Curate Your Career: A Museum Career Podcast

Elin Filbey & Alli Schell

 Curate Your Career is a museum career podcast for museum pros entering the field, staying, leaving, and everything in between. Hosted by Elin Filbey of Deaccessioned Career Coaching and Alli Schell of Your Museum Career Coach, we dig into the real, messy, hilarious, and hopeful parts of museum careers - from burnout and bad bosses to career pivots, salary jumps, and rediscovering what you actually want. Alli helps you navigate museum jobs, strengthen your applications, and advocate for what you bring to the field. Elin helps you explore career alternatives beyond museums and translate your experience into your next chapter. Together, we offer practical advice and honest conversations about building a museum career that works for you. Whether you've been in the museum field for years or you’re wondering how to work in a museum, applying for entry level museum jobs, weighing a museum studies degree, or figuring out your next move, you’re welcome here. We talk everything from museum resumes and cover letters, interviews, museum salary negotiation, leadership, transferable skills, and life beyond the museum sector. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow Curate Your Career on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss a conversation. Keep the conversation going: Follow @curateyourcareerpodcast on Instagram Ask a museum career question for a future episode Thinking about life beyond museums? Explore your next career move with Elin’s 1:1 coaching Translate your museum experience into a resume for your next chapter Ready for your next step within museums? Get personalized museum job-search support with Alli Find practical tools for your museum career in Alli’s Resource Library

  1. 1d ago

    44. Cemeteries Are Outdoor Museums: Death Care Industry with Ashlynn Rickord Werner

    What if one of the most natural career paths for museum professionals is a place most of us have never considered working: a cemetery? In this spooky season episode, we're exploring cemetery careers and the surprising opportunities available in the death care industry. As our guest Ashlynn Rickord Werner puts it, cemeteries are outdoor museums. After applying for more than 200 museum and public history jobs, Ashlynn took a chance on a cemetery director position. That unexpected move led her from managing four historic cemeteries to working in death care technology, customer success, and cemetery tourism. We talk about how her museum experience helped her make those transitions, where to find jobs in death care, and why your next meaningful career move might be somewhere you never thought to look. In this episode, we cover: How Ashlynn went from struggling to find a full-time museum job to directing four city cemeteries, and what made her museum experience an asset in the death care industryThe surprising variety of cemetery careers, from historic preservation and public programming to fundraising, administration, and technologyWhere to look for jobs in death care, including cemetery association job boards, individual cemetery websites, and industry vendorsHow cemetery tourism brings history to life through tours, community events, education, and creative programmingWhy the death care industry offers opportunities to use your museum skills in entirely new ways, including software implementation and customer successResources mentioned: International Cemetery, Cremation & Funeral Association (ICCFA) New England Cemetery Association PlotBox Connect with Ashlynn Rickord Werner: A Grave Affair Ashlynn’s personal website Grave Dispatches LinkedIn Instagram Keep the conversation going: Follow @curateyourcareerpodcast on Instagram and tell us: Have you ever considered working in a cemetery, or is there another unexpected career path you'd love us to explore? Have a museum career question you'd like us to talk through? Submit it for a future mailbag episode! Explore life beyond museums with Elin: 1:1 Coaching Resume Course Deaccessioned: A Network for Former and Aspiring Ex-Museum Pros LinkedIn Email Elin at ElinFilbeyCoaching@gmail.com Build your museum career with Alli: 1:1 Coaching Resource Library LinkedIn Instagram Email Alli at yourmuseumcareer@gmail.com

    44. Cemeteries Are Outdoor Museums: Death Care Industry with Ashlynn Rickord Werner

  2. Oct 21

    43. Staying Motivated During a Job Search (When You're Just Over It)

    You know you need a new job. You might even REALLY want a new job. But opening another job board, rewriting another cover letter, or getting another rejection email? Absolutely not. If you're frustrated with job hunting, we get it. Whether you're deep into a museum job search, trying to leave the museum field, or pursuing something completely different, finding the motivation for job search tasks can feel like a full-time job itself. In this episode, we're sharing the strategies we actually use (and recommend to our clients) to make job searching less overwhelming. Because when your job search motivation has disappeared, the answer isn't necessarily to push harder. Sometimes you need better systems, smaller steps, and permission to do things your own way. In this episode, we cover: Why you're feeling stuck and how to find your motivation for job search activities when you're already exhaustedWhy applying to 10 jobs isn't necessarily better than applying to one that's a genuinely good fit, especially during a competitive museum job searchOur favorite job search motivation tools, including templates, timers, trackers, organized folders, and a separate job search emailHow to measure progress beyond submitted applications, lean on your network, and take breaks without feeling guiltyIf you're frustrated with job hunting because you're doing everything you think you're supposed to do and still not seeing results, this episode is for you. Sometimes the best way to rebuild your job search motivation is to stop fighting yourself and start making the process easier. Resources mentioned: Re-Curate Your Career The Daily Page by Thyme Is Honey Episode 4: And Now We Wait... Tips for Surviving the Job Search Waiting Game Episode 10: Stretch, Match, or Mismatch? Applying Strategically in a Tough Market Episode 21. Why Your Resume Isn’t Working (And What to Do About It) Episode 23. Why Your Cover Letter Isn't Working (And What to Do About It) Keep the conversation going: What's the part of your job search that makes you want to close your laptop and walk away? Follow Curate Your Career on Instagram and tell us. Have a career question? Submit it to our mailbag! Thinking about leaving museums? Work with Elin: 1:1 Career Coaching Resume Course Deaccessioned Community Email Elin at ElinFilbeyCoaching@gmail.com Looking to enter or grow in museums? Work with Alli: 1:1 Museum Career Coaching Museum Career Resource Library Email Alli at yourmuseumcareer@gmail.com

