Recruiting for Skills

Challenge

The Toledo Museum of Art’s (TMA) staff demographics were not representative of its community, and even less so among full-time staff and management. Diversity delivers broader perspectives and drives more thorough decision-making, so we sought to create a team that represents the Toledo-area that the Museum serves.

Actions

In addition to unconscious bias training, the Museum engaged a consultant in a multiyear program of diversity and inclusion training. Inclusive hiring and inclusive management are included in this mandatory curriculum. Those courses helped the Museum formalize new recruitment strategies, including:

  • Focusing on the skills needed rather than prior museum experience or types of academic degrees of the applicant
  • Revising job descriptions to include an explicit commitment to diversity and inclusion
  • Requiring 50% diversity in the interview pool, thereby encouraging Human Resources and managers to be thoughtful about how and where jobs are posted
  • Engaging a diverse array of employees, where possible, in the interview process
Outcomes

Since instituting these changes, more than 50% of the Museum’s full-time hires have been diverse, including among senior roles and in departments that are the least diverse in the museum profession.

Contact

Adam Levine

Quote

Diversity is essential to fulfilling our mission. The Toledo Museum of Art develops content and programming for a diverse audience, and unless a broad array of voices and ideas are represented on our staff, we are unable to deliver on our purpose ‘to integrate art into the lives of people.

Adam Levine
President, Director, and CEO
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