I decided to do some quick data visualizations, breaking down the kind of work I've pursued in the past year:
The most immediate misstep I see here is devoting more than 1/3 of my search to academic jobs last year. I don't know why I did it, particularly as most of these jobs were not in my primary field (Greek art history). There is not really much point in trying for an academic job anymore, except that it is the only world in which my education level is readily accepted. Hence the reason I gave it one more go.
Second, my museum job applications also haven't panned out, but one thing I realized in the course of applying is that I've always just wanted to work in a museum. I did the PhD because that was what was required for a curatorial job, and I started it when Museum Studies Masters programs weren't so popular, so I didn't think of that as a path toward museum work. But curatorial jobs are few and far between, and other types of museum jobs (education, editorial) get hung up on my PhD, as well as my antiquities focus. I would challenge the assumption that I would leave another type of museum job for curatorial, but it's hard to convince people. I just want to work with objects and people through content creation of some sort (digital projects, writing/editing, etc.). P.S., there are no jobs in provenance research.
A couple caveats: I've not listed just how many jobs I've applied to here, nor have I listed how many just never respond, and there are lots of other small divisions that I could make. Freelance jobs are left off; most of them I haven't technically applied for. I've left off fellowships and grants (didn't get any of them this past year, and most are impossible given I was working full time until June), and I've not always been the best about keeping the spreadsheet updated (i.e, I've thrown my resume out to a few LinkedIn jobs, never heard anything, and forgot to record the application). I've also left off dozens of jobs that I ultimately gave up on applying to. So WYSIWYG.
This month, August, I began a new spreadsheet. And hopefully soon, I will begin new job. I am open, flexible, adaptable. I want to be challenged, to learn, and to grow.