Open Letter to Interns and Young Architects
Dear Interns and Young Architects,
We’ve been getting a lot of resumes lately. Thank you for that – it’s good to be on your radar and we’re honored that you respect our work enough to want to come work for us. Being a firm of 4 individuals who rarely hires, we typically have disappointing news for applicants (that is, we rarely hire). But that’s not what this letter is about. Whether we’ve got a position open or not, we like to meet with students and young architects. You’re doing compelling work, you’re at the forefront of the digital curve, you’re ambitious and your eyes are wide open to an amazing profession. Your opinions and observations are going to be shaping architecture and the profession very soon. Don’t let the adverse job market tell you any different.
The job market in Seattle is changing rapidly. The mass hiring of less than a year ago has ceased; some of the larger firms are starting to downsize. Smaller firms are tentative to hire – most positions depend on the firm getting a certain job which depends on variables architects can’t always influence.
Something we’ve noticed throughout recent interviews is your ceaseless dedication to architecture and an undeterred curiosity about this profession. Keep it up. We’re so impressed that we’ve thought a great deal about what to do in this situation and we’ve come up with an idea that might interest some of you. Just because we don’t have any job openings doesn’t mean that we can’t feed the curiosity and get some additional experiences on your plate. On Wednesday, November 5th BUILD is organizing the first Young Architects Day (YAD). We’ll meet early afternoon here in Seattle’s U-District, take a tour of our office and our Park Modern develop-design-build project, we’ll give you a quick hit of what we do and how we do it, then we’ll head to a project in process. We’ll go kick-the-tires on a project during construction and we’ll throw some darts at the architecture. We’ll end the afternoon by touring a completed project of ours and enjoying some refreshments (after all that touring). All the while, we’ll be discussing the profession, design, construction, applying to firms and anything else that comes up. The transportation will be taken care of by us – just show up at the BUILD world headquarters and we’ll take it from there. If this is something that interests you and the time works drop us an email at yad@buildllc.com and stay tuned…
6 Comments
Other Links to this Post
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Architecture Firm Who “gets it” « — October 23, 2008 @ 7:28 am
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Young Architects Day Recap « BUILD Blog — November 6, 2008 @ 2:28 pm
By Anonymous, October 20, 2008 @ 10:05 am
Hell, I want in on this! When will you be organizing EAD – Experienced Architects Day?
By Jim, October 20, 2008 @ 9:40 am
Hmmm…Looks like I should have moved to Seattle after all, too bad the job market is what it is there. I wish I could take part in this YAD!
By Justin G. Roy, October 22, 2008 @ 7:16 am
WOW!! Kudos!
I think this is a wonderful idea, and very nice to know your firm is reaching out to young architects to talk about the profession and give them a day of mentoring.
Though it says you are not hiring, hosting days like this will put you far ahead of any of your competitors when it comes time to recruit.
By buildllc, October 22, 2008 @ 9:01 am
Jim – we’ve got enough of a roster so far on YAD that we may throw them every so often. And the job market in Seattle will get better… eventually.
Anonymous – we’ll get to work on the EAD
Justin – thanks, we’ll do a follow up post and let you all know how the first YAD goes.