Head hunting
Our museums at Prestongrange and Dunbar open to the public between April and October. This means that every year we have to recruit a fresh team of Museum Assistants. No while it is the case that we have some staff from the previous year who apply again (other having moved on to other employment), the bulk of the Museums Assistants in any year will be new to the Museums Service and mostly new to working in a museum environment.
This year the interviews took up two full days. Having been on both sides of the equation, I can say that while being interviewed is a stressful and potentially-dispiriting experience, actually interviewing is more physically exhausting, and carries its own particular stress factors. The need to treat all candidates fairly and equally - to ask the same questions and in the same way, while keeping up an appropriate level of interest in answers often not dissimilar to ones you have already heard fifteen times is very tiring; the need to keep good notes of candidates’ answers, to help you remember who it was that said what; and the eventual need to choose between candidates who are all capable of doing the job on the basis of who nonetheless seemed at interview to be the best culminate of course in the worry that despite your best efforts, you might have made a wrong decision.
All in all, though, over the years we have been very lucky in the people who have come to work for us. I suppose that is one advantage we have as a museum service - the job itself appeals to people, not just as a route to getting paid, but as something worthwhile and enjoyable in itself. And who am I to disagree with that - after all it’s why all of us are here.