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Museum Collection Supervisor Resume Examples
Depending on your education and interests, your work environment can include museums, college archives or libraries. Use these free collection supervisor resume examples and best resume templates to describe your skills and specialized knowledge accurately.
Want a stronger resume? Use our extensive library of professional resume examples as practical starting guides.
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Collections Supervisor Resume Example (Text Version)
[Your Name]
[City, State ZIP Code]
[Email Address]
[Phone Number LinkedIn]
Resume Summary
[Insert your summary here. This should be a brief statement highlighting your core qualifications and career goals.]
Summary of Qualifications
- [Insert qualification #1]
- [Insert qualification #2]
- [Insert qualification #3]
- [Insert qualification #4]
[Type of] Skills
- [Add relevant accomplishment or responsibility related to Skill 1]
- [Add relevant accomplishment or responsibility related to Skill 1]
- [Add relevant accomplishment or responsibility related to Skill 1]
- [Add relevant accomplishment or responsibility related to Skill 1]
[Type of] Skills
- [Add relevant accomplishment or responsibility related to Skill 2]
- [Add relevant accomplishment or responsibility related to Skill 2]
- [Add relevant accomplishment or responsibility related to Skill 2]
- [Add relevant accomplishment or responsibility related to Skill 2]
Education
[Degree Earned]
[High School Name, Location]
[Graduation Date or Estimated Graduation Date]
- [OPTIONAL: Add relevant coursework or academic achievements]
- [OPTIONAL: Add any honors or awards received]
Work History
[Job Title #1 | Club or Employer Name #1]
[Location, Year]
[Job Title #2 | Club or Employer Name #2]
[Location, Year]
How to Write a Museum Collection Supervisor Resume
Your resume format is as important as how you write your resume. This sample resume demonstrates the best resume layout: 1-inch margins, bullet points and clear resume headings for each of the following sections.
Professional header and contact info:
Add your name, phone number and professional email address.
Compelling summary statement:
A brief resume summary or objective highlighting two or three leadership skills like team management, mentoring or skills development.
Highlight your skills:
Create a dedicated section to showcase leadership skills like team management, mentoring or skills development.
Emphasize your work history:
List your work experience in reverse-chronological order. Include job titles, company names, dates of employment and key managerial responsibilities per job.
Supporting education section:
Add a list of your degrees or relevant certifications like collections management and exhibition development.
Additional sections:
You can create independent resume sections for licenses, certifications, career memberships, volunteer experience or language fluency.
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How to Write a Museum Collection Supervisor Resume Summary
As an applicant for a leadership position, your resume summary should highlight effective department management, team development, or notable improvements to the overseen collection.
Focusing on these topics when writing your resume can help you present a detailed snapshot of your previous experience to hiring managers, helping them visualize your potential within their institution.
Be detailed but brief:
Limit yourself to four sentences or less, but mention notable accomplishments like collection management, preservation improvements, exhibit installation or staff supervision.
Share quantifiable achievements:
Use numbers or positive outcomes that help prove your previous success, such as the number of artifacts in a collection, notable collection acquisitions or improved collection handling.
Prioritize the job’s needs:
Include specific responsibilities and achievements that match the job description.
Strong and weak Collections Supervisor summary
Experienced collection supervisor with over eight years of expertise managing collections for public institutions, including the American National History Museum. Proven track record of overseeing the preservation, cataloging, and exhibition of over 10,000 artifacts while leading a team of 5 curators. Adept at improving collection management systems, reducing cataloging time by 20%, and ensuring compliance with preservation standards.
Why this resume example works:
This collection supervisor resume focuses on crucial tasks related to documenting, preserving and safely handling artifacts. They back this experience with quantifiable information, including overseeing over 10,000 artifacts, leading a team, and reducing cataloging time by 20%.
Skills museum supervisor with experience managing a five-person department. Oversee both staff and early American comics collection. Have good leadership skills and knowledge of cataloging software.
How this resume example fails:
Although this candidate does share some specific and tailored information related to their experience, they need to share quantifiable metrics outside of how many staff members they lead. Hiring managers don’t know how small or large a collection they oversee, how long they’ve worked, or what computer tools they can use.
Pro tip: Use a resume objective if you’re a recent graduate considering a career change! This alternate introduction focuses on your transferable skills and education while downplaying your lack of professional museum experience.
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How to Add Your Museum Collection Supervisor Work History
Most resume formats rely on a detailed work history section that covers your past 10 years of experience and accomplishments. Highlight your ability to manage collections, supervise teams, arrange exhibitions with external partners and contribute to museum operations.
Be specific about your responsibilities:
Provide detailed summaries of your daily tasks, such as overseeing collection preservation, supervising staff, coordinating exhibitions or maintaining insurance.
Highlight accomplishments:
When possible, emphasize outcomes and achievements with quantifiable data to show the impact of your work on improved efficiency, increased visitors or positive media attention.
Use action verbs:
Start each bullet point with strong action verbs like “spearheaded,” “implemented,” or “enhanced” to describe your role actively. This unique language can help you stand out amid generic resumes.
