Young Architects Applying for Jobs - Why I have Yet to Higher Anyone

Slippery said:

dean1484 said:

Slippery said:

dean1484 said:

travellering said:

Higher =/=  hire

Granger =/= grandeur

 

I don't know you or your company, but if you wrote all the copy on your company site yourself, you may be throwing stones from a glass house...

 

Maybe you might benefit from starting your own internship program with nearby design schools.  You may get pick of the litter before they are weaned and cast out into the cold world outside academia, and even if you don't, you should at least get more of an insight into how the schools are preparing their students..

All proofed by some one.  You really think I am that stupid?  I have my reasons for not being good at grammar and spelling but I try and I own it when I screw up.   Oh and then there is auto correct.  If you dont know it is wrong and autocorect is telling you to correct it do you do it?  Autocorect is a dyslexics best friend and worst nightmare all wrapped in to one.  

Is the below text from your website?

"XYZ's staff has more than 60 years of experience that  has enables us to provide our clients options and design solutions from real world experience."

Honestly, I don't remember I would have to go look.  Why? 

If it is and you want to proof my site I will pay you $100.  I am far from perfect what is your point.  I guarantee there are spelling errors on my site.  I have found them here on the GRM site.  Do I get all wound up about it?  No.   If this whole thread is going to degenerate into a Dean can not spell thread to somehow prove that I have no business even commenting on this subject well then ok. . ..   I really don't know what to say.   It is what it is.  AND I never once commented on the spelling and grammar of the people applying for jobs.  

LOL, I read your $100 offer and stopped reading.

You seem quite touchy and thin skinned. You wrote this:

"All proofed by some one.  You really think I am that stupid?  "

You need to stop complaining about the people that send you resumes and maybe help them improve. It will serve you better at the end. 

Yes I am touchy about it it has been covered at length here in GRM by me.   The spelling grammar police on the internet need to get over them selfs.  We get that it is a skill you have.  Great for you not everyone has it.  I don't have it.  People say they can see words in their head and spelling is easy for them.  Great for you.  They left out the spelling screen from my head when it was made.  

What are you talking about with respect to me complaining?  What does this have to do with my spelling?  You are using fools logic here.  Somehow because I can not spell and I should not be complaining about the content in resumes?   Please explain to me how this works.  Seriously I want to know this as I may learn something.   

Having worked with a fair number of first-year architects over the past 20 years, none of them has ever come in knowing how to put a drawing set together or with much (or any) Code knowledge. They worked with one of our senior architects and learned on the job.  More than once I've had to teach them how to put the drawing set together. I do the electrical drawings. 

We design big white boxes for making drugs. We don't have an interior design dept.  The electrical dept (me) typically does the lighting designs. The arch work is all about Code and process flow and none of that is pretty and somewhat specific to what we do. We crush the architectural dreams quickly. 

Where we get good workers is through co-ops.  You hire them knowing they don't have a clue and teach them. Maybe 10% of the time, they "get it" and become great workers. By the time they graduate you can usually hire them before they graduate and they hit the desk fully operational. 

The shotgun approach to job applications is pretty much the only thing that works anymore. It's very difficult to justify spending a couple hours researching a company and laboring over a cover letter when so many places don't even bother with a "thanks but no thanks" reply. I'm 35 and roughly ten years into my field and still have no clue what is supposed to go into a cover letter.

It really seems like there's a disconnect between what your local schools are teaching and what your company wants. Do you want to hire these kids fresh out of college?

dean1484 said:

SkinnyG (Forum Supporter) said:

BEAUTY!

Go right ahead. 

Thanks!  I really appreciate it!

thatsnowinnebago said:

The shotgun approach to job applications is pretty much the only thing that works anymore. It's very difficult to justify spending a couple hours researching a company and laboring over a cover letter when so many places don't even bother with a "thanks but no thanks" reply. I'm 35 and roughly ten years into my field and still have no clue what is supposed to go into a cover letter.

It really seems like there's a disconnect between what your local schools are teaching and what your company wants. Do you want to hire these kids fresh out of college?

The disconnect is the problem for sure.   What I want to higher is someone that has the basics under their belt.  I will go back to the 3d cad as an example.  It is pretty and cool to look at and it is a skill for sure (I do 3d cad when needed) but it is almost a one-upmanship contest between the people submitting these things to generate something that has the most buzzwords and catchphrases and 3d concepts that it is to the point that they are not applying for a job in the same field.  Thinking about it they should be applying for a marketing position.  I mean some of these things are spectacular but not at all relevant to real-world Design/Architecture. 

Slippery said:

dean1484 said:

Slippery said:

dean1484 said:

travellering said:

Higher =/=  hire

Granger =/= grandeur

 

I don't know you or your company, but if you wrote all the copy on your company site yourself, you may be throwing stones from a glass house...

