One way of putting potential archives students and jobs together is through the postgraduate archives schools.
When we set up the Barclays Group Archives Unit in 1989, we pioneered the idea of building into the establishment a training post which was designed to provide a year's pre-course experience for a suitable candidate. The post was graded within the Bank's structure and carried a commensurate salary, bonuses etc.
The philosophy was simple:
We thought that if we wanted someone to do real work we should pay them real money. Working voluntarily for one of the country's largest and most profitable businesses didn't seem right somehow
We would apply our normal criteria to select someone who was right for the job and 'our kind of person'
We would expose the selected person to the full range of work carried out by the Unit, as well as attaching them to the Records Management Projects team as well as to the business environment, the management process and wider analytical and personal skills
At the end of the year they would have a clear idea of the opportunities that working in an integrated archives and records management operation could bring, and, we hoped, a strong commitment to the wider profession.
This was not altruism. In return, they would do real work and if successful, we would have created for ourselves, and for the profession, a pool of people with a wider view of the archive world, a more radical and challenging view of the profession and a degree of personal confidence on which to draw in the future. Others have set up similar posts since. Most of the recruits have gone on to be able members of the profession.
We let the postgraduate archive schools know that the post was available and they have fed suitable candidates into the loop each year. From a practical point of view, as with all contract posts, it's easier to get approval for such posts because there are no long term pension and other employment cost implications.
Peter Emmerson
Director
Emmerson Consulting Limited
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