Curate Your Career

"But I have a master's degree!" If you've ever muttered those words while scrolling job postings, opening another rejection email, or looking at your paycheck, this episode is for you. You did everything you were supposed to do. You went to grad school, completed the internships, and earned that museum studies degree. So why isn't your museum career turning out the way you expected? In this episod...

What if one of the most natural career paths for museum professionals is a place most of us have never considered working: a cemetery? In this spooky season episode, we're exploring cemetery careers and the surprising opportunities available in the death care industry. As our guest Ashlynn Rickord Werner puts it, cemeteries are outdoor museums. After applying for more than 200 museum and public hi...

You know you need a new job. You might even REALLY want a new job. But opening another job board, rewriting another cover letter, or getting another rejection email? Absolutely not. If you're frustrated with job hunting, we get it. Whether you're deep into a museum job search, trying to leave the museum field, or pursuing something completely different, finding the motivation for job search tasks...

Do you need a personal brand to build a successful museum career? And does that mean posting on LinkedIn every day, becoming a thought leader, or turning yourself into an influencer? Thankfully, no. In this episode, we're joined by Haydn Corrodus, a social media and digital marketing consultant who's worked with more than 300 arts and culture organizations, museums, and libraries. We're unpacking...

When your museum job starts feeling uncertain, do you wait it out or start planning your exit? And if you know you want something different, how do you keep your museum job search moving when your current job is draining your energy? In this mailbag episode, we’re answering three listener questions about career uncertainty, strategic pivots, and figuring out what comes next. We talk about building...

Applying for a job at a museum where you already work sounds like it should be easier. You know the organization. You know the people. They already know your work. But that familiarity can make internal applications and interviews deceptively tricky. It’s easy to fall into the “they already know I do that” trap, skip over important context, or assume the hiring team automatically understands why y...

Welcome to our first Gab Bag episode. It's a collection of career questions, situations, and slightly chaotic conversations that come up in our coaching work, our texts to each other, and around the museum field. This time, we’re digging into three very different questions that all come back to the same thing: being more strategic about your career instead of assuming the system knows what’s best...

What if the skills you’re learning in museums could take you somewhere you haven’t even thought of yet? Nancy Harmon went to museum studies school thinking she wanted to develop exhibitions. She interned at the Field Museum, worked on visitor research around museum apps, and later found herself experimenting with mobile technology during an internship at the Neanderthal Museum. Then she went to a...

Museum people and library people might have more in common than we realized. In this episode, Elin Filbey and Alli Schell are joined by Alison King, librarian-turned-career coach and founder of King Career Services, to talk about the surprisingly similar career challenges facing library and museum professionals and what we can learn from each other. After landing her childhood “dream job” as a chi...

We’re back with another mailbag episode, answering listener questions about some very real museum career situations. In this episode, we talk through what to do when a posted salary range turns into an offer at the very bottom, how early-career museum workers can think about financial stability, and how students can approach internship outreach more strategically. We also end with a recap from the...

35. August Job Search Reset: And Now We Wait...Tips for Surviving the Job Search Waiting Game Elin and I are taking a short summer break, so we’re bringing back a few episodes that feel especially useful as we head into late summer and the post-Labor Day job search push. And if your job search feels especially quiet right now? You’re probably not imagining it. July and August are often one of the...

August Job Search Reset: Stretch, Match, or Mismatch? Elin and I are taking a short summer break, so we’re bringing back a few episodes that feel especially useful as we head into late summer and the post-Labor Day job search push. This week, we’re revisiting our episode on one of the biggest questions museum job seekers face: Should I actually apply for this job? It’s easy to look at a job descri...

August Job Search Reset: Cover Letters Alli and I are taking a short summer break, so we’re bringing back a few episodes that feel especially useful as we head into late summer and the post-Labor Day job search push. This week, we’re revisiting our episode on cover letters. Love them or hate them, cover letters can be one of the most helpful places to connect the dots between your experience and t...

August Job Search Reset: Why Your Resume Isn’t Working Alli and I are taking a short summer break, so we’re bringing back a few episodes that feel especially useful as we head into late summer and the post-Labor Day job search push. This one is all about resumes... because before you start applying to everything, it’s worth asking whether your resume is actually doing its job. In this episode, we...

You prepared your stories. You researched the organization. You landed the interview. Now... what actually happens once the interview begins? In Part 2 of this interview series, Elin Filbey and Alli Schell walk through what actually happens during the interview process, from the initial screening call to panel interviews, presentations, final-round conversations, and everything in between. Intervi...

You got the interview. Amazing. Exciting. Slightly terrifying. Now what? In this episode, Elin and Alli kick off a new series on interviews, starting with everything that happens before you ever enter the Zoom room or walk into the building: the preparation. Because interview prep is not about memorizing perfect answers. It’s about understanding the role, researching the organization, knowing what...

This episode is Part 2 of our conversation about leadership skills. In the previous episode, we talked about how to identify and define your leadership experience, especially if you don’t have a formal leadership title yet. In this episode, we’re getting practical. Once you know where you are and where you want to go, how do you actually build the leadership skills you need? Because here’s the thi...

Leadership isn't just about becoming a manager. In museums, many professionals are already leading long before their job title reflects it. You might be managing projects, mentoring colleagues, solving problems across departments, influencing decisions, or becoming the person everyone turns to when something goes wrong. In Part 1 of this two-part series, Elin Filbey and Alli Schell explore what le...

What happens when the career you've worked so hard for no longer aligns with the life you want to live? In this special episode of Curate Your Career , Alli turns the microphone on co-host Elin Filbey to explore the story behind Deaccessioned Coaching , the ONLY coaching business dedicated specifically to helping museum professionals navigate careers beyond museums! They discuss what led Elin to l...

What We Learned at AAM Fresh off the American Alliance of Museums Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, Elin and Alli are reflecting on their biggest takeaways. It's not from the sessions, but from the conversations, connections, and unexpected moments that happened in between. In this informal recap episode, they discuss what it was like attending AAM as independent museum professionals, how networking...

For two years, Will did everything he thought he was supposed to do. He applied for museum jobs. He followed up. He networked. He hired a resume writer. He earned a master's degree. He volunteered. And still...nothing. In this episode, we sit down with Will Turner, a former high school history teacher who spent two years trying to break into museums before finally landing his current role as Curat...

We get asked about resumes. We get asked about cover letters. We get asked about interviews. And we get a lot of questions about LinkedIn. How often should you post? Do recruiters actually find people there? Do you need LinkedIn Premium? Should you be networking with strangers? And what does it actually mean to have a "personal brand"? In this episode, Elin Filbey and Alli Schell break down what L...

If writing a cover letter feels like staring at a blank screen while questioning every career decision you've ever made... you're not alone. In this episode, Elin Filbey and Alli Schell tackle one of the most frustrating parts of the job application process: the cover letter. Because despite what many job seekers hope, a cover letter isn't just a formality. In museums especially, it can be the dif...

In this special live episode of Curate Your Career , Elin Filbey and Alli Schell take the podcast on the road to the American Alliance of Museums Annual Meeting for their very first live audience recording. What started as a shared idea between two internet friends became a candid, funny, and deeply honest conversation about the realities of museum careers and the questions museum professionals ar...

If you’ve been applying to jobs, getting auto-rejected, or hearing absolutely nothing back… this episode is for you. Elin Filbey and Alli Schell break down the biggest resume mistakes they see museum professionals making and why so many resumes fail before a hiring manager even seriously looks at them. Because most of the time, it’s not that you’re unqualified. It’s a strategy issue. It’s a commun...