What we learned: top career lessons from 2024

What did you learn in your job this year? We take a look back at our most read career stories over 2024, and capture some of the topics that were of concern and the trends.
arts managers, best workers: A young white woman smiling while "high fiving" a group of three other people.

By far our most read career advice story in 2024 was, The 10 best performance review questions to ask your manager. Clearly, we all feel the pressure of our roles, and sometime feel at a loss as to how to improve them.

Series that set you on a career path

ArtsHub journalist Rochelle Siemienowicz tried to reinstall some of that self-belief in a 12-week series of articles she wrote this year, taking their cue from Julia Cameron a global publishing phenomenon of the same title.

It was not the only career advice-based series delivery by ArtsHub in 2024. We partnered with our friends across the ditch, The Big Idea in New Zealand, for the learning module, Networking and Mentoring and Media and Publicity, which tackled simple starters like writing a media release and bio to more complex topics like mentoring, using social media for networking and how to think like an American when selling yourself.

Critical knowledge for arts professionals

Along with our series, we also offered a number of articles across the year that delivered answers to your biggest career questions, such as, if I’m a freelance creative: should I be getting paid super?

And, How to succeed when negotiating a new salary or a pay rise, and also understanding what confidentiality clauses in arts contracts mean.

Money has been tight this year right across the sector, so we also looked at advice and tips that helped creatives through the tough times, such as Top 5 mistakes self-employed creatives make at tax time, Freelance creatives struggling in cost of living crisis, Should I offer workshops to help the cash flow? and What skills do journalists have to weather the storm of redundancy?

Zeitgeist shifts in 2024 and advice to prepare for the trends and changes

While the pandemic turmoil seems to have settled in the workplace, the environment still feels unstable in many ways, with change continuing to shape our working environments and relationship.

We tried to tackle some of these topics head on this year, including disillusionment and diversifying. Among our well-read stories were:

Burnout the big topic that continues to dominate career conversations

Creative burnout is common and profoundly impact your health. In this picture, a woman with stained mascara holds up a smiley face to cover her sadness.
Almost everyone experiences burnout, but the effects on your health can be profound. Photo: Sydney Sims, Unsplash.

Each year ArtsHub writes more stories on how to manage burnout, and to assure arts workers that they are not alone in their feelings. Sadly, we can often brush it off as a subject that is all too familiar – one that we don’t have time to address!

But this collection of articles is a small step to taking on board some strategies for self-protection and self-care:

And perhaps the most lighthearted and loved story of 2024, was an unexpected one: Pets in the workplace – pros and cons, which was obviously linked to our search for wellbeing at work.

Gina Fairley is ArtsHub's National Visual Arts Editor. For a decade she worked as a freelance writer and curator across Southeast Asia and was previously the Regional Contributing Editor for Hong Kong based magazines Asian Art News and World Sculpture News. Prior to writing she worked as an arts manager in America and Australia for 14 years, including the regional gallery, biennale and commercial sectors. She is based in Mittagong, regional NSW. Twitter: @ginafairley Instagram: fairleygina