 

Maybe you might benefit from starting your own internship program with nearby design schools.  You may get pick of the litter before they are weaned and cast out into the cold world outside academia, and even if you don't, you should at least get more of an insight into how the schools are preparing their students..

All proofed by some one.  You really think I am that stupid?  I have my reasons for not being good at grammar and spelling but I try and I own it when I screw up.   Oh and then there is auto correct.  If you dont know it is wrong and autocorect is telling you to correct it do you do it?  Autocorect is a dyslexics best friend and worst nightmare all wrapped in to one.  

Is the below text from your website?

"XYZ's staff has more than 60 years of experience that  has enables us to provide our clients options and design solutions from real world experience."

Honestly, I don't remember I would have to go look.  Why? 

If it is and you want to proof my site I will pay you $100.  I am far from perfect what is your point.  I guarantee there are spelling errors on my site.  I have found them here on the GRM site.  Do I get all wound up about it?  No.   If this whole thread is going to degenerate into a Dean can not spell thread to somehow prove that I have no business even commenting on this subject well then ok. . ..   I really don't know what to say.   It is what it is.  AND I never once commented on the spelling and grammar of the people applying for jobs.  

LOL, I read your $100 offer and stopped reading.

You seem quite touchy and thin skinned. You wrote this:

"All proofed by some one.  You really think I am that stupid?  "

You need to stop complaining about the people that send you resumes and maybe help them improve. It will serve you better at the end. 

How about $200?   ;-)

In reply to dean1484 :

E36 M3, I ain't proud.  I'll proof read a website for $200

Mr_Asa said:

In reply to dean1484 :

E36 M3, I ain't proud.  I'll proof read a website for $200

Done.  I will PM you either later today or Monday.  If I forget PLEASE pm me through GRM on monday.

EDIT  PM sent

In reply to dean1484 :

Can do.

PM sent

In reply to dean1484 :

The 3d CAD thing hits home. I work in GIS and the lastest greatest program from Esri (ArcPro) has been out for years now and hardly anyone I know even uses it. We all still use ArcMap, the old program. I'm sure the kids taking classes now are getting taught to use ArcPro, but it's so different from ArcMap that they'll be 100% lost trying to use it. 

dean1484 said:

Slippery said:

dean1484 said:

Slippery said:

dean1484 said:

travellering said:

Higher =/=  hire

Granger =/= grandeur

 

I don't know you or your company, but if you wrote all the copy on your company site yourself, you may be throwing stones from a glass house...

 

Maybe you might benefit from starting your own internship program with nearby design schools.  You may get pick of the litter before they are weaned and cast out into the cold world outside academia, and even if you don't, you should at least get more of an insight into how the schools are preparing their students..

All proofed by some one.  You really think I am that stupid?  I have my reasons for not being good at grammar and spelling but I try and I own it when I screw up.   Oh and then there is auto correct.  If you dont know it is wrong and autocorect is telling you to correct it do you do it?  Autocorect is a dyslexics best friend and worst nightmare all wrapped in to one.  

Is the below text from your website?

"XYZ's staff has more than 60 years of experience that  has enables us to provide our clients options and design solutions from real world experience."

Honestly, I don't remember I would have to go look.  Why? 

If it is and you want to proof my site I will pay you $100.  I am far from perfect what is your point.  I guarantee there are spelling errors on my site.  I have found them here on the GRM site.  Do I get all wound up about it?  No.   If this whole thread is going to degenerate into a Dean can not spell thread to somehow prove that I have no business even commenting on this subject well then ok. . ..   I really don't know what to say.   It is what it is.  AND I never once commented on the spelling and grammar of the people applying for jobs.  

LOL, I read your $100 offer and stopped reading.

You seem quite touchy and thin skinned. You wrote this:

"All proofed by some one.  You really think I am that stupid?  "

You need to stop complaining about the people that send you resumes and maybe help them improve. It will serve you better at the end. 

How about $200?   ;-)

Lol, no thanks. Plus you would not want someone that was not brought up speaking English proof reading your website. 

Here are a couple morea freebies for Mr_Asa to get a jump start:

"The days of just replacing a roof because your capital asset spread said to are long gone.  Building owners want to add service life, reduce maintenance costs, and maintain a worry free facility.   Unfortunately many are realizing this to late and are having to be reactive to the needs of there buildings."

In reply to Slippery :

I don't have any skin in this argument, but I really don't see how Dean's spelling and grammar errors have anything to do with the point of his post.

Hay not having English as your first language probably makes you much more qualified than 90 percent of those that speak English natively.  Trust me!!!  I see it all the time!

