Museum Archivist Resume Example & Writing Guide
Use this Museum Archivist resume example and guide to improve your career and write a powerful resume that will separate you from the competition.
As an archivist, you’re tasked with collecting, organizing, preserving, and providing access to historical records and artifacts. And it’s a job that combines your love of history with your passion for helping people discover new information.
Because there are so many different types of archives out there—from museums to libraries to government agencies—the scope of work can vary greatly from one position to another. But the core responsibilities remain the same across the board: archivists manage records to ensure they’re preserved for posterity and made accessible to the public. They also help researchers find information and conduct research themselves.
Whether you’re just starting out as an archivist or looking to make a career change, here are some tips and an example to help you write a resume that will land you an interview in no time.
How to Write a Museum Archivist Resume
Here’s how to write a museum archivist resume of your own.
Write Compelling Bullet Points
Bullet points are the most effective way to showcase your experience and qualifications. And when it comes to bullet points, the more specific and detailed you can be, the better.
For example, rather than saying you “managed digital collections,” you could say you “managed digital collections of over 10,000 items, including photographs, videos, and documents, for online archive of 20th century American art.”
The second bullet point is much more specific and provides more detail about what exactly you did and the scope of your work.
Identify and Include Relevant Keywords
When you submit your resume for a museum archivist role, it’s likely that it will be scanned by an applicant tracking system (ATS) for certain keywords. These programs look for specific terms related to the job, like “history” or “archives,” in order to determine whether your skills and experience are a match for the position. If you don’t have the right keywords on your resume, the ATS might not forward your application to a recruiter.
To make sure you rank high on the list of candidates, use this list of common museum archivist keywords as a starting point:
- Museology
- Archives
- Museum Studies
- Art History
- Conservation
- Curating
- Museum Conservation
- Art
- Collections Management
- Conservation Science
- Gallery Administration
- History of Art
- Visual Arts
- Exhibition Design
- Graphic Design
- Museum Management
- Cataloging
- Historic Preservation
- History
- Public History
- Collections Care
- Art Conservation
- Research
- Metadata
- History of Conservation
- Photography
- Digital Image Processing
- Curation
- Museum Education
- Archive Administration