Archinect - News

Pratt Institute announces first 'Diverse Voices Creating Just Futures' cluster hire aimed at institutional change

2023-12-05T17:04:00-05:00

Today, the Pratt Institute has announced the launch of a new cluster hire initiative aimed at recruiting diverse faculty to each of the five degree-granting schools on its Brooklyn, New York campus.

Through “Diverse Voices Creating Just Futures,” Pratt believes it will create transformational learning experiences for all students as was outlined in the All-Institute Learning Goals from 2021.

Five new tenure-track assistant professors will be appointed to schools of Architecture, Art, Design, Information, and Liberal Arts and Sciences, respectively. There, they will focus on a broad range of special academic program areas, including Film/Video, Undergraduate Architecture, Interior Design, and the History of Art and Design. Pratt says the cohort will be brought together and provided with support for their scholarly and creative endeavors, in addition to being able to collaborate with each other on multidisciplinary research and other special projects.

Related on Archinect: Quilian Ri...

When it comes to the job hunt, perseverance is key

2020-08-20T11:30:00-04:00

Sometimes the search for a job can be discouraging. You spend hours on your portfolio, work on tailoring your resume and cover letter to each position, and you might even get called in for a few interviews. But after all of the hard work, there's no call back. You take some additional steps and follow up with your prospective employer, but still, you're met with indecision or rejection. What do you do when you've done all you can do?

Previously on Archinect: Einstein, Rejection, and Crafting a Future. Image: Einstein in 1947. Photograph by Orren Jack Turner.

Revisiting the rejected genius

A while back, here on Archinect, I wrote a piece about Albert Einstein his excruciating two-year job search that was filled with numerous rejection letters. He diligently applied to countless jobs, but received no offers. His response to the misfortune was to keep on working on his skills. There was nothing and no one that could tell him he wouldn't make something of himself. He went from a nobody ...

A simple interview question Elon Musk uses to get the truth

2019-11-04T15:02:00-05:00

Sometimes there's that candidate with the perfect application package. It's too good to be true. At least it seems so. There may be some question marks surrounding a few details. Maybe the experience level doesn't match the reported responsibilities on a particular project. Someone two years out of school was "project manager for an 8,000 sf mixed-use new construction" project? Not impossible, but uncommon. Fair enough. We look a bit closer and see a lot of impressive work with ambiguous or vague indications of the applicants role.

But then we move to the portfolio. It's beautifully composed. The projects are visually impressive, and there's even technical drawings and language throughout. It couldn't hurt to learn more, so we call the candidate in for an interview.

Uncovering the details

Back in 2017, tech correspondent Arjun Kharpal reported a key question that Elon Musk, at the World Government Summit in Dubai, said he asks prospective employees: "...tell me about some of the mo...

2020 "most admired" architecture schools according to DesignIntelligence

2019-10-03T09:53:00-04:00

We also survey students, and this year two unexpected results stood out from the 4,000-plus responses we received. First was the 5 percent drop in architecture undergraduate students wishing to go on to graduate school. [...] The second standout was the answer to the following question: “If there were no barriers, what firm would you want to work for?” The No. 1 response overall was to be self-employed.

The DesignIntelligence 2020 architecture school rankings are out! The annual design industry survey asks hiring professionals two basic questions:

"What schools do you most admire for a combination of faculty, programs, culture, and student preparation for the profession?”
“From which schools have you hired the greatest number of (undergraduate or graduate) students in the last five years?”

The responses record the degree to which students have the ability to hit the ground running in their new jobs following graduation, among other factors. The survey, according to DesignIntelligence, assesses how recent graduates perform according to 12 skill areas encompassing knowledge of how buildings come together, communication and decision-making abilities, and digital technology skills. Using the accumulated responses, the organization tabulates top 10 rankings for both graduate and undergraduate programs, shown below.

The Top 10 Most Admired Architecture Undergraduate Programs

1. Cornell Un...

Two researchers make the case for hiring older professionals

2019-09-27T07:00:00-04:00

In today's workplace, there has been a lot of mention of the many biases present with regards to the race, gender, and culture of employees and coworkers. One of the biggest biases of all, according to researcher Josh Bersin and professor of psychology Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, is age. "...If you are older, you are likely to be considered less capable, less able to adapt, or less willing to roll up your sleeves and do something new than your younger peers," writes the pair.

It's a dangerous bias that limits the potential of many organizations and feeds into the growing issue of lingering job vacancies in the U.S. today. "This is largely a result of baby boomers reaching retirement at a rate faster than millennials are able to step into their place," explain the two researchers. They argue that the retirement industry has propagated the myth that "people over the age of 65 should retire." They reference research that showed that "people who stop working and retire often suffer from d...

Hiring for "cultural fit" isn't always a good thing

2019-09-24T18:42:00-04:00

For most growing firms the search for new talent is both exciting and frustrating. Who do you pick? And how do you accurately and sufficiently measure their potential? Undoubtedly, there are many approaches, one of which is seeking for the right cultural fit. That's become a loaded term nowadays, but culture is also one of the top factors in recruiting top talent.

For the employee, a good culture might mean free food, ping-pong, and nap rooms, but there's much more to it. Wall Street Journal's Sue Shellenbarger shares something crucial that Patty McCord, the former chief talent officer at Netflix and now, HR consultant said.