Spelling and grammar is a skill.  It is not like breathing.  Some people are really good at it and others not so much (where I fall in the spectrum). 

cmcgregor (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Slippery :

I don't have any skin in this argument, but I really don't see how Dean's spelling and grammar errors have anything to do with the point of his post.

An argument I have been making for years.  It is something that those on the internet use to promote their superiority over those who don't have the skill set.   I have seen some of the most skilled car people basically not want to post up because they will get ridiculed about their spelling.  While those that can spell pound their chest and seem to think it is important before all else.  You can be a babbling bafoon but if your spelling and grammar is correct you are automatically important on the internet.

How do I know this you ask?  I had this debate about my spelling a while ago and I got a bunch of PM's from people thanking me and they told me that they don't post because of this.  It actually made me sad as I am sure they have incredible amounts of knowledge to impart that we will never get to hear.  

Kind of reminds me of the guy that works on Clarkston's farm.  At first take, he is a babbling idiot but I bet he knows more about farming than the entire GRM collective.   He is just perceived as an idiot due to his speech.  Spelling and grammar are not different and it is why I will rant about it and take no crap from anyone about it while at the same time admitting when I do it wrong.  The most productive thing someone can do is PM the person and point it out so they can correct it instead of pounding your chest in public about how wrong someone is and how they should not even be commenting on something because they spell something wrong.  

cmcgregor (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Slippery :

I don't have any skin in this argument, but I really don't see how Dean's spelling and grammar errors have anything to do with the point of his post.

Ignoring the spelling and grammar- was the content accurate?  And is there any more content than that?  For potential architects- is there enough info there to have a good idea what they would be working on?  If you are expecting people applying for jobs to do research, which isn't available- there's also a disconnect there... (I am honestly asking- as all I saw was the pretty generic one liner for an "about us" page).

Man, I don't know.  I can tell you one thing though, if I get a resume and it's full of grammatical and spelling errors it immediately gets sent into the trash can.  My business really doesn't have to send out written correspondence to clients but any business that does, and sends something out that's grammatically incorrect and littered with spelling errors just looks incompetent.

As far as the OP's issue, you can either hire a good candidate out of school and train them, or find an experienced candidate and pay them more, since you're not going to be training them.  Not sure it's entirely fair to point out someones inexperience when they are right out of school, which by definition means they're inexperienced.

A lot of your points are valid, but I'm going to take exception to a number of them.

dean1484 said:

3. 99.9 percent send 3d cad drawings to me.  Are the design schools that out of touch with the fact that 99.9 percent of design jobs never use any 3d at all?  You may have a degree and you may be able to use 3d cad or Revit but that just makes you a glorified 3d line drawer. Can you generate a set of plans?  And we won't even get in to project specifications.  An AIA-based CSI spec.  Never once mentioned in what is sent to me.

Speaking as an architect with about 30 years of very practical experience, we do 100% of our work in 3D and 3D with 2D detail drafting overlaid.  We have for at least 10 years.

And I mean jobs like roof replacements, restroom renovations, everything, not just the fancy schmancy stuff.  100%.  We pretty much insist our consulting engineers do too, except for the simplest of small jobs..It is so much easier when you can coordinate everything in 3D and when moving a wall in plan means it also moves in section.  Whether you personally use it or not, 3D modeling is a critical skill for a young designer to demonstrate.

All the young Architects are out there crying that they don't have any work and no one will hire them.  It is sad really.  The schools are sucking these kids in with promises of granger and glory with mystical dreams of unlimited creativity with no constraints of time or budget.  Then they get spit out into the real world and we that own Design firms look at them and there is no place for them in our businesses. 

While I agree most design schools are failing students by not providing enough technical education, I disagree that the vision stuff is not important.

It's a 2-sided coin, or a double-edged sword.  A fair amount of the technical knowledge A) comes with experience, and B) varies by not only the geographical location but the principal architect(s) of the firm.  A firm needs to invest something in training their intern architects and bringing them up in the way they do things.  To be worth that effort, the intern needs a balance of vision and practicality.  I don't want technical school drafters who just know the rote details but can't see the bigger picture.  I want to bring up someone who can conribute to design collaboration and understand what the end vision could be - if they're smart and have a grasp of the basics, I can teach them how to put a building - and a set of drawings together.

asd

Part of a letter I got from an applicant:

I cherish the synthetic role of the architect (working with means of expression and representation to overcome complexity).  

Without forgetting the competitive aspect of our profession which I really appreciate. Dedicating oneself to an idea, imagining, strengthening, and enhancing it, until it becomes part of the built environment.  

I understand that the current conjuncture is complicated.

   

What is this BS?  If you are saying that the role of an architect is synthetic (fake) you have just insulted me and you have absolutely no clues as to what the job really involves.

