Archinect - News

How To Craft an Effective Job Ad: Curate Your Image

2019-11-19T09:19:00-05:00

In the hunt for new team members, an ideal aim for most firms is to establish oneself as a kind of talent magnet. Quality response from quality candidates is an ideal outcome for any job advertisement. A crucial aspect in achieving this is in the representation of one's public image. A firm must craft a thoughtfully curated picture of who they are, allowing job seekers to acquire a deeper understanding of its internal character.

The outer image of your firm, especially if you aren't relatively well-known, will have an inadvertent influence on the results of your job ad. When a prospective team member stumbles upon your new opportunity, they are going to investigate your practice. Let's look at three mediums that can accompany your job advertisement, these will serve as supplemental "materials" to strengthen your pursuit for new talent.

Optimize your Archinect Firm profile

The best way to provide a seamless experience for job seekers is to ensure you have a completed Archinect Firm ...

How to Craft an Effective Job Ad: Talk About Lifestyle

2019-11-13T14:27:00-05:00

Writing a job ad can seem like a toneless task. Just get it out it out there as fast a possible, we need people, some might think. But, really, the desired outcome is to attract the best talent, and that takes some finesse. Especially in our current market, where job-seekers have a plethora of opportunities to choose from, firms more than ever need to approach their search for new talent with a spirit of excellence and creativity.

Like a job seeker's application package, a firm's job ad is essential in its search for quality candidates. Templated formats don't usually work here. Rather, one must craft an impactful representation of the opportunity at hand and creatively display what makes a particular place of work worth pursuing.

Of the several details a job ad needs to cover, lifestyle (what some might call "work/life-balance"), especially in architecture, is one of the factors many job seekers consider in their search for a career change. Every job post should contain some menti...

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...

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...

Scarcity of Intermediate Architects (5 to 7 Years) Translates to Higher Salaries

2015-06-17T12:50:00-04:00

"This is the toughest [hiring] market I've seen in at least 20 years."

Intermediate architects with five to seven years of experience who are versed in BIM and other architectural design software are the Hope Diamond to employers; rare, expensive, and highly sought after. According to an article in Crains New York, in London, Hong Kong, and New York City especially, employers are facing an incredibly tough hiring market. The employers are having to either reframe their expectations or seek less experienced employees who show exceptional promise or talent. This all translates into higher salaries for those few candidates who do fulfill the job requirements, with an average salary increase of between 10 to 15 percent. This report reflects the incredible number of new job listings on Archinect, which has been seeing an unprecedented level of traffic over the past year.

As is the case with Michael Szerbaty, many architectural firms have placed advertisements for jobs and seen them remain unfilled for months at a time. As we've previously reported on Archine...