From Archinect's Lexicon, a "Serendipity Machine" is a space (often workplace) that has been designed to maximize chance encounters towards beneficial, ideally innovative, results

It's not vacation

In remembering a recent executive who "kept employees happy by serving up the latest craft beers," McCord responded with, "Well that sounds like a fun vacation. I'd ...

Groupthink and the Hiring Process

2019-08-15T17:00:00-04:00

The dominant approach to hiring today – in which the hiring manager convenes a huddle and goes around the room hearing opinions on each candidate is particularly prone to groupthink. That is because in free-form discussions, the person with the metaphorical “loudest voice” typically over-influences the committee’s decision.

CEO and author, Atta Tarki, believes the hiring process can be prone to inefficiencies, particularly in group collaboration. He offers some recommendations on "how to make a true group decision:"

First, the hiring team "should not share their interview experiences with each other before the final group huddle." Next, each member of the team should perform these steps before the final group huddle:

distill their interview rating to a single numerical score.
write down their main arguments for and against hiring this person and their final conclusion. This will help them stay true to their beliefs once the discussion starts, which leads to less biased predictions.

And, finally, "the hiring manager should take note of the average score for a candidate." Tarki emphasizes that these scores should not be followed blindly but should instead be used as a process for "richer, unbiased and uncensored discussions." This, coupled with some other components, should lead to a process of more fruitf...

Antonio Pacheco Joins Archinect as Managing Editor

2019-06-26T13:33:00-04:00

Archinect has hired editor, writer, and designer Antonio Pacheco as its new managing editor.

Antonio is responsible for developing editorial content, covering breaking and professional news, and will oversee the ongoing development of Archinect’s editorial team in accordance with the publication’s evolution of editorial.

Antonio comes to Archinect following a three-year run as West Editor for The Architect’s Newspaper, where he led coverage of regional, national, and international developments in architecture, design, and urbanism from a west coast perspective. During this time, Antonio developed a special focus on preservation issues relating to architectures of the recent past while also documenting the region’s shifting urban configurations and providing critical insight into these trends. Antonio has interviewed many of the leading figures of contemporary architecture, including Denise Scott-Brown, Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Jeanne Gang, and others.

Antonio’s writing has been ...

2018 top 10 architecture schools according to DesignIntelligence's new survey questions

2018-09-05T13:18:00-04:00

Each year for the past 19 years, DesignIntelligence has conducted the same survey across the design industry regarding architecture-school rankings. The number of valid responses from hiring managers of architecture and design-professional firms typically range between 2,600 and 3,200, year over year. But this year was markedly different: we had more than 4,500 valid responses, which may reflect the urgency of improving architectural education.

DesignIntelligence has been conducting a yearly design industry survey to rank architecture undergraduate and graduate programs for the past 19 years. For this year's ranking DI has changed their primary question of “Which programs are best preparing students for a future in the profession?” to asking two different questions:

"What schools do you most admire for a combination of faculty, programs, culture, and student preparation for the profession?”
“From which schools have you hired the greatest number of (undergraduate or graduate) students in the last five years?”

Through asking these two questions in the design industry DesignIntelligence has ranked the following schools in the top 10 for 2018.

The Top 10 Architecture Undergraduate Programs

1 Cornell University
2 Rice University
3 Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo (SLO)
4 Syracuse University
5 Cooper Union
6 Rhode Island School of Design
7 Pratt Institute
8 Virginia Tech
9 Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)
10 University of...

It's now illegal to ask job applicants for salary history in NYC and California. Is it legal where you live?

2018-01-03T12:00:00-05:00

Thanks to recent legislation, architecture job seekers in competitive markets like Los Angeles and New York City won't have to worry, for the most part, about the dreaded salary history question when applying for a job.

In an ongoing trend, states and cities across the U.S. are passing laws that prohibit employers from asking potential new hires about their salary history. Advocates of banning salary history inquiries argue that such laws will help foster pay equity.

California is the latest state to enforce a ban. The law, which went into effect January 1, makes it illegal for public and private employers to inquire about salary history from their job applicants. It also requires employers to disclose a salary range of the position they are hiring for, should the applicant request it.

New York City's salary history ban went into effect on October 31, 2017. Public and private employers in the city cannot ask about an applicant's salary history during the hiring process, including in...

Landscape architecture firms report decline in billable hours and new gigs

2016-10-20T14:53:00-04:00

The latest survey from ASLA, the American Society of Landscape Architects, reveals that the 188 landscape architecture firms that responded to the survey are planning to hire fewer people and seem to have fewer stable billable hours than they did the previous quarter. Only 78.38 percent of surveyed firms reported stable billable hours for the third quarter of 2016, down from the previous quarter's 82.67 percent. Check out the full report here.

For more on architecture and economics:

Architecture Employment on the Rise

2011-05-25T14:07:42-04:00

As the third anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers approaches — the event that delivered the knockout punch to an already reeling U.S. economy — a trend is emerging that may have once seemed unthinkable. Firms are hiring again.

We've been noticing a ongoing increase in job listings in Archinect's job board. If you're looking for work, take a look. If you're a firm that's hiring, post a job!

Note: if you're a job seeker, make sure to create email alerts to get notified when new jobs are posted meeting your search criteria. Be the first one to know. (see screenshot below)