It's who you know, not what you know

My reaction is strong disagreement to be honest. This doesn't happen in the STEM fields, where recruitnent is merit based and referrals are almost entirely linked to people others have worked with before. There's little money in arts roles, because they are low value. If there is nepotism in who can hang pictures on walls or value a book, then of course that makes some shrug apathetically, because it's just not a role of great value to the country or way or the other where it . People genuinely don't do that same apathetic shrug when it's roles that matter to safety or the overall economy like scientist, engineer, medic, finance etc. It's down to those who are interested in the field to sort this out, not to pretend it's affecting every industry, nor look wildly around for someone else to step in. If you feel it matters (and poorer museum exhibits was the one good example), then prove why it matters by creating presentations that really show new vision and you'll find the issue goes away.

I couldn't agree more about apathy. And of course our political leaders have let us down badly. Absolutely no long term vision.

Papayaandlime, yours is a really excellent post. My experiences chime with this. Also I would add that I think classism seems more acceptable in the UK that other, also unacceptable "isms", ageism etc.

There can be a sort of apathy with it 'its just the way it is, thats why we sent our children to a fee paying school' etc.

I too hope this invisible barrier to better opportunities does become more obvious to people. But as you say, those with the access to this privilege, fight hard to normalise and protect it.

I think that class bias really matters for law, the judicial system, politics etc - because of the impact on others / wider society.

But I do have limited sympathy for art historians I’m really sorry - OP has personally lost out for sure, but the macro impacts are more limited.

I was discussing this subject with my dh earlier tonight funnily enough.

We are in our early sixties, benefited from excellent grammar school education, and although nowhere near rich, we are financially stable.

During the nineties in London, we felt positive, as if we had near enough the same opportunities as everyone else, even though we were, and remain, firmly lower middle class. The rich Sloane Ranger types we had encountered at university seemed to have gone in to hiding.

But even during that period we both had incidents in our careers where we were “overtaken” by people with “old money” family and professional connections. And that should have been a red flag!

In both of these situations, we were the obvious candidates for the next career rung up, and someone who was an offspring of the great and good, got the job. Despite that, we both got where we wanted, but it took longer in my case, and in dh’s case he took a career deviation which fortunately turned out well.

So generally in the 90s we felt optimistic about the world. There were far more women in the work place. People seemed to have hope that we could save the planet. Society was becoming more diverse. Access to the internet democratised knowledge and people could seemingly get further on merit alone.

But in the past twenty years or so while we were busy raising a family, it’s like the world has gone backwards while we weren’t paying attention! The top echelons are richer and more powerful than ever before, the division between rich and poor is greater, nepotism is rife, misogyny has increased, the planet is wrecked. And blow me, people are once again overtly signalling that they are part of the “club”. Even frilly collars and gilets are back in fashion fhs!

With more experience of life, we have grown much more aware of the huge advantages that a British public school education brings. Not so much in the academic sphere, but in who you know. And we feel rather foolish that we weren’t aware of this all along!

We’ve become much more conscious that lying beneath overt social interactions, there is an extensive hidden layer of unspoken rules and unacknowledged privilege. It’s taken a lifetime to fully realise the extent of it. And despite economic strictures, the “club” seems stronger than ever.

I worked in the arts and so many introductions started with “oh are you related to a and b” or “do you know the so-and -sos” and when you had to admit that you weren’t related or connected in any way, you were quietly dropped . As mentioned, it didn’t appear to damage our career trajectories too drastically, but it is obvious looking back that it did change them, and it was really confusing at the time. Like you were knocking on an invisible door.

Obviously, those who benefit from this hugely privileged and beneficial establishment “cushion” have fought and still fight to maintain it. And it’s for this reason we are really worried for our dcs and their futures.

Everything seems much harder and more competitive now but also more “closed”. The housing situation seems impossible. And many graduate jobs seem to be obtained through family connections alone. There are more nepo babies in the arts than ever before! In summary, the British class system with all of its fundamental injustices, is alive and extremely well. The same old establishment figures who had power and wealth in the eighties and nineties have hung on to it and trebled it!

