After graduating college I managed to get a medical writing job usually reserved for PhDs and MS’s with experience. You have to network like crazy, send personal emails on LinkedIn and know the content inside out–be able to answer trivia questions, submit writing samples on request etc and people look past going to a bottom-tier college and not having a degree. I know everyone talks about screening tools, so you have to get past them via emailing, calling and LinkedIn. Have to push if you want the position.
Applied the same techniques to med school applications and got good results. Used said techniques to land a summer research position with a top surgeon also. If you push hard, at least one person is going to recognize it and reward you.
My advice would be to be very clear and proactive with her professors and advisors that she needs their help getting her foot in the door. My understanding is that this is a very relationship-driven business. Are there students who graduated last year that she can reach out to for advice? I truly think the online sites like Indeed are a waste of time for professional jobs. Another back door in might be to ask museums HR department if they need any temp help/use a temp agency. No benefits but a foot in the door and people are always going out on maternity leave…
There are specialized museum job boards- there is NO need to waste time on Indeed, Ziprecruiter, Monster that are also advertising for pipefitters and media buyers. A quick google search will show the OP’s D which museum professional associations have their own job boards, and which link to the big guns (Chronicle of Philanthropy, etc.)
Well, funny you should ask. After another month and a half of fruitless museum-job applications which were uniformly ignored save one that told her she was rejected (from an entry-level, literally giving out the leaflets in the lobby kind of job), she started applying to journalism writing and editing jobs once more, i.e. the field she was trying to leave. Almost immediately she got interviews with three European-based publications that are setting up shop in the US market. One of them made her an offer for an entertainment-news writer position with a decent-enough salary for NYC. Needless to say, she accepted. My sister swears that her Master’s Degree school (Johns Hopkins) may have caught their eye even if the degree was not in journalism, but who knows? I’m just glad she found something that she feels good doing, and maybe she’ll leverage that work towards a job with a museum publication later on down the line. Still considering volunteering but the heat is off now.
My daughter’s friend who graduated a year ago May with a masters in history and no museum studies at all has a new job - in a museum! She did a year of teaching in Arizona but got this offer and took it. It is near Cody, Wyoming so there are jobs out there, just very remote!