A bubble to work in, in which outside influences cannot affect you!

This has been a very interesting discussion, which has developed from what appears to be a matter of semantics!

Congratulations!

What field are you working in? I'm in humanities and found these good starting points. I'm doing very basic content analysis so can't really give you any more advice!

Holsti, O. R. Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1969.

Krippendorff, K. Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology. London: Sage, 1980.

Well Done!

My PhD is on Medieval Costume as depicted in art - mainly sculpture with no museum aspect which is why I have been auditing Museum Studies modules (luckily my uni is one of the top unis for this course), and doing practical training. I've applied for trainee curator jobs at the V&A and the British Museum based on my expertise but have been told that the interviews go to people who have both the essential and desirable requirements and more - so just a PhD won't do. I'm also concentrating on freelance work in museum education and using my specialist knowledge to design workshops etc. But again there isn't that much work out there.

Having spent more than a year trying to get a museum job, I would say that practical experience is much more important than academic qualifications. I haven't finished my PhD yet (hopefully this year) but I don't think that is actually going to make any difference. I worked in visitor services and museum education while studying for my masters and to some extent my PhD and it is this experience which is helping me now, coupled with volunteer work, going on every practical training course run by the local Federation of Museums and Art Galleries, and auditing all the museum studies/arts management MA modules I had time for. With hindsight I would not have done my PhD and would have done a museum/learning masters instead as this is what is normally required for museum work. I think even with a PhD you might have to go in at entry-level. However, you could take the risk that a job comes up which requires your absolute specialism. Once again, I'd reiterate that experience rather than qualifications seems to be what they want, especially with the industry in the mess it is now. So many people have been made redundant that senior staff are having to apply for lower level jobs so the competition is pretty stiff. My job that I recently got is part-time and junior management level in visitor services at a big new museum. I don't need my PhD but I do need to get museum management experience so hopefully this will help me find a better job or promotion next year. (I would rather work in my area which is Medieval Art History - and I have offered to help them develop new medieval workshops - so being in the right place can sometimes give you a step up or sideways)
Good luck with what you decide but if you love your subject and want to teach then go for the PhD. You are still young (I'm in my 40s).

I have two other e-mails. One is uni which like you I'm worried might also disappear as I'm only registered till July at the moment. I also have an e-mail for a job I'm doing but again now I have another job, I will be giving up the first one so the e-mail will end as well then. The only thing I can do I suppose is try to remember all the people who might possibly contact me through my freeserve e-mail and set up a new hotmail or something and e-mail everybody. But I don't have all their contacts.

I have a freeserve web e-mail which I have had for about 15 years. It was taken over by wanadoo and then orange. Because it's an old dial-up address it has to be reactivated every 290 days or something but I've always been notified of this and had no problems over the years. But now it has been deleted and Orange say 3,000 accounts were deleted by mistake and they are trying to fix the problem but it is now a week that I have been without e-mail. I know they did something like this in 2007 and just deleted loads of people's accounts and got into trouble. I've been told to just keep trying to log in but so far still no luck. I don't know what to do next. Because I don't pay for the account I suppose I don't have a leg to stand on. But such a lot of my life depends on e-mails and I could be missing job offers, freelance work, etc etc.

I applied for a part-time seasonal job at a local heritage site for just a few hours a week. I got a phone call while on holiday saying the director wanted to have a chat with me to see if I could help with another position they had and could I come in. I explained I was on hols and that I had told them that in my application. She said she would contact me when I got back to re-arrange. I waited three days when I got back and called them. She said she would speak to the director and call me back. No phone call! I waited another two days and called again and apologised for being impatient but my e-mail wasn't working (that's a whole other problem) and I was also holding back on another job offer until I knew what was on offer at the heritage site. She said she had my application in front of her and would speak to the director. That was Friday and I've still not heard back. If I was chasing them over an actual job I'd applied for I could maybe understand the fobbing off but could they not just say 'you have been unsuccessful'. It's the fact that they approached me and now seem to be fobbing me off. I wish they would just be honest about the situation. I didn't ask them to contact me in the first place. I'm going to a one-day conference there on Thursday so if I haven't heard anything should I approach the director and what should I say. It's historically my period and across the road from where I live otherwise I might just give up but it's my ideal place to work.

I'd say the majority of people who use this site are probably over 24 but still educated and out of work. Any opportunities for us?

I just wanted to say to anyone who is disheartened about getting a job - Don't Give Up Hope! I nearly did but soldiered on and tried to get over the rejection after having interview after interview and getting nowhere.
But I have now just been offered a job. It's not academia but it's my plan B which is the museum sector so I'm thrilled. And I've also been approached by another organisation with a possible job offer. Hopefully as the first one is part-time the second may fit in and I can do both to have full-time equivalent.
It's like buses at the moment as I had a call today offering me an interview for a job in my Plan C area - what I did before I started my PhD but I turned it down and felt pleased to be the rejector and not the rejected for a change.
So after more than a year of applying for everything and anything things have worked out.
Don't give up!

Good Luck. You deserve this. Fingers and everything crossed!

I've finally got motivated! But I've come across a couple of articles that would be useful for my methodology chapter and I can't get them from my uni. They may be a bit obscure but if anyone could track one or both down for me I would be eternally grateful.

Kidwell, C, 'Short Gowns', Dress, 1978, 4, 30-65.
Turnbaugh, S. P. 'The seriation of fashion', Home Economics Research Journal, 1979, 7(4), 241-248.

Thanks in advance.