I hope and pray that somehow the young can do a better job than we did of making society a fairer place in which to live. I fear we have failed them miserably.

Ok, and lastly rare books is about buyers sellers and collections. Start looking at Abebooks for prices, learn about collections, understand what books are valuable and why - whats the equivalent of the Old Masters in books that sets the market.

Rare books is a business first. Working in the rare books in museum may not be what he thinks its about - he needs to start understanding the collections that are out there and why they were collected. Some basic stuff on rare book club conservation, too (basically cleaning and rebounding - little else is really done with them). I’ve been collecting and buying books since I was very young - does he know the famous European sellers in each city? Visit them, get talking to them (about books, not jobs). He’s got to be someone they can trust is a fellow bookworm.

Btw, cultural capital is a real factor but its only one of many. You may not think you have it to give him but he is being judged by what he brings - cultural capital does not compete well with real skills and knowledge. He may have to gain those in the commercial sector ( Information Officer/Manager) and do the books as a hobby until he can shift over. Its really important people focus on the skills they need and not what they don't have because ultimately many privileged people also have both types of skills - he needs to find out what he can offer that is unique and beneficial to an organisation and he is in a good position to explore and develop that now.

Ok, then I think he needs to get any experience in a library (even volunteering on a Saturday for a few hours) whilst he works in a supermarket, etc. - just to prove he understands circulation, etc. Then from there I would suggest he reads up on digital humanities as tech skills are very valuable in the library sector. I’d set up a little webpage or site on a rare book or digitise (basically high quality scan with lots of metadata) an old book he finds interesting from a secondhand shop and focus on the material aspects. There is a language called TEI using for digitizing artefacts (he also needs to learn MARC and XML) and if he uses this on a site he will be incredibly useful to an academic library ( sounds like he wants to be a Research Librarian? ) If he is interested in university work, he needs to know about Open Access and the academic publishing landscape.

Once he does this kind of digital project, and perhaps a few more so that he has a portfolio ( for ideas look at the British Library data site as they have made their datasets available on their site for anyone to use and they used to do meetups with BL staff in London he could attend ( fairly informal events). He could then submit his portfolio to an organisation offering to do some work that he then adds to his CV. With high end tech skills and a reference or name on his CV from somewhere like a university, along with work experience in a real library and the initiative and confidence to put something online, he makes a good candidate but this is often the minimum some candidates have.

If I think of anything else, i’ll add it later.

@Staringatthemoon of course we know all that, he has excellent research skills and knows all about CILIP, he's quite positive, it's me that's privately worried we don't quite have enough social and financial capital to help him as much as we'd like, especially compared to many of his peers at uni.
His younger brother is studying fashion design so I'm going to be worrying for a good few years more!
Nobody seems to make sensible career choices in our family, I think it's genetic..

I agree 100%

He needs an MLIS - he should be looking in CILIP ( the org for libraries and go from there). Tbh, as a masters grad I would expect him to know this.

You are not helping him. I just did a search and can find a total of 27 jobs working with rare books in the whole of the UK, some of which require significant experience and some of which are gambling not books at all. Compare that with publishing; well over 1000 roles including loads of starter roles. Then there's retail for books, insurance for books, book binding, loads of other roles.

Think of job hunting like bird hunting. If you set out to find an eagle in Surrey, you'll find it hard going. Look for a pigeon and work your way through. That doesn't mean that anyone who ever spotted an eagle cheated, but that the numbers are riding against the task.

I think some of it is also that people from wealthier families can relocate or be "there" at the right time IYKWIM. They may not know someone but they have the confidence and fina ces to move to whichever city has a job, so their scope is global.

YANBU.

Slightly different, but my ds15 is a very good and very passionate rugby player. He has been selected for the academy team for our local premiership club, but we are discovering how much the old boy network and which school you go to has an impact on your chance of success.
The boys who go to a very rugby focused public school just have so many more opportunities, and also that innate sense of entitlement that my son doesn't have.