    43. Staying Motivated During a Job Search (When You're Just Over It)

  3. Oct 14

    42. Do You Need a Personal Brand? Professional Visibility with Haydn Corrodus

    Do you need a personal brand to build a successful museum career? And does that mean posting on LinkedIn every day, becoming a thought leader, or turning yourself into an influencer? Thankfully, no. In this episode, we're joined by Haydn Corrodus, a social media and digital marketing consultant who's worked with more than 300 arts and culture organizations, museums, and libraries. We're unpacking what is a personal brand, why professional visibility matters, and how to build a reputation that opens doors without feeling like you're constantly selling yourself. Because whether you're intentionally building a personal brand or not, people already associate things with you professionally. The question is whether those associations reflect your skills, passions, and career goals. In this episode, we cover: What a personal brand actually is, and why it's about more than aesthetics, followers, or becoming an influencerHow professional visibility helps you stay top of mind for jobs, collaborations, and career opportunitiesWhy emerging museum professionals don't need years of experience to share valuable perspectivesWays to build meaningful relationships and professional networks without feeling transactionalHow museum professionals can share their expertise consistently without chasing algorithms or posting every dayThe takeaway? You don't need to reinvent yourself to become more visible. Start by sharing what you care about, the work you're doing, and the perspective you bring to the field. Resources mentioned: Visible on Purpose American Alliance of Museums Connect with Haydn Corrodus: Website LinkedIn Instagram Keep the conversation going: Do you feel like you have a personal brand, or does the idea still make you cringe a little? Follow Curate Your Career on Instagram and tell us what you think. Have a museum career question? Submit it for a future mailbag episode! Explore life beyond museums with Elin: 1:1 Coaching Resume Course Deaccessioned Facebook Community Build your museum career with Alli: 1:1 Coaching Museum Career Resource Library

    42. Do You Need a Personal Brand? Professional Visibility with Haydn Corrodus

  4. Oct 7

    41. Mailbag #6: Museum Exit Plans, Career Pivots & Surviving a Bad Job

    When your museum job starts feeling uncertain, do you wait it out or start planning your exit? And if you know you want something different, how do you keep your museum job search moving when your current job is draining your energy? In this mailbag episode, we’re answering three listener questions about career uncertainty, strategic pivots, and figuring out what comes next. We talk about building an exit plan before you need one, exploring museum career opportunities and adjacent roles, and staying competitive for future museum jobs when your career takes you outside the traditional museum path. We also dig into museum job titles and what to do when your title doesn’t reflect the work you’re actually doing. In this episode, we cover: How to build an exit strategy when your museum job feels uncertainWhere to find adjacent museum career opportunities that make sense for your skillsHow to keep your experience relevant for future museum jobs when working in a gallery or adjacent fieldWhy museum job titles matter and how to make a case for a title changeHow to protect your energy while keeping your museum job search moving in a difficult work environmentResources mentioned: Resume Course – Elin’s resource for identifying transferable museum skills and potential career pathways HigherEdJobs.com - A place to search for roles in the D.C. area and beyond for those seeking alternative career options EdSkip – A remote job board focused on education-related roles Upwork and Fiverr – Platforms for exploring freelance and contract work A Fool’s Errand by Lonnie G. Bunch III  Keep the conversation going: Follow @curateyourcareerpodcast on Instagram and tell us: What’s the biggest career decision you’re navigating right now? Have a museum career question you’d like us to talk through? Submit it for a future mailbag episode!   Explore life beyond museums with Elin: 1:1 Coaching Resume Course Deaccessioned: A Network for Former and Aspiring Ex-Museum Pros LinkedIn Email Elin at ElinFilbeyCoaching@gmail.com Build your museum career with Alli: 1:1 Coaching  Resource Library LinkedIn  Instagram  Email Alli at yourmuseumcareer@gmail.com

