The search for employment is unpredictable and demands unrelenting patience. When you're at your wit's end, it can be tempting to send the same exact resume to what feels like the same job ad over and over again. However, no two firms are identical and there are particular qualities and red flags that a firm won't always simply list on their job ad. In Archinect's “How To Get A Job At ____”, we asked some architecture firms how candidates can stand out from the crowd when applying to their practice.
Since architect Rafael Viñoly founded his practice in 1983 in New York City with a staff of 30 people, Rafael Viñoly Architects has grown into a leading international practice with projects spanning six continents, from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice that laid the groundwork for the firm's collaborative design approach to upcoming projects like the Rockefeller University River Campus extension.
Now with additional offices in London, Manchester, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Palo Alto, and Abu Dhabi, the Rafael Viñoly Architects team continues to grow. When it's time to hire, what do they look for in their most promising job applicants? Partner Andrea Lamberti took a moment with Archinect to share.
What positions are constantly in-demand at your firm?
High-demand positions requiring experience with construction documents and administration for specific building type(s).
When meeting with a candidate, what are some ways that they can make a positive first impression during the interview?
Positive impressions include, strong interest and enthusiasm for the position, ability to give clear, descriptive and concise responses to questions, and having confidence in their portfolio of work by allowing the work to speak for itself.
What do you want to learn most about the candidate during the interview?
Specific responsibilities and experiences of their past roles.
What is the most common mistake that candidates make when applying to your firm?
Not presenting all of their experience equally in a CV, leaving gaps in employment. All experience, regardless if it is in the architecture profession, will have some form of relevance and should not be omitted.
All experience, regardless if it is in the architecture profession, will have some form of relevance and should not be omitted.
What makes a strong CV/portfolio?
A strong portfolio showcases a candidate’s full range of experience across all phases of work, including construction documents and construction administration if they have it. Additionally, appropriate scaling of drawings and representation is equally important.
How important is an applicant's educational background?
We do not set a threshold for degrees; however, we also place high value on candidates with relevant work experience and skillsets.
What kind of training do new hires undergo when they first start?
We have different training programs that are tailored to the new hire’s level of experience. Most programs involve shadowing a senior member of the project team; however, some new hires with less than 2 years of professional experience will be placed in our competitions and early stage design teams, which provide an immersive experience into the office’s work culture and standards.
What are some of the competitions that they have participated in?
Some of our recent new hires have worked on competitions for large-scale mixed-use complexes, residential towers, and civic buildings and structures. Specific prior examples from the past 10 years include the design competition for 432 Park Avenue; 3 Waterline Square; Great Ormond Street Hospital; Quartier am Karlsplatz; Berlin Messe; Jiangsu Grand Theater; Agora Research Facility Lausanne; and Nine Elms Bridge.
Do you have an internship program? If so, briefly describe.
We have an informal program and the number of interns varies based on workload. We often have interns with no architectural training assisting our marketing and proposals teams to gain an introduction to the profession.
Do any of the firm's interns become full-time employees?
In the United States, “intern” often refers to a student who has completed their architectural training and is working full-time under supervision of a licensed architect in order to attain licensure; however, in the responses we’ve provided, “intern” refers typically to students working in our office over the summer who have no prior architectural training; they are assigned administrative, archival and marketing tasks, and receive a general exposure to the profession over the course of their time in the office. Of these interns, some do return to work full-time for us.
What are three words that your employees might use to describe your firm?
Collaborative, Challenging, Rewarding.
Do the firm's different offices frequently collaborate with each other when working on projects? What challenges are usually involved? Or does each office operate more independently?
Branch and project offices collaborate with the headquarters on a daily basis during competition and early design stages; once a scheme has been confirmed and documented, project management and daily communications can happen at the project site, for the most part. We operate as a single office based on our structure organized around Rafael Viñoly as the lead designer, and our infrastructure — in particular software and communications infrastructure — is set up to minimize complications in coordinating files and input despite physical remoteness of location.
So, project teams in all locations have direct responsibility for each project and for coordinating the input of Rafael Viñoly as well as our centralized resources. From New York we provide modeling and visualization resources as well as specialization in enclosure design and special structures engineering. Rafael Viñoly and the centralized resources are made available to teams as needed regardless of their location.
What additional social activities do you do as an office?
We gather monthly for a happy hour, which also serves as a relaxed knowledge exchange – project updates, office news, and demonstrations are given by the different teams.
If a candidate had the choice between you and another firm, what argument would you use to win them over?
The opportunity to gain deep insights into a project and take responsibility for parts of a project they would be working on.
How do you see your firm growing in the next five years?
We aim to maintain the diversity of our project types and expect growth in different typologies across different regions.
Interested in joining Rafael Viñoly Architects? Check out their Archinect profile to see if they have any current listings. To see more active listings from hundreds of firms, browse Archinect's Job Board.
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