Strong and weak Collections Supervisor work history
- Spearheaded managing a 15,000-piece collection, ensuring proper cataloging, storage, and preservation of museum-owned pieces and private collector loans.
- Supervised a team of seven staff members, providing training on artifact handling, cataloging processes and conservation techniques.
- Implemented a digital collection management system that reduced cataloging time by 25% and improved record accuracy by 30%.
- Coordinated over 12 major exhibitions, collaborating with curators and external partners to display collections innovatively.
Museum Collection Supervisor | Cartoon Art Museum
San Francisco, CA | June 2021 – March 2024
Why this resume example works:
This candidate shares crucial information about their achievements to help hiring managers quickly calculate their administrative and leadership skills. They share notable information about introducing better tools, reducing cataloging time, securing grant funding and coordinating multiple exhibits to encourage new/repeat visitors.
- Managed collections and supervised staff.
- Worked on exhibitions and assisted in handling artifacts.
- Oversaw daily operations of the museum.
Museum Collection Supervisor | Cartoon Art Museum
San Francisco, CA | June 2021 – March 2024
How this resume example fails:
Unfortunately, these descriptions are too vague and look like they’ve been pulled from the job ad. You can improve this by adding specific examples related to these tasks. For instance, “supervised staff of four curators, two exhibit designers and one volunteer tour guide” or “oversaw daily operations of the museum’s interactive exhibits, ensuring that signage was ADA-compliant.”
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How to Write a Museum Collection Supervisor Education Section
Highlight your academic background or specialized training, such as museum studies, history or art conservation degrees. You may also add additional information like:
1Specialized training programs:
Highlight refresher courses or ongoing career development in storage and preservation, collection research, overseeing collection accessibility and post-care or copyright permissions for promotional materials.
2Certifications:
Share certifications in areas like digital collection management, archival techniques or conservation practices.
3Conference presentations or attendance:
Add relevant speeches, presentations or conference attendances that contribute to your continuing skills development and exhibit promotion.
Example of an Education Section:
Degrees:
Master of Arts in Museum Studies
University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Graduated: 2018
Bachelor of Arts in History
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Graduated: 2015
Certifications:
Certificate in Collection Care and Management, International Preservation Institute (2020)
Digital Curation for Museums Certification, Coursera (2021)
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15 Skills for Your Museum Collection Supervisor Resume
You’ll share relevant social and technical skills throughout your resume, but be strategic and create a dedicated skills section. This simple list of six to eight skills lets you pad your collection supervisor resume with additional relevant experience. Here are a few related skills to include:
Soft Skills
Hard Skills
Technical Skills
Collection management software (e.g., TMS, PastPerfect)
Digital cataloging
Conservation techniques
Archival database management
Preventive conservation practices
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20 Museum Collection Supervisor Action Verbs
Using strong, action-oriented verbs and power words helps your resume dynamically convey your expertise and achievements. These 20 action verbs are closely related to your daily tasks and will accurately describe your core strengths.
- Administer
- Archive
- Assess
- Catalog
- Collaborate
- Conserve
- Coordinate
- Curate
- Develop
- Direct
- Document
- Enhance
- Evaluate
- Implement
- Improve
- Inspect
- Manage
- Preserve
- Supervise
- Train
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Additional Resume Sections
You may add the following sections to your collection supervisor resume based on specific circumstances to enhance your qualifications:
Use a Cover Letter to Express Yourself
A resume is a concise overview of your skills and experience — a library and museum cover letter expands on this foundation. Add a cover letter to share one or two examples of how you excelled in similar roles or how your skills match a company’s needs. Use this sample as a guide, or visit our helpful resources to boost your application.
Museum Collection Supervisor Resume FAQ
Do you need to add references to a collection supervisor's resume?
No, don’t add references or mention available references on your resume. Instead, create a separate page with three to five references to share if and when hiring managers request them.
What are applicant tracking systems (ATS), and how do you tailor your collection supervisor's resume to them?
Employers use ATS to digitally scan, grade and delete candidates that don’t meet or address the main requirements of the job advertisement. To pass these programs and reach a human decision-maker, use an ATS-optimized resume with simple layouts, minimal images and clear, standard section headings.
Use keywords from the job description that match your experience, such as “collection management,” “artifact preservation” or “staff supervision.” You can identify these keywords by looking for essential skills or tasks with special text formatting like bold, underlined, repeated or bulleted treatment.
How much work experience should I include on my resume?
As a rule, focus on the last ten years of your experience. As a senior-level candidate, your collection supervisor resume may extend past years to include relevant leadership roles or career development experiences. For example, add a university or museum fellowship if it is related to the advertised responsibilities or the open job.
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Last edited by: Gabriela Barcenas, CPRW, Content Writer II - November 12, 2024
Gabriela Barcenas
CPRW, Content Writer IIGabriela is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and career adviser. With 10 years of digital media experience and five years of resume writing expertise, her publication history includes fashion, education, travel, social justice, equitable design and career advice.