    41. Mailbag #6: Museum Exit Plans, Career Pivots & Surviving a Bad Job

  5. Sep 30

    40. Applying for an Internal Museum Job: How to Make the Case for Your Next Role

    Applying for a job at a museum where you already work sounds like it should be easier. You know the organization. You know the people. They already know your work. But that familiarity can make internal applications and interviews deceptively tricky. It’s easy to fall into the “they already know I do that” trap, skip over important context, or assume the hiring team automatically understands why you’re ready for the next role. In this episode, we talk about how to make the case for yourself as an internal candidate and how to help people stop seeing you only in your current role and start seeing you in the next one. We talk about: Why “they already know me” can work against youHow to build your internal growth story: who you were when you arrived, how you’ve grown, and why this next step makes senseHow to identify your “secret sauce”. The skills, systems, processes, and responsibilities people already trust you withHow to use institutional knowledge, relationships, and strategic priorities to your advantageWhether you should tell your supervisor or coworkers that you’re applyingHow to interview with people who already know youWhy you still need to fully answer questions like “Tell me about yourself”What to do if you don’t get the roleOne big takeaway: your coworkers may know your title and your face, but they may not know the full scope of your work, your process, your results, or your career goals. Your job is to connect those dots for them. And please: save the job description. Every application gets its own folder. Future You will thank you. Questions to Ask Yourself Before an Internal InterviewWhat parts of the new role am I already doing?Where have my responsibilities expanded?What do people come to me for?What have I improved, created, or taken ownership of?What measurable impact can I point to?Why does this role make sense as my next step?Have a Question for Us?Have a museum-career question you want us to tackle in a future episode? Submit it here. Connect With UsCurate Your Career Instagram: curateyourcareerpodcast Alli Schell | Your Museum Career Coach For museum professionals building and growing careers within museums. https://yourmuseumcareer.com/ Elin Filbey | Deaccessioned Career Coaching For museum professionals exploring careers beyond museums. https://deaccessionedcoaching.com/ If this episode made you think of someone who is already doing the next-level work without the title, send it to them.

  6. Sep 23

    39. Gab Bag #1 | Museum Job Red Flags, Professional Development & LinkedIn Premium

    Welcome to our first Gab Bag episode. It's a collection of career questions, situations, and slightly chaotic conversations that come up in our coaching work, our texts to each other, and around the museum field. This time, we’re digging into three very different questions that all come back to the same thing: being more strategic about your career instead of assuming the system knows what’s best for you. In this episode:What to do when your new museum job isn’t the job you thought you accepted. We dissect one real job description and talk about misleading titles, “occasional” weekend work that turns out to be every weekend, and why you may need to get very specific with your supervisor about how your hours are actually supposed to be spent.Questions to ask before accepting your next job. What does a typical week look like? How much time is actually spent on each responsibility? How often does “occasionally” really mean? You’re interviewing the organization, too.How to spend a professional development budget strategically. Instead of automatically choosing the biggest or shiniest conference, start with where you want your career to go next, identify a skill gap, and ask what kind of training would actually help you close it.Why your professional development doesn’t necessarily have to be museum-specific. Project management software, leadership training, marketing, digital tools, database skills, and other transferable competencies can make you stronger in your current museum role and give you more options later.Whether LinkedIn Premium is worth it. Our answer: start by asking, worth it for what? Premium may have a useful feature for a specific moment in your job search, but paying for it does not automatically make you a more serious (or more successful) job seeker. We also discuss avocado toast, DC dating culture, chocolate croissants, and our respective inability to eat lunch on time. “Shia LaBeouf” Live: Rob Cantor Yes, this is the video Elin promised to put in the show notes. It features the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, and we will provide no additional context. Staying in museums? Alli Schell of Your Museum Career Coach helps museum professionals navigate job searching, career growth, application materials, interviews, and professional development. Explore Your Museum Career Coach Exploring careers beyond museums? Elin Filbey of Deaccessioned Career Coaching helps museum, arts, and culture professionals translate their skills and build careers outside the field. Explore Deaccessioned Career Coaching Submit a question for a future episode here. Follow @CurateYourCareerPodcast on Instagram.

