Perseverance and bravery: How to diversify recruitment in archive services

Written By Deborah Mason

In this blog, Elizabeth Oxborrow-Cowan reports on the Diversity Allies session on diversifying recruitment held on 25th January.

The ARA Diversity Allies session on diversifying recruitment on 25 January heard three perspectives on the recruitment process in archives and heritage. Each speaker came with their own experience, yet there were recurrent underlying themes that really bought out how diversification requires you to persistently challenge the status quo and be prepared to step into the unknown in return for real changes in your service’s activities.

Emily Goff, Project Manager Curating for Change (delivered by Screen South through the Accentuate Programme)

Emily shared invaluable practical advice.  Curating for Change has provided eight Fellowships over 18 months and eight Traineeships over 40 days in a wide variety of host partner museums, funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund. It has been so successful that additional Arts Council funding has been received for a successor programme, ‘Curating Visibility’. 

Accentuate previously ran the History of Place project to uncover the which looked at 800 years of the build environment and disabled experience.. This demonstrated the importance of fully engaging with people and their lived experiences to develop the programme, so a diversity of co-creation.  Emily identified several key approaches for diversifying recruitment:

Job description and person specification

  • Consider omitting  qualification requirements to recognise that many will have non-linear routes into heritage – Curating for Change did not include qualification requirements

  • Allow for patchy work experience – people who have health needs or caring responsibilities for example cannot be expected to have a consistent employment record

  • Instead look for passion for the purpose of the role and demonstration of that passion e.g. through self-directed work, volunteering, reading

  • Tailor the person specification to what you really want the person to bring to the role e.g. when wanting a formal qualification are you saying you want someone who can demonstrate research skills. Imagine the person actually doing the job on a daily basis – what would they be doing and what skills would they be applying?

  • Remove ‘coded’ requirements e.g. ‘Please tell us why you would be suitable for this role’ really mean tell us how you meet the person specification so instead be transparent and  ask ‘How do you meet the knowledge, skills and experience for the role?’ as outlined in the person specification, or by addressing each item on the person specification.

Application process

  • Do not use a standardised application form which can be off-putting and not accommodating for a non-traditional recruitment approach

  • No CV and no standard covering letter

  • If you are bound to using a standardise application format, try supplementing this with a written document with instructions on how to complete the application form online, or what you are looking for in the CV and covering letter. For example, if your standardised form requires the candidate to input their qualifications, outline that these will not be assessed by the sift panel, so you do not need to write anything in this section.

  • Invite people to submit their application in a format that works for them e.g. a letter, film, collage (which supports those who are very visual in their approach)

  • Curating for Change asked applicants to respond to several key open questions in whatever way they wished:

o   How do you meet the experience, skills and knowledge of the person specification?

o   Which host museum do you want to work in and why?

o   What is your favourite object from any museum and why?

o   Why is better presentation of d/Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people important?

Interview

Consider how you want the successful applicant to be in that role so what do you want that interview to reveal? Furthermore, design the interview to bring out the best in the interviewee rather than being some sort of ‘trial’ in an unnatural environment which does not reflect the actual job,  with measures such as:

  • Sending out the questions and tasks in advance

  • Letting people know who is going to be on the interview panel

  • Very clear instructions on where the interview will be held

  • Ensuring the interviewee knows who will meet them at the front door and that it is a friendly face to settle them ahead of the interview

 Advertising roles

Advertise in  different locations in addition to traditional places:

  • Use community partners and relationships – send job adverts to individual organisations and those organisations that are part of networks that your target audiences trusts and visit

  • Use social media

  • Place in the Job Centre

  • Provide an email address and telephone number for a specific individual to whom applicants can talk to about the role

Emily had some good advice for archive services looking to open up their recruitment process:

  • Start with challenging the role descriptions and need for qualifications and work experience

  • Think about how skills can be demonstrated e.g. providing a portfolio of work, short blog post on trends  in archive management

  • Get involved in sifting job application, pick up when an individual hasn’t completed an application fully and contact them to offer any help or advice.

  • Actively  reach out to people who have shown an interest in the role but no made an application

  • Have all people involved in recruitment undertake disability  equality training, using the social model of disability which recognises people are disabled by society

  • Develop your volunteer recruitment enacting some of the more creative application methods to enable non-traditional applicants to get valuable experience that in turn enables them to apply for paid roles. Recognise that individuals do not have the time or finances to volunteer in roles designed as if they are paid members of staff. Offer a range of flexible volunteering opportunities; evening, weekend, at home activities, group volunteering to suit the time and motivation candidates have to undertake these roles.

  • Create a network within your own organisation for D/deaf, disabled and neurodiverse staff so that current and prospective individuals feel supported once in role. And/or set up a working group with key senior leadership to share experience and learning around diverse recruitment and retention.

We all agreed that diverse recruitment requires organisational culture change which takes a long time.

