Overview
Museum and heritage roles are fiercely competitive. English Heritage, the National Trust, local authority museums, and independent heritage organisations all receive overwhelming numbers of applications from history graduates. The candidates who get hired are the ones with demonstrable museum experience: cataloguing objects, leading tours, handling archives, or supporting exhibitions.
This resume belongs to Rosalind, a History BA graduate from the University of York who completed a summer placement at the Yorkshire Museum and volunteered at the Borthwick Institute for Archives. Her resume stands out because it focuses on practical heritage skills rather than academic achievements alone.
Placement or volunteer experience in museums
For museum roles, hands on experience trumps academic grades every time. Rosalind's summer placement at the Yorkshire Museum involved cataloguing 340 objects using the SPECTRUM documentation standard, assisting with the installation of a temporary exhibition, and leading 20 guided tours for school groups.
If you volunteered at a museum, archive, or heritage site, describe what you actually did. "Catalogued 340 objects in the Modes database" is professional. "Gained experience in a museum environment" is not.
Collections management systems
Museums use specific software for collections management. Modes, Axiell, Mimsy XG, and CALM (for archives) are the main systems in the UK. If you have used any of them, list them. Rosalind lists Modes and CALM, which immediately tells a hiring manager she can work with their systems or learn a similar one quickly.
Public engagement and education
Many museum assistant roles involve front of house work: welcoming visitors, leading tours, running workshops for schools. Rosalind's resume shows she led 20 school tours for groups of up to 30 pupils and helped develop a handling session using replica objects. These are practical skills that make her interview ready for visitor facing roles.
Archival research skills
If you have worked with primary sources in an archive, describe the collections you accessed and the research you conducted. Rosalind's volunteer work at the Borthwick Institute involved cataloguing 180 items from a deposited collection and assisting researchers with enquiries. This is exactly the kind of experience that archive and heritage roles require.
