Museum assistant skills for your resume and career

If you have the opportunity prior to or just after graduation, take some time to become familiar with a museum beyond just visiting, whether that's through volunteering, doing a museum-based project as part of a class, or leading a program. Learning how museums work, and how much goes on behind the scenes, will help you decide what aspects of museum work you'd like to explore. What you see in exhibits and public programs is just the tip of the iceberg. You may discover that you want to work with collections and research, or that you have a talent for teaching and public outreach, or that you have the vision to design meaningful exhibits. Look at museums in your field of interest, but don't limit yourself to that. People working in museums come from many different backgrounds, fields of expertise, skills, and talents. Knowing something about how museums work and what they do can help you decide what further education and training you may want to pursue as part of getting into this field. One of the most important things to do at the beginning is to proactively build networks in the field. Joining professional associations gives you access to meetings, webinars, workshops, and other positive experiences that can help you keep up with evolving standards and best practices in the field. You also meet people at all ages and stages of life and experience, and there is much to share and learn on both sides. The size of the institution you work in does not matter nearly as much as the professionalism of it.