Back to work with pride – Tim Seyner Harness, Founder Director

We’re coming to the end of Pride Month – a celebration that’s hugely important to me – but it’s by no means the end of the fabulousness. Especially in our eyes. The UK is opening up after the lockdowns, and there’s a lot of flexible temporary and permanent work available. This offers a diverse range of opportunities for awesome people of all shapes and sizes who are great at dealing with people. In fact, I’m delighted and encouraged by the amount of work that’s coming in, as well as the quality of the candidates getting in touch.

• How have things changed because of the pandemic?
• Training
• What you can do to really impress us

We’re looking for front-of-house people to work at museums, galleries, heritage attractions, etc., as well as in a retail and promotional environment. It’s flexible work that can fit around your lifestyle, so whether you are a student, actor, musician, artist or freelancer, are looking for work that fits around your childcare, want to keep working after you retire, or are simply looking for a career change, get in touch! It’s your personality that counts, but if you have customer service skills or a hospitality background, so much the better.

At Artisan People, we’re well known for our pro-diversity stance. Our clients come to us and stay with us because we recruit superstars. What we’re looking for from you is lots of personality, passion, professionalism and potential – qualities that cross the boundaries of sexuality, gender, age, race, etc. If you’re looking for work in the Museums & Galleries sector, passion for the subject is a huge plus – an interest in and knowledge of history or art can go a long way, so if you’re the sort of person who loves visiting museums, art galleries or historic attractions, then you’re exactly the sort of person we’re looking for! We’re especially interested in recruiting people from non-traditional backgrounds in order to better reflect the visitor demographic.

How have things changed because of the pandemic?

As you’d expect, you will have to wear a face mask and observe social distancing when you’re dealing with visitors and customers. As no one will be able to see your beautiful smile, your customer service skills are going to be more important than ever. Our clients are really keen to create an even better experience for their customers and visitors, so you’ll need to be more outgoing when you engage with people in order to make them feel welcome.

Training

Don’t worry if you don’t yet have the practical skills and experience – you’ll get all the training you need. What we’re looking for is the mindset and people skills that will project you to superstardom – we can teach you everything else. We’ll make sure you get all the training you need to enable you to hit the ground running from day one, but obviously, the more research you do yourself the better, especially as there’s so much information available – the more you know, the better you’ll come across to us, to our clients and to their visitors. And if you want to keep training in order to develop your professional skills, the Artisan Training Foundation has a lot of online courses available.

What you can do to really impress us

Bring us chocolate! Just joking. But if you are keen to convince us that you’re the kind of superstar we’re looking for, there are different ways of showing it. We want you to be passionate about the kind of work you’re applying for as well as your potential employer. And the sooner you get back to us about anything we ask you to do, the more enthusiastic you’ll come across. Make sure you’ve done your homework so you’ve got lots to talk about when we interview you, especially if you want work in a museum or gallery. And if you’re applying for a job at a particular museum, for example, make sure you’ve been there so you can talk knowledgeably about it and tell us about your experience of the visitor journey – ensure you have something interesting to say about your visit or the brand.

If you’re a people person and are, quite frankly, brilliant at customer service, we want to hear from you. The good news is there’s a lot of work coming in from clients all over the country and across a number of sectors, so there’s bound to be something great for all our superstars. Take a look at the permanent and temporary vacancies we have available, then get in touch.