He would need an MA probably for the library work don’t you think? Has he asked any libraries or archives what they would look for?

Cataloguing I am not so sure about but MAs seem to be more and more common.

Interesting reading your thread. My middle DS is coming up against this now, he's job hunting after finishing a Masters at a "posh" uni, looking for a job that would lead to working with rare books. He would like to be a special collections librarian or work as a cataloguer for an auction house, that kind of thing. We are middle class but not lots of family money middle class and we work in the creative sector so never know when the next pay check is coming. We can't subsidise him long term as our pensions need major input.
We have no relevant contacts, he didn't go to private school so his Latin is beginner level. The amount of further study needed is very high for a not very well paid job and we live in Scotland so miles away from most opportunities. Nice young women from a certain background seem to prediminate. He doesn't meet any recruitment diversity criteria ( well he had an ASD diagnosis but he doesnt like to tell people and I'm sure it's not that rare in the field!). He's going to need a lot of luck and perseverance.
I'm wary of him taking any old job then getting stuck in a different field.

Depends on the industry and organisation. I work for a global bank and knowing someone is definitely not how people get their foot in our door (at least in the London office). HR would do their absolute nut; they've developed multiple routes to entry, including a school leavers apprenticeship, and are very proud of their commitment to inclusion.

Sometimes if there's a role opening up in the senior level, the high-ups might contact someone they've worked with before, and see if they're interested. But people are unlikely to recommend acquaintances ahead of talent, because it reflects really badly on them if the hire tanks. So at that level it is "who" you know, but you'd already be well into the 6-figure salaries before even that would be an issue.

Well, yes. But I'm not arrogant enough to think myself some sort of girl wonder, lots of people have these and similar qualities. I was lucky enough to get mentored by men who decided to push me.

@GelatinousDynamo but they obviously saw something in you that they knew would work with those people - they trusted you as you inherently had qualities they could identify

I come from a similar background, but I was lucky. I had partners at my firm who appreciated my knowledge and pushed me in the right direction at the right time, so that I was able to build my own network. They didn't coddle me, but they introduced me to the type of people that my peers already had access to through family connections. I think that my path could have been very different without their support, and I know that I've been very lucky.

Interestingly Roy Strong is the exception and was ahead and took so much flack for getting decent catering going. I have a huge amount of respect for the V&A they have pushed in new ways in terms of funding, scholarship & marketing.
It's not always the happiest place to work, there are bitchy sections but it's better than most.

Was it because you were rich, privately educated, MC, had gone to an esteemed university? Or was it that you had a gregarious, generous, genial natures, and piles of friends and acquaintances with whom you made the effort to keep in touch?

I know two people like this and their characters are absolutely key to their success, on top of their many honed skills and massively dedicated, hard work.

Museums & heritage! All that unpaid work experience to prove you were passionate about the subject. I ended up living in a tent, in a youth hostel that summer. I'm in a different sector, problematic because you need funding to ride out the gaps between projects till you are established.
I thought things were getting better with paid intern ships but no.
A young 'curator' popped up connected with the Courtald the other day. She stood out because she wasn't very good and she had a distinctive surname. Turns out she's the daughter of a moderately shit science museum curator.
The science museum is the one I have the most beef with - just why is it so rubbish, all those dot.com millionaires to tap up. And yet it just gets worse and worse, under funded, under imaginative. When do you ever hear anything exciting or groundbreaking about it. The whole network needs clearing out.

Did you do an MA in History Art and volunteer in museums or galleries while doing your degree?

Maybe, if not, there might be a way now of doing an MA and some volunteering part time. Then you could try again bringing all your other skills to offer, and your dedication and enthusiasm would be very clear.

I believe there is also Art Law , Art PR etc Being a curator must be a long haul and gallery and museum work very poorly paid unless you become a dealer, starting small, yourself.

Soft skills would be essential no doubt.

In the Antiques Road not all of the experts are MC. Also, look at Roy Strong who ran the VA, he was wc but grammar school with the luck of having a wonderful teacher. People may learn or acquire a manner that makes people assume they are MC when that is not how they began.