Recruitment in Museums: a Millennial’s Perspective.
Recruitment is an industry that has been turned on its head over the past 20 years thanks to the digital age. Many employers would remember taking an ad out in the local newspaper and accepting mailed or faxed resumes in response. In fact, in the 1980s, before the museum field was professionalized, many of the future employees were simply drawn from an active volunteer pool of candidates, where know-how and attitude were the two main characteristics of the next great hire. In 2017, we now have a rapidly professionalized and qualified cohort of museum professionals, and the job hunt has moved online, which significantly increases the pool of local, eligible candidates to regional or even global cohorts of candidates.
Due to the rapidly changing nature of online job boards and online recruitment, it has taken time to catch up. In 2017, job boards are often used in the same fashion as the old newspaper ads — post an ad and wait to see who submits an application. But, online job boards aren’t designed to function as a stagnant information byte. Many employers are still asking for one-dimensional, hard-copy paper resumes that are a listing of skills and experience, but in my experience, almost every job poster results in at least 20 candidates with similar, if not the same skills and experience, competing for one position at the museum. This approach needs to be contemporized.
1. Recruit for the right skills; not for the recruitment process.
In the museum where I work, 80% of our staff are front line staff who interact and engage with visitors. They are storytellers, interpreters, hosts, and sometimes even waiters and bartenders, depending on our events. Why then are we stuck with asking people for a one-dimensional resume as the only source of information for recruitment? We follow up the first round of resume screening with a formal interview, typically with scenario questions where candidates are not able to demonstrate their skills; only explain them. Why not include a mandatory 2 minute video where candidates tell a story or joke to see if they can capture our attention? Why not encourage more experienced candidates to submit video of an actual tour or museum program, so managers get a better sense of candidates’ potential.
The idea in action: the Boston Red Socks used to hold annual recruiting events to hire around 200 game-day staff. Candidates would wait in long lines with little face-to-face time with the employer. The company implemented an online survey for initial screening, eliminating candidates who did not meet the minimum requirement for game-day availability. Those who were eligible were invited to submit a 20 minute video, answering 8–10 questions. From there, the Red Socks conducted in-person interviews with the most qualified, shortlisted candidates. This approach saved time and money for the Boston Red Socks, shifting recruiting time from about two weeks to a few days. After implementing this process the first time, the Red Socks made some tweaks including having staff record the interview questions in video format, making the video process feel more authentic. Following this change, candidates reported a 94% satisfaction rate with the entire recruitment process.
2. Change the ‘No phone calls please’ policy to, ‘Call us, please!’
Recruitment is a costly business. The Conference board of Canada calculates it costs C$17,000 per new hire, including the opportunity cost of lost productivity, time to hire and work involved in recruitment. The cost of hiring the wrong person is much, much higher. Why then, do we limit contact between museums and candidates during the solicitation and screening process? Many interviews are more about getting to know you and providing information that learning about the actual competencies and skills of a candidate. Museum managers should encourage candidates to call in to learn more about the museum and ask clever questions. Don’t we want those inquisitive go-getters working for us? Most front line staff should be able to answer basic questions about what the museum does and hopes to accomplish. Complex questions can be fielded up to the boss or pre-determined answers could be developed (i.e. questions about compensation could be answered with a salary range, for instance). Engaging candidates in dialogue before interviews take place will surely lead to a more productive interview, where candidates are able to showcase what they can do for the museum, instead of learning about what the museum can do for them. If a museum anticipates hundreds of phone calls for a highly sought-after position, set up a webinar with potential candidates before screening begins. Candidates can ask questions, where all interested candidates can view answers, making for a more efficient process, and a more informed candidate. Surely even a half day webinar will pay off with more informative interviews later on — making your job (as museum manager) easier in the end.
The idea in action: Oracle approached recruitment in 2015 with the approach that experienced candidates are typically already employees and, as such, are passive candidates. Where most employers take a candidate-driven approach — it’s up the candidate to submit interest to the museum, Oracle took an employer-driven approach, targeting desirable passive candidates. Oracle decided to recruit new hires for their sales team by offering a webinar about the position. The webinar was crafted around what the job would offer candidates in professional development, compensation and challenging work. It was also an opportunity to provide some context to the role that the regular job poster couldn’t address. They promoted the webinar through LinkedIn (both sponsored and organic posts), the internal newsletter, and Twitter. Candidates actively participated, through the safety of anonymity, and provided feedback that they appreciated hearing from the leaders that they would be working for. This approach led to a successful hire as well as a shortlist of high quality candidates for other roles in the company.
3. Approach Job Posting as Social Media, not Stagnant Media.
Job posters should be linked to the museum’s social accounts so that comments about the museum and the job can be fielded by staff (and seen by everyone who’s interested). Any new job offer is a great time to inform your followers about what goes on behind the scenes at the museum or to educate people on what you are all about. Building on my suggestion to make the museum more available before the first round of interviews, using job posting to further express what qualities a candidate needs to be successful in the culture of your organization will help candidates understand what you are really looking for in your ideal candidate. This has the added impact of expressing the company’s culture to would-be hires. While Shopify is looking for creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, many museums struggle with hiring people from diverse skill sets or from diverse cultural backgrounds. This type of approach could help overcome those challenges.
The idea in action: Shopify’s recruitment video, Draw the Owl, helps define the culture of the organisation and establish cultural fit. If your museum requires staff to feed the sheep every morning in your heritage village, or come to work dressed as a Victorian and cook over the hearth, or give tours to two hundred children every day, that kind of work requires the right kind of person. Maybe your museum needs someone to sit in a cubicle all day. Well, that requires the right kind of person too. Staff videos help candidates understand the culture of the organisation and manage expectations from the get-go.
4. Recruit for skills you will need
With the professionalization of the museum curator really gaining traction in the 2000s, universities and colleges started churning out museum studies qualified candidates at an unprecedented rate. While this has had an amazing effect on improving standards in the industry, it has also resulted in a fairly homogeneous skill set in our museums. I found that year after year (many small and mid-sized) museums struggle with the challenge of fundraising, establishing successful enterprise models for stable revenue generation, project management, marketing, including graphic design, film generation, and cross-sector partnership development. If these are constant struggles for museums, why not recruit for these skills and plan to teach some of the museum-specific skills to employees?
The idea in research: in 2015, Arts Council England and Museums Galleries Scotland commissioned the BOP Consulting Group to identify Attitudes, Behaviours and Skills needed in the UK Museum Workforce. While I won’t summarize the 100 page report, their recommendations include creating ‘a more diverse, flexible workforce which can bring new skills, energy and ideas into and across the sector. There is also an acknowledged need for improved collaboration in terms of sharing resources, knowledge and ideas in order to support future visions for the sector’.
I’ll add at the end of these recommendations that sometimes (who am I kidding — more often than not) low pay, remote locations, or trying to convince the board or boss to contemporize hiring practices can be effective barriers. On the other side of the argument, museums operate in the service industry, and are truly only as great as the people who work in them. Why not hire people who have the skills to increase revenue, if that’s what the site really needs? How about a commission structure? Recruitment is often done in haste or has become routine, but I urge you to consider the potential your museum has to shine and attract your next amazing employee.
For a more general approach to contemporary recruitment practices, check out Harvard Business Review’s article Why (and How) HR Needs to Act More Like Marketing (2016). The ideas expressed in this article are my own and are not a reflection of my workplace.