How hard is it to come across museum jobs in the Archaeology world, with an Anthro/Archaeo Degree?

Question

What kind of jobs are offered, and what level of education will they be looking for, for the various jobs?

Answer 1

You will need an advanced degree to even get your foot in the door.

Answer 2

It would be easier to run for President...

Answer 3

It depends on what exactly you want to do in a museum. I have a BA in Anthropology and worked as an Anthropology Specialist in the Education Department. I wrote educational programs, conducted training for new employees, volunteers and museum youth, and interpreted exhibits for visitors. The pay sucked, but the job itself was pretty good. The only other person with an Anthro degree was one of the curators (the museum focused more on history and paleontology) who had a master's degree.

I've also worked as a CRM archaeologist, some museums have their own archaeology programs. You can join Shovel Bums online, they will email you listings for various jobs.

Museums also tend to hire within if they can, so you might try volunteering or finding a temp job. The museum I worked at often had traveling exhibits, and they were always looking for dependable people. A lot of the people who worked there were eventually hired full-time in various capacities. And don't forget living history museums. I worked part-time at Jamestown, and it was a pretty laid back job. Again, the pay stunk, but until you get kinda high up, museums are not known for good pay.

UPDATE - something else I thought about is not to limit yourself to just Anthropology jobs. My first full-time job was actually more of a geology bit. I had taken classes in geology because of my concentration in Archaeology, and so I was able to play off that as well. I just had to brush up a few topics. After a couple months, I just started incorporating more and more anthropology in my job, and finally my job title was switched to Anthropology.

I hope this helps, and good luck!

Answer 4

You might get a job as a janitor in a Museum. Not everybody in a Museum needs to be a PhD. The person who takes your entry ticket probably has a modern college degree, a sort of equivilent to a high school GED 25 years ago.

If you wish to work in academia, you will need an actual education, PhD and residency in your field..

Answer 5

How hard it is to obtain a museum degree depends a great deal on what exactly you are looking for. Most museum have an education department, which for most all you need is a BA and the desire and some ability to teach. Lots of museums have traveling exhibits which require temporary workers; it's a good way to get your foot in the door. If you want to do something curatorial, then you will need a Master's at a minimum for a small museum, a Ph.D. is preferred and required for larger institutions.

Some museums will have CRM (archaeology) firms associated with them, so if you are interested in CRM work, it might be easier to get into something like that, at least until you get some experience and time with the organization.

Don't forget that there are always other not exactly anthropology related positions at museums too. Volunteer coordinators, cultural programs manager, community liaisons, special projects managers. All these require specific skills that anthropology majors excel at, but they aren't specifically anthropology/archaeology.

Good luck with your search.

Answer 6

museum jobs are extremely difficult to obtain. i have a bachelors degree in anthropology and have applied to several museums not getting one of them. museums tend to be very picky and most want a masters or phd. even if the job description says only a bachelors degree they will still want you to have very specific knowledge in whatever field the museum portays. a bachelors degree in anthropology with a very general broad knowledge of anthropology is almost never enough.  i suggest doing volunteer work or internships to gain needed skills such as conservation or registration as those are the lower end jobs. jobs such as curator will almost always require a phd.