning the ambiguity” of the modern, hyper-connected workplace will make you a valuable employee, and will help you to connect on all levels, from individual to institutional or even societal.
Even though the job search can be daunting, scary, and sometimes incomprehensible, Greg reminded students that they are all in this program for a reason, and that “we’ve all got great strengths, but sometimes it’s hard to have the confidence to articulate them.” Greg encouraged students to think of their skills as transferable across departments and institutions, and to reflect on how they can show how they have built and honed their skills through graduate classwork, internships and projects. Overall, the event was a great reminder that sometimes you need to take unprecedented steps to climb to where you want to be.