I am an architect from Latin America living in the U.S. I have roughly 8 years of architecture experience in Latin America and I am curious whether the typical U.S. architecture firm values this experience and whether it would “count” toward the required years of experience for particular jobs. While I feel my experience is relevant, I recognize that my background doesn’t offer a lot of U.S. nuance (e.g., U.S. building code). How much does the country in which I’ve worked as an architect matter to architecture firms looking for job candidates?
What counts is what you know and if that matches what they're searching for, I came to the US with 12 years of mixed experience in South America (5 years of university physical plant and 7 years of new community design), and after the 2008 crisis I had to pivot from Urban Design to Single family residential, luckily I had a lot of experience in construction as well. Codes are easy to grasp and in many cases you will not have to deal with code reviews. What was harder for me was the switch from metric to imperial.
PS. Research about getting licensed, it's a big plus.
Your average clueless HR person is probably going to discount it by a few years. Like if you have 8 you get credit for 5. Obviously it's not so formulaic but in my opinion that's how it is perceived.
Also depends a bit on location... Experience in Chile, Costa Rica, or Mexico is going to be worth a lot more than Venezuela or Colombia just due to cultural similarities and quality of design and construction.
And it's not just perception either, quality experience in a more similar country will leave you with more knowledge which is what they should be hiring for anyways.
Depends on the clueless HR person. When I was hired at one of my first jobs they told me I had 1 or 2 years experience when they went over PTO and experience thresholds in my orientation meeting. I asked what counted as "experience." They said anything worked in a professional environment or something like that. I told them I should likely have more then, because of some of the jobs I worked during school that were in those types of settings (none of them in architectural settings ... though they never made that distinction). They said they'd look at my resume again.
I should have probably been bumped to 3-5 years, but they bumped me to like 6-8 (I don't recall exactly). Anyway, they gave me an extra day or two of vacation because of it.
To the OP, I'd say count all of those years as experience. Maybe the codes are different, but the experience of looking up codes is applicable regardless. Maybe the construction types are different, but the experience gained in working through those projects is still applicable. Don't give them an opening to discount your experience. If anything, use it to your advantage. You bring a "different perspective" that helps in problem solving or something like that.
Years of experience post graduation isnt always a true reflection/indication of someone's competency anyway, from personal experience helping on resourcing/recruiting , even within the local trained architects.
Best to demonstrate your transferable skills and try not to undersell or overstate your values ( it's a fine line) . G'luck
Do years of experience count if they were abroad?
Hi all!
I am an architect from Latin America living in the U.S. I have roughly 8 years of architecture experience in Latin America and I am curious whether the typical U.S. architecture firm values this experience and whether it would “count” toward the required years of experience for particular jobs. While I feel my experience is relevant, I recognize that my background doesn’t offer a lot of U.S. nuance (e.g., U.S. building code). How much does the country in which I’ve worked as an architect matter to architecture firms looking for job candidates?
Appreciate the feedback! Thanks.
What counts is what you know and if that matches what they're searching for, I came to the US with 12 years of mixed experience in South America (5 years of university physical plant and 7 years of new community design), and after the 2008 crisis I had to pivot from Urban Design to Single family residential, luckily I had a lot of experience in construction as well. Codes are easy to grasp and in many cases you will not have to deal with code reviews. What was harder for me was the switch from metric to imperial.
PS. Research about getting licensed, it's a big plus.
Your average clueless HR person is probably going to discount it by a few years. Like if you have 8 you get credit for 5. Obviously it's not so formulaic but in my opinion that's how it is perceived.
Also depends a bit on location... Experience in Chile, Costa Rica, or Mexico is going to be worth a lot more than Venezuela or Colombia just due to cultural similarities and quality of design and construction.
And it's not just perception either, quality experience in a more similar country will leave you with more knowledge which is what they should be hiring for anyways.
Depends on the clueless HR person. When I was hired at one of my first jobs they told me I had 1 or 2 years experience when they went over PTO and experience thresholds in my orientation meeting. I asked what counted as "experience." They said anything worked in a professional environment or something like that. I told them I should likely have more then, because of some of the jobs I worked during school that were in those types of settings (none of them in architectural settings ... though they never made that distinction). They said they'd look at my resume again.
I should have probably been bumped to 3-5 years, but they bumped me to like 6-8 (I don't recall exactly). Anyway, they gave me an extra day or two of vacation because of it.
To the OP, I'd say count all of those years as experience. Maybe the codes are different, but the experience of looking up codes is applicable regardless. Maybe the construction types are different, but the experience gained in working through those projects is still applicable. Don't give them an opening to discount your experience. If anything, use it to your advantage. You bring a "different perspective" that helps in problem solving or something like that.
Yeah, well put! Don't let them short you on experience and stand up and advocate for yourself!
But also, if you don't get full credit, don't be surprised.
Years of experience post graduation isnt always a true reflection/indication of someone's competency anyway, from personal experience helping on resourcing/recruiting , even within the local trained architects.
Best to demonstrate your transferable skills and try not to undersell or overstate your values ( it's a fine line) .
G'luck
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