You can find out more about the approach Curating for Change took in developing a new approach to recruitment, induction, retention and career development of D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent museum professionals on their website here:

https://curatingforchange.org/resources/

Aseye Negedu, Engagement and Volunteering Officer, Historic England

Aseye generously shared her personal experiences of being a black person working in the heritage sector.  Although she had never intended to work in heritage her background in youth engagement and education led her to this area.  She compared the fast pace of change in the education world to the very slow change rate in the archive sector. As part of this Aseye identified how difficult it can be to progress your career as a younger person because there is such a low rate of job turnover – people in archives love their roles and stay in them for decades which blocks the opportunities for younger people.  She also identified the lack of diversity in archive services does make it difficult to initiate change yet this is just is what is required at a time when there are very complex debates under way such as contested heritage and difficult language.  This can be a challenge to people from diverse backgrounds who are proud of their heritage but experience things that go against their own sense of identity. 

Aseye directly addressed the issue of racism in the workplace.  She emphasized that it happens and that when it does it is a responsibility of others witnessing that racism to challenge it when it occurs, not turn away or seek to comfort the recipient later on – be an ally in the moment.   She also welcomed the idea of talking to affected colleagues after such an event to discuss what would be an appropriate response should such incidences occur in the future.  The key is to ensure people feel the working environment is a safe space.

Aseye talked of her own experience of having a really supportive manager who listens, encourages, provides a safe space to try ideas and new activities.  Indeed, Aseye’s experience has been that daring to bring in diverse ideas and trial new ideas have been the drivers for the organisation to break new ground which has bolstered its reputation and range of activity and audiences. 

She emphasized the importance of diversifying your audience programming. This will bring different audiences into your institution and thus break down initial barriers. This in turn will enable people from non-traditional backgrounds to contemplate applying for jobs both because they come to realise your archive exists and because it is then no entirely unfamiliar.  Support this with ensuring your staff have EDI training and practice to create a safe space not only to recruit but also retain staff.

Aseye’s advice for any archive wanting to diversify audiences and hopefully job applicants was to start with what you have:

  • Look at your collections and their gaps to propel engagement with a specific community

  • Work with suitable consultants such as community engagement consultants

  • Work across teams in your organization e.g. customer services

  • Start small

  • Pull in new voices and opinions to help inform your programming

  • Open your organization up and allow others to come in e.g. set up a youth panel of paid participants

  • Learn from other archive services that have already achieved what you would like to work towards

 

Jess Whitfield, PhD researcher at Ulster University and former Trainee on Archives West Midlands ‘No Barriers’ project

Jess studied history and museum studies and has experience in the arts, volunteer, archive and library sectors. She describes herself as coming from a working-class, and queer and neurodivergent. ‘No Barriers’ gave Jess her first archives experience and she looking at barriers people might face to accessing archives over a range of research projects at two archive services, such as looking at website accessibility or language terms. For her PhD Jess is now investigating how museums evaluate and evidence their social impact with the aim of making recommendations for more robust evidencing. She was tempted into the heritage sector by the sheer passion people have for their work and learning about history from the infamous Horrible History books!

Jess was asked what she had learned from her experience about diversity in the UK archives workforce. She considered that there is a lot of focus on output, whereas internal diversity seems to be more difficult and faces pushback. Yet having a diverse workforce allows for new ways of thinking and different points of view which can have a really positive impact. There is definitely a desire to be more diverse but there seems to be a gap between these goals and the reality.

Indeed, in seeking to develop her own heritage career Jess has faced the following issues:

Oversaturation of job applicants

  • Being told she has insufficient experience despite studying, volunteering and working across the arts sector for ten years

  • The practicalities of taking up volunteer roles e.g. living expenses, location

  • Not knowing about or being able to access networks that could connect her to job opportunities and thus being perceived as an outsider

  • Dealing with the discomfort of social interaction that she experiences through being neuro-divergent

Jess felt that the factors that had enabled her to succeed and take on new roles included:

Perseverance

  • Being aware of the issues listed above and knowing that lack of progress is not always a reflection on you

  • Learning form the experience of applying and being interviewed

  • Having a range of transferable skills

Her recruitment advice to archive employers wanting to diversify their workforce included:

  • Set deadlines that allow applicants to have specific time to assess and understand the job

  • Clearly identify was detail in the job advert and person specification is really required and what is just put in as part of routine procedure

  • Think about what alternatives or equivalents your organisation would be open to when defining  the person specification

  • Send out the interview questions ahead of the interview – as a neuro-divergent person Jess finds this really helpful and enables her to present herself in the best possible way once she gets to interview.

  • Think about how you are going to enable that new recruit to flourish in their role and want to stay as retention if an issue. Make space of lots of different types of people - ‘you never want to be the only diverse person in the office’

She recommends for archives that want to start on the diversity journey of just start.  Be brave and don’t be afraid of getting things wrong.  BE open to taking criticism and be committed to making changes that integrate right across your operations, not just ticking boxes.

Resources

Take a look at these to help you develop your plans for diverse recruitment:

Some academic libraries have done some great work around supporting neurodivergence, for example the University of Huddersfield and Sheffield Hallam.

 

Deborah Mason
Previous

Accessibility and Archives: Using British Sign Language to Explore Clifton Suspension Bridge
Next

Accessibility and Archives: On not presuming non-disability (Part 2)