Having recently been through the process of developing a job description and skills profile for a new Museum Director post, I was amazed at how different it read to what the same JD would have looked like only three or four years ago.
The post we were recruiting for needed to be a high calibre individual, who could 'transform' a service - not the usual wording seen on a museum job advert or competency framework, but in these times, an increasingly important one. Having researched the current market, and also trawled the various online museum job holding places (and their archived sections) I soon realised that the last 12 months has seen an increasing movement away from the last decades museum manager skill set, namely those of project manager, audience engagement/development manager, and generally all things accreditation linked, to this new set of essential skills around entrepreneurial, transformational, advocacy and partnership management.
It is also interesting that the need to have a recognised museum related post graduate qualification is moving gradually from the essential to the desired (and in some cases, gone completely), with more emphasis on broader management qualifications.
So what might this mean for the museum manager? Well, for those not wishing to move from the comfort of their current role, there will need to be some pretty intensive training and accreditation of these new 'essential' skill sets, and with the demise of MLA and uncertainty of Renaissance, we may have to look to the more traditional providers (Universities, MA?) to fill the training gap. For those currently at Uni or completing additional museum related training, it will be important for Universities to add greater breadth to their training - for example, I completed a Distance Learning PGDip with one of the most reputable Museum Studies providers in the UK, yet I don't think I've ever needed to refer to my learnings on pest control once... would offering some options in broader management be a useful addition or option for those looking towards the future and museum management level positions?
And what of the job hunter (and there are many), what can they do in the short term to build this portfolio of management skills and entrepreneurial attitudes? For one, don't think that digitisation is entrepreneurial! And two, cafes are now pretty mainstream, not an innovative response to financial development! What is needed is for a candidate to show that they can 'think outside the box' and use the skills they have developed working in 'the real world' to find an interesting and innovative solution to a problem.
We have spent the last decade learning that the most important skill for a museum manager can be a project manager, bring in lots of HLF money, and bring 'non-usres' into the museum fold, this isn't because we are two dimensional, but because funding and its creation of short term projects has been the key to a 'successful museum' and we have learnt to adapt to that change. Unfortunately, that rug has been well and truly pulled from under our feet, and the museum managers that survive will be those that are able to get back up, review the situation, and say 'I am no longer a project manager, I am a service transformation manager - let me be innovative'.
Ignore this at your peril...
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