Louise McAward-White and Tom Hopkins are the co-founders of a grassroots, collective movement, Fair Museum Jobs which was set up to highlight good and bad practice in museum recruitment.
The missions statement of the group is to “establish a better standard or museum job recruitment that is based on the principles of fairness, transparency, equity and inclusivity. We believe recruitment based on these principles is fundamental to creating a museum sector that is resilient, relevant and representative of all society”.
Hopkins is Curator of Aircraft at The RAF Museum and McAward-White is a Collections Systems Specialist at the British Film Institute. Whilst Far Museum Jobs was set up by them, it is very much a collaborative effort. The other team members are Catriona Wilson from The Petrie Museum at UCL, Lucy Moore from Leeds Museums and Galleries and Ashleigh Hibbins from The Audience Agency.
Fair Museum Jobs has been able to influence the way that museum and cultural jobs are advertised and recruited. It has also encouraged organisations to make their person specifications more inclusive and to increase salaries and benefits in a some cases. The group has spoken at the Museum Association conference and The British Museum National Programmes Conference (among others) and is now being contacted by national press for comment, including Apollo magazine and the Telegraph.
The group is a force for good at a hugely challenging time for the museum and heritage sector.