Museum Directors and Curators

The positions of museum director and museum curator are not entry-level jobs. Most people enter these careers after obtaining at least three to five years experience in lower-level positions in finance, business, the curatorial sciences, or in other museum departments.

Excellent written and oral communication skills are essential. Directors have a primary responsibility to supervise museum staff members, relay information to museum board members, and acquire funding for all museum programming. Museum directors must have extraordinary people skills and feel at ease when soliciting funds. Curators must have excellent research skills. They must be able to meet deadlines, write scholarly articles, and give presentations while managing their traditional museum duties. Museum directors and curators should be well organized and flexible.

Occasionally museums have specific requirements, such as foreign language fluency for an art or anthropology museum or practical computer skills for a science or natural history museum. These skills are ordinarily acquired as part of the background study within the student's area of concentration and do not pose special problems.