Nurturing Talent in Outdoor Arts

It’s a great opportunity, and one we created to meet our own needs and ambitions to bring new people into Outdoor Arts – a long-term strategy that will help nurture skills and talent, diversify the workforce, and open the door to people struggling to get into the Culture Sector, laying foundations for careers in the arts.  

Because, despite the growth of the sector as a whole, getting into the world of work in funded arts organisations is still a huge challenge. Here’s what we learned from the recruitment process:  

We received 142 applications for two posts. In the first run of our Emerging Creatives programme 18 months ago, the numbers were the same – it is astonishingly competitive, and there is a huge demand for entry-level opportunities – especially paid ones… 

The field was strong – a majority of applications were at a very good level. As someone who joined the sector twenty-odd years ago, mostly by zig-zagging about and without a clear plan, I am both awe-inspired and intimidated by the amount that people in their late teens and early 20s have achieved, done, volunteered for, studied and experienced. Competition at entry level is very high as a result, and we turned away many excellent candidates even at application stage.  

We heard again and again of the access/experience paradox – you need experience to access roles and opportunities, you cannot gain experience without that access. It is certainly a challenging hoop to jump through, and there is a lack of paid opportunities to gain experience. Working for nothing is still very much a thing, and some can afford to do this, but many cannot.  

Guaranteeing interviews to candidates with a disability (within the limitations of how many interview slots we could manage), sending out questions in advance, and accepting audio and video applications were all brilliant and enriched the pool of candidates and the interview process no end. We’ve done this before in parts, but throwing our full commitment at this has shown us the light.  

I’ve often felt uncomfortable with the amount of training available for the Creative Sector. From arts management to sound engineering, appetite for these learning opportunities is often fuelled by a passion for arts and creativity, but they lead people towards an industry where demand for work outstrips the supply of jobs. Despite the sector’s widely reported growth, its charities and arts institutions don’t grow like commercial entities with jobs rising to meet demand, and training can often lead to the complex and relatively finite world of not-for-profit arts and culture. 

The funding and investment needed for organisations to provide paid work, or to offer paid training programmes like ours is not enough to match the growth of the training sector that capitalises on the passions of people wanting to connect meaningfully with the arts. Greater Manchester Combined Authortiy contribute to our Emerging Creatives programme (thank you GMCA), but otherwise, we are funding this ourselves because we know it’s important.  

Working with our new Emerging Creatives will be amazing – we hope they learn a lot and I know we will too. What would be great in the future is if there was more resource to invest in the other 140. We need them in our sector.