What Does it Take to Get that Archaeology Job?- Project Managers/Directors

This post is a continuation of a series of posts exploring the question – What qualifications do I need to get X job in archaeology. The earlier posts looked at field tech positions and crew chiefs in CRM (North America).This post looks at project managers/project directors/junior archaeologists/project supervisor (there are about a dozen different names for this position but it is really middle management. someone who is in charge of excavations or the lab on projects but is not the very top person like the company owner or senior management). This is done quantitatively by looking at job postings. Here is the percent of job posts listing the respected qualification:

Unlike with crew chiefs there are some clear indications of what qualifications you need to have to become a project manager. At least a MA as only a few will accept a BA (there is overlap between requirement some jobs would prefer an MA but will accept a BA- why the numbers don’t add up to 100%). Regional experience and at least 3-5 years of archaeology experience are also key. Surprisingly, for how many people say GIS is great for your career very few job posting mention it.

Will meeting these requirements get you the job? NO, there are no guarantees. Most of these requirements are check boxes of the bare minimum. Meaning you must have at least these qualifications to be considered for a job.

Methodology – jobs postings on the job website Shovelbums was examined for the year 2010. All postings involving project managers were examined and the numbers were compiled above. A total 59 posts were used for the data; duplicate posts were eliminated.

Note on specialty– ranges from geomorphology to general historics. instead of giving each area its own classification they were put into one category. Many jobs gave a range of specialties they were looking for and would accept any. Basically, a specialty will help you but it can be pretty much any specialty, except for a few cases.