Something else is his dream.  The real role of an architect is to realize a client's dream.  I have hated some of the things I have designed but it was exactly what my client wanted.  My dreams as a designer don't matter.  My client's dreams are what pay the bills.  Realize your client's dreams and you will do very well.

  His current conjecture is not complicated (again insulting the reader as if he is somehow superior) it is just crap

You're misunderstanding them here, because you're confusing some of the words used.

That being said, the words used are mostly pretentious twaddle, but you're not using the right meanings.

They're saying synthetic not as in "fake" but as in "synthesis"; i.e., taking different parts and fusing them into a greater whole.

Also, they're saying conjuncture, not "conjecture".

Conjuncture = a combination of events or a state of affairs.  Now if it was me, I would have just used "situation" and moved on with the sentence.  But they're not wrong.

I somewhat agree with your point about the client's dreams... but that could be the idea they are eager to dedicate themselves to.

travellering said:

Uhhh, son, that ain't even English what you wrote there.  It actually reads as if someone had a neural network generate a cover letter. 

No, it is correct English.

It's pretentious English that is an attempt to show off how big their thesaurus is, but it is correct English.

In reply to alfadriver :

I'm not an aspiring architect and I didn't read his page, but I'm willing to take him at his word that these are the kinds of applications he's getting. I don't want to speak for him, but my impression was not that he was asking for advice on how to attract better applicants - if he's not actively recruiting and these are cold submissions, I'm not sure that there's a problem to be solved here.

I have a fair amount of experience working with people who write like the example letter - it's like they're worried they won't be taken seriously unless they sprinkle in some $5 words. I do think these three sentences are translatable from "aspiring academic" to "layman's English":

I cherish the synthetic role of the architect (working with means of expression and representation to overcome complexity).  

Without forgetting the competitive aspect of our profession which I really appreciate. Dedicating oneself to an idea, imagining, strengthening, and enhancing it, until it becomes part of the built environment.  

I understand that the current conjuncture is complicated.

I enjoy the role that the architect plays in translating the client's vision to reality.

 I see architechture as a profession which requires dedication and drive to be successful.

I understand that the current state of the world is uncertain.

Obviously that's one interpretation of many possibilities, but that's how I would read it. 

Duke said:

travellering said:

Uhhh, son, that ain't even English what you wrote there.  It actually reads as if someone had a neural network generate a cover letter. 

No, it is correct English.

It's pretentious English that is an attempt to show off how big their thesaurus is, but it is correct English.

 

Sniped while I was typing. This.

I do think there's a real failing of universities to teach people how to communicate effectively. Knowing your audience is one of the most important skills there is, and it's something that takes practice and experience.

alfadriver said:

cmcgregor (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Slippery :

I don't have any skin in this argument, but I really don't see how Dean's spelling and grammar errors have anything to do with the point of his post.

Ignoring the spelling and grammar- was the content accurate?  And is there any more content than that?  For potential architects- is there enough info there to have a good idea what they would be working on?  If you are expecting people applying for jobs to do research, which isn't available- there's also a disconnect there... (I am honestly asking- as all I saw was the pretty generic one liner for an "about us" page).

Not going to argue with you.  My website is far from perfect.  It needs an upgrade.  It has been at least 5 years. There is blame to go around here especially if I was actively soliciting for a job opening.

Datsun310Guy said:

Ah crap, the youngest is headed to college in 3 weeks to study......architecture 

Feel free to PM me and I will give you my email address.  They can contact me for advice / discussion if they want.

It is somewhat relavent because Dean is complaining about the content and communication of people.  He chose to hone in on somewhat incorrect use of the word Synthetic.  The word Synthetic is most probably being used in that context to communicate that a architect creates a designed cohesiveness between user need and environment where one does not naturally exist, hence it's synthetic.  The sentence about turning ideas into a built environment through hard work I actually think is a pretty compelling sentence showing a good understanding of the role of self and personal motivation in the creative process with a focus on outcome.  

Without context of the rest of the sentences they do sound a bit like marketing gibberish.  

At best poor spelling and grammar can turn people off to listening to the content of your statements and at worst can actively change their intent.  Dean is complaining that young architects are not carefully communicating to him and he is dismissing their abilities and potential contributions to his organization because of this.  He is not sure that they aren't familiar with code only that they didn't state it.  He is not sure they can't do 2D AutoCAD (or whatever), only that they communicated 3D software capabilities.  He is complaining about the entire education system because he is recieving cover letters with what he considers unintelligible English statements.  He is doing this while making numerous grammatical and spelling errors that result in similar communication issues.  

That said I am no fan of the grammar police.  I completely understand that everyone had different abilities in speaking/typing and spelling and grammar on an informal medium such as a message board is pretty low on the priority list.  I've had my fair share of misspellings, appearance of teh, improper a/an, their/their etc.