  7. Sep 16

    38. Go To The Thing: Nancy Harmon on Museum Tech, Museum Skills, & Parallel Planning

    What if the skills you’re learning in museums could take you somewhere you haven’t even thought of yet? Nancy Harmon went to museum studies school thinking she wanted to develop exhibitions. She interned at the Field Museum, worked on visitor research around museum apps, and later found herself experimenting with mobile technology during an internship at the Neanderthal Museum. Then she went to a hackathon. She couldn’t code. She didn’t have a software background. She was working retail while finishing graduate school. She had an idea. That idea eventually became Encurate, a museum technology company that works with museums and cultural destinations to create mobile visitor experiences. In this episode, Nancy joins Elin and Alli to talk about: Her museum origin story (including a sixth-grade Ancient Egypt exhibition)What she learned from realizing her dream museum internship wasn’t quite what she expectedHow visitor research introduced her to museum technologyWalking into a hackathon as the only museum person in a room full of tech and marketing peopleBuilding a tech company without being a software engineerThe museum skills that turned out to be incredibly valuable in business and technologyWhy the ability to “figure it out with little to no resources” is a legitimate professional skillHow museum work develops research, problem-solving, attention to detail, visitor experience, and communication skillsWhy leaving a traditional museum role doesn’t mean losing your museum identityNancy’s work with museum studies studentsHow early-career professionals can parallel plan by building museum experience and transferable skills at the same time Nancy’s advice to emerging museum professionals is simple: stay curious, meet people outside your immediate field, learn the vocabulary other industries use, and go to the thing. Museum people may use different language, but many of the underlying skills are the same. And maybe most importantly: pursuing museums doesn’t require making museums your only possible future. You have options. You already have skills. You may just need to learn where else they can take you.

  8. Sep 9

    37. The Museum-Library Career Crossover Episode with Alison King

    Museum people and library people might have more in common than we realized. In this episode, Elin Filbey and Alli Schell are joined by Alison King, librarian-turned-career coach and founder of King Career Services, to talk about the surprisingly similar career challenges facing library and museum professionals and what we can learn from each other. After landing her childhood “dream job” as a children’s librarian, Alison eventually realized she had reached a career ceiling much earlier than expected. She shares how that realization, combined with difficult schedules, limited advancement opportunities, and growing resentment toward her work, eventually led her to make the leap from libraries into copy editing—and later, career coaching. Together, Alison, Elin, and Alli dig into: why reaching your “dream job” doesn't necessarily mean you've found your forever careerthe similarities between museum and library work, from low pay and limited advancement to being asked to do a lot with very few resourceswhat “vocational awe” looks like in libraries and why museum professionals may recognize it immediatelythe skills librarians often underestimate, including research, understanding user needs, communication, programming, and cross-functional workwhy translating your experience starts with understanding where you want to go, not simply rewriting everything you've ever donehow to “connect the dots” between your experience and what a new employer actually needswhy there isn't one magical list of jobs librarians, or museum professionals, can transition intowhat museum professionals should consider before assuming libraries are the escape hatch from the museum fieldwhy identifying the point where your job search is breaking down can help you figure out what actually needs fixing Plus, Alison joins us for a rapid-fire round covering resume mistakes, LinkedIn, networking, interview prep, feeling stuck in the job search, and the career-management hill she'll die on: You have to own your career. Your employer isn't going to do it for you. Mentioned in this episodeKing Career Services & Leaping Librarians – Job Search Pro https://kingcareerservices.com/ Alison helps librarians take the next leap in their careers—whether that's advancing or moving within libraries or making the leap into something entirely new. Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves – In the Library with the Lead Pipe https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/ Alison recommends Fobazi Ettarh's essay on “vocational awe,” which explores what happens when libraries are treated as inherently good or sacred institutions—and how that framing can contribute to burnout, being under compensation, and unhealthy expectations for the people who work within them.

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About

 Curate Your Career is a museum career podcast for museum pros entering the field, staying, leaving, and everything in between. Hosted by Elin Filbey of Deaccessioned Career Coaching and Alli Schell of Your Museum Career Coach, we dig into the real, messy, hilarious, and hopeful parts of museum careers - from burnout and bad bosses to career pivots, salary jumps, and rediscovering what you actually want. Alli helps you navigate museum jobs, strengthen your applications, and advocate for what you bring to the field. Elin helps you explore career alternatives beyond museums and translate your experience into your next chapter. Together, we offer practical advice and honest conversations about building a museum career that works for you. Whether you've been in the museum field for years or you’re wondering how to work in a museum, applying for entry level museum jobs, weighing a museum studies degree, or figuring out your next move, you’re welcome here. We talk everything from museum resumes and cover letters, interviews, museum salary negotiation, leadership, transferable skills, and life beyond the museum sector. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow Curate Your Career on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss a conversation. Keep the conversation going: Follow @curateyourcareerpodcast on Instagram Ask a museum career question for a future episode Thinking about life beyond museums? Explore your next career move with Elin’s 1:1 coaching Translate your museum experience into a resume for your next chapter Ready for your next step within museums? Get personalized museum job-search support with Alli Find practical tools for your museum career in Alli’s Resource Library

Information

  • Creator
    Elin Filbey & Alli Schell
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    44
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Elin Filbey & Alli Schell

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