Friday, February 6, 2009
Job Search in 2009?!? Advice for Job Seekers in a Tough Market
The Class of 2009 and others undertaking a job search in the current economic climate may face a steep hill to climb. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics? most recent report (Feb. 10, 2009), the job openings rate at the end of December was 1.9 percent, the lowest in the current 8-year series of statistic readings. In addition, the rate has continued to trend downwards for the past 18 months.
The School of Architecture?s Office of Career Planning and Placement (A-OCPP) offers several services to help students and alumni achieve their career goals. In addition to sponsoring an annual Career Forum lecture and ongoing information sessions with various firms and alumni, the A-OCPP website hosts a database of available positions at alumni firms and a resume service where students may upload their resumes and portfolios for prospective employers. This year?s Career Forum lecture will take place on Friday, March 13. In addition, alumni may partake of CAVLink, an online job posting site offered by the University?s Career Services office and the numerous online and in-person career services offered by UVa?s Alumni Association.
Given the particular challenges of this year, we asked faculty and a few alumni for job seeking advice. [To add your advice to the list below, please email sarc-news@virginia.edu]
From alumni attending last fall?s Advisory Board meeting:
- Keep portfolios to two pages, and resumes to one page - small files that are easily uploaded.
- Students need to be assertive in pursuit of opportunities. One way to network is through UVa?s ?Hoos Online? system, by which alumni can offer to be a resource to upcoming graduates. Remind students to look at the firm?s work to develop an argument as to why they would be of benefit to the firm.
- Students who don?t find an ideal job right away should think broadly. Do Teach for America or Peace Corps ? give back.
__
From Douglas C. McVarish (MP’87), Principal Architectural Historian/Associate, JMA, Inc.
Philadelphia
I have participated in interviewing several architectural historians at my firm. Our ideal applicant will:
1) Be extremely familiar with the National Register criteria and their application
2) Be able to write clearly, persuasively and concisely (an added bonus would be someone who writes interestingly)
3) Have survey experience especially experience in a wide variety of property types (ranging from bridges to farms to industrial buildings and structures)
4) Be able to get along well with people and feel comfortable interviewing people to gather oral history.
__
From Elizabeth Meyer, Assoc. Professor of Landscape Architecture:
Cast a wide net geographically.
Make contacts with young alums in office you want to work, and have them keep alert to whether or not jobs come into the office, and hiring may be necessary.
Grad students with undergraduate degrees and work experience in other fields: describe the value of that knowledge and experience as it differentiates you from others. It is valued added.
Take a salary less than you want, work hard, ask for a performance review early, and when you have demonstrated your worth (and the economy picks up) ask for a big salary increase. I did this in the early 1980s recession, and received a 50% increase in salary within two years.
While job hunting, do something worthwhile that will add to your resume—a design competition, volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity, or a local community gardening non-profit, or a local design center.
Be patient, be persistent. The professions need you!
_____
From John Quale, Asst. Professor of Architecture:
I graduated in the recession of the early 90’s - not as extreme as this, but it was tough to find a job. My recommendations are:
1) Send a follow-up or thank you postcard or letter (snail-mail) to every contact. Email tends to get deleted. You want to get your name in front of their eyes as many times as possible without being annoying. Be sure to include your best rendering or model photo on the card.
2) If you are in contact with anyone that isn’t hiring, but you sense they are willing to talk a little bit, always ask if they have any suggestions of other firms that might be helpful. You are unlikely to get a job from the first people to call. Most people get jobs from other contacts recommended by those people - and sometimes its three or four links away from the original contact. Be sure to track who suggested which contacts. An organized list of all contacts and people you have sent material too, with the dates and responses, is an invaluable document.
____
From A. Bruce Dotson, Assoc. Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning:
Think multi-dimensionally. Think location (what cities, regions, size of place etc). Think employer (specific firms, organizations, agencies). Think skills (what I enjoy and what I know well). Think work emphasis (housing, sustainability, preservation etc). The ideal job would allow you to maximize all four at once. But you can work up to that ideal over time. In the meantime strategize about each dimension and pursue leads that meet one, two or three of these dimensions. If your next job excels on one or two dimensions, you can add the other dimensions on your job after this one. Think long term.
___
From Michael Bednar, Assoc. Professor of Architecture:
If graduates are not able to secure employment in their field this would be a good time to work with various volunteer organizations who are always seeking energetic creative help. Work with Habitat for Humanity, Design Corps, Peace Corps, Teach for America and others would provide valuable service as well as professional experience.
___
From Charles Menefee, Assoc. Professor and Director of the Program in Architecture:
My standard advice is to do either of two things [sometimes they overlap]:
1. Find someone exemplary to practice under whose mentorship, either directly or by modeling, will prove valuable.
2. Invest in a place. Find whatever work you can there being mindful of how a collection of experiences will be brought to bear on a practice.
This year the spaces open to recent grads at first rate practices is likely to be slim and the competition for those precious few slots fierce. Therefore I suggest the second route. Decide where you want to live. Look on the act of settling there in an open and exciting way.
Intimate knowledge of a place is often what separates good design from the mediocre and it takes time to learn a place at that level. Invest.
Consider going not where good design is happening but where good design is needed.
___
From William Lucy, Lawrence Lewis Jr. Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning, and the Associate Dean for Policy:
The USAJobs site is excellent for federal government jobs—environmental, land resources, probably some architecture in General Services Administration and perhaps other departments.
Combining this with UVA Alumni Services for graduates seeking jobs can lead to useful synergy between advertised jobs—enhanced by the Stimulus Package—and information interviewing with UVA contacts.
__
From Kristina Hill, Assoc. Professor and Director of the Program in Landscape Architecture:
I’d recommend that students consider working in public agencies that will be doing projects in the built environment. In my experience, it’s best to work for an agency that charges fees to establish its budget than an agency dependent on general funds for its budget. That means, for example, working for a municipal water utility that is building infrastructure, or a design/planning dept at the city level that charges fees to developers, a port authority, or - perhaps best of all - a federal agency that is going to receive stimulus money from recent legislation (National Parks, U.S. Dept of Transportation).
All of these agencies offer our grads the chance to be the client for design work, which is fascinating— and lets them make many of the most significant calls about program, form and materials in public space.
For more information, please see:
