I've been out of the field for a decade, and have no experience in REVIT. I've down loaded it but I can't wait 6 months to a year to get back to earning an income. Every add I see, and every firm I'm interested in had a requirement for several years proficiency in Revit , I really want to find a way around that, short of lying.
Plenty of places are still transitioning or haven't yet but are demanding/hoping new hires know it. If the company won't hire you because of that alone, it's probably not a place you want to join.
Anyone computer literate with experience in arch, and an ounce of determination, can pick up enough Revit to function within a month or so - just as long as it will take you to learn all the hr/legal crap, file folder structure of the company, coworkers' names, etc etc.
The only way to actually learn Revit is to use it on a real project. That said, (freely available) tutorials are incredibly helpful for getting a jump start. Do some tutorials ,watch videos, slap it on your resume with all the other software junk (to get past the robots) and talk your way through it in the interview.
A partner from Foster & Partners did a seminar/talk in a course I attended last year and she said that they still use AutoCAD, particularly for construction drawings. She's in the computational design group, and even if they use BIM and coding to model the buildings, simulate the utilities and etc, they still turn to AutoCAD for the 2D representation.
Fake it until you make it, do all the REVIT tutorials you can find and truly invest your time in it and more. If you know how to put a building together in CAD you can learn how to do it via BIM too, it's just a piece of software.
Jan 26, 18 4:06 am ·
·
hellion
"Fake it until you make it." --
I am 100% on board with this.
Many (if not must) small-to-midsize residential firms in my town still use autocad and are slowly transitioning to Revit. You're coming back in time to catch the transition.
That said, I think in our job ads we're still saying Revit preferred. So it could be that the listings you're seeing are hoping for Revit candidates even if the office is still transitioning. I say, do some tutorials and be honest about explaining your situation when you interview. Generally we don't let software skills stand in the way of is hiring the right candidate from an experience and personality perspective.
Jan 26, 18 8:15 am ·
·
bowling_ball
Same for us. If you're a good tech (our architects aren't asked to draw), the software is really a non-issue. It's 100 times more important to know how a building and drawing set go together.
Jan 26, 18 10:31 am ·
·
Wilma Buttfit
So jealous that architects in Canada don't have to do the grunt production work. I think that is something we do wrong in the states.
Jan 29, 18 10:43 am ·
·
bowling_ball
I think my office is definitely the exception. Outside of my own firm, as far as I can tell all of my cohorts (graduated ~2011) are still drawing.
Same boat as manta: we do about half Revit, half AutoCAD, but are transitioning to fully Revit over the next 6 months to a year or so. You can find a job in a firm that is in the same situation, I am confident!
Jan 29, 18 1:18 pm ·
·
bowling_ball
We've been transitioning to Revit for the past 5 years. The truth is that AutoCAD is still very useful for simpler or smaller projects.
Plenty of places are still transitioning or haven't yet but are demanding/hoping new hires know it. If the company won't hire you because of that alone, it's probably not a place you want to join.
Anyone computer literate with experience in arch, and an ounce of determination, can pick up enough Revit to function within a month or so - just as long as it will take you to learn all the hr/legal crap, file folder structure of the company, coworkers' names, etc etc.
The only way to actually learn Revit is to use it on a real project. That said, (freely available) tutorials are incredibly helpful for getting a jump start. Do some tutorials ,watch videos, slap it on your resume with all the other software junk (to get past the robots) and talk your way through it in the interview.
We still do most work in AutoCad. Know that a lot of detailing in Revit is line work and not that far removed from drafting in ACAD. That part is pretty easy to pick up quickly.
Yup AutoCAD. If you're a capable architect, then that is more important. That being said, understanding how software works is helpful in directing the work to be done by the staff, as well as anticipate where the time will be spent. As for knowing the software, nothing replaces experience using it for a real project. If you understand how the software works, then it should be easier to pick up the day-to-day use.
Not a fan of "fake it til you make it" while spending client money and firm reputation. Seen a few try this and I find it, at times, ethically dubious at best.
It's worth noting that at this point most of the other more experienced folk I know are the ones who don't yet know Revit--bc when it's rolled out in a firm, it seems to start from the bottom up. No sense in making someone who's running projects and job sites 80% of their week be the first to adopt new software... so basically, your company in the non-Revit category will be other experienced folk--you'll already have an edge of maturity and hopefully experience over the younger folks who have more software skills.
This thread made me think of the time my co workers and I made a physical model of a simple building, took a bunch of photos, added them as background in vectorworks, and annotated them to produce the construction 'drawings.' Hilarious but functional!
If you are not on the Revit bus yet, and feel like it may benefit you professionally to get on board- take a class at your local community college. Its relatively inexpensive, and because it is spread over a 'semester', it gives your brain a lot of time to stew in those tasty parametric juices. As a plus, you have an instructor and fellow students to help with questions.
I work for a large office and it's getting harder to find junior staff who know AutoCAD. Revit-only people are a dime-a-dozen - the valuable people are those who are comfortable in a lot of different software.
Revit is not hard to pick up if you know CAD and have some 3D software experience. It takes a little while to wrap your head around all the functionality because of the clunky UI. Really - just remind yourself that it's an imperfect piece of software, and if you're fighting with it, just get someone else to either help or figure it out for you.
Jan 30, 18 12:09 am ·
·
mantaray
Ha, sounds a lot like learning Autocad... for those of us oldsters who had to learn it after using something like ArchiCad or VectorWorks. Felt like shackling your drafting hands!
The best thing about revit is it is a great for screening out the software architect job openings in your search. otherwise I'd learn as best you can and be honest about your experience level. There is a lot more to architecture than moving a mouse weather it is revit or autocad. I'd say autocad is by far the more important tool
We're looking for two techs right now and I have the feeling that finding competent techs with Revit experience is going to be difficult. We're about to hire a senior tech with no Revit, because he can also do CA and be a mentor to the younger staff. It's not all about hard skills.
I've been 100% Revit for 15 years. I tell anyone who will listen that I'd take someone with zero Revit knowledge but knows how to put a building together any day. The latter is far harder to find.
Lots of firms here in Canada are still using AutoCAD, Revit is use is on the way up, but the majority use both or just AutoCAD.
I know as a structural consultant we are client driven, so what the client wants and the client gets. And to be honest I am not going to do a sketch for a fire damage report for an insurance company in Revit.
Apr 18, 18 3:36 pm ·
·
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Are there any firms still using Autocad?
I've been out of the field for a decade, and have no experience in REVIT. I've down loaded it but I can't wait 6 months to a year to get back to earning an income. Every add I see, and every firm I'm interested in had a requirement for several years proficiency in Revit , I really want to find a way around that, short of lying.
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Anyone computer literate with experience in arch, and an ounce of determination, can pick up enough Revit to function within a month or so - just as long as it will take you to learn all the hr/legal crap, file folder structure of the company, coworkers' names, etc etc.
The only way to actually learn Revit is to use it on a real project. That said, (freely available) tutorials are incredibly helpful for getting a jump start. Do some tutorials ,watch videos, slap it on your resume with all the other software junk (to get past the robots) and talk your way through it in the interview.
All 18 Comments
A partner from Foster & Partners did a seminar/talk in a course I attended last year and she said that they still use AutoCAD, particularly for construction drawings. She's in the computational design group, and even if they use BIM and coding to model the buildings, simulate the utilities and etc, they still turn to AutoCAD for the 2D representation.
Fake it until you make it, do all the REVIT tutorials you can find and truly invest your time in it and more. If you know how to put a building together in CAD you can learn how to do it via BIM too, it's just a piece of software.
"Fake it until you make it." -- I am 100% on board with this.
Same for us. If you're a good tech (our architects aren't asked to draw), the software is really a non-issue. It's 100 times more important to know how a building and drawing set go together.
So jealous that architects in Canada don't have to do the grunt production work. I think that is something we do wrong in the states.
I think my office is definitely the exception. Outside of my own firm, as far as I can tell all of my cohorts (graduated ~2011) are still drawing.
Same boat as manta: we do about half Revit, half AutoCAD, but are transitioning to fully Revit over the next 6 months to a year or so. You can find a job in a firm that is in the same situation, I am confident!
We've been transitioning to Revit for the past 5 years. The truth is that AutoCAD is still very useful for simpler or smaller projects.
Yes, and it's a pain in the ass the way autodesk has neglected autocad users, hatches have not evolved in 25 years!!!
Anyone computer literate with experience in arch, and an ounce of determination, can pick up enough Revit to function within a month or so - just as long as it will take you to learn all the hr/legal crap, file folder structure of the company, coworkers' names, etc etc.
The only way to actually learn Revit is to use it on a real project. That said, (freely available) tutorials are incredibly helpful for getting a jump start. Do some tutorials ,watch videos, slap it on your resume with all the other software junk (to get past the robots) and talk your way through it in the interview.
We still do most work in AutoCad. Know that a lot of detailing in Revit is line work and not that far removed from drafting in ACAD. That part is pretty easy to pick up quickly.
Yup AutoCAD. If you're a capable architect, then that is more important. That being said, understanding how software works is helpful in directing the work to be done by the staff, as well as anticipate where the time will be spent. As for knowing the software, nothing replaces experience using it for a real project. If you understand how the software works, then it should be easier to pick up the day-to-day use.
Not a fan of "fake it til you make it" while spending client money and firm reputation. Seen a few try this and I find it, at times, ethically dubious at best.
This thread made me think of the time my co workers and I made a physical model of a simple building, took a bunch of photos, added them as background in vectorworks, and annotated them to produce the construction 'drawings.' Hilarious but functional!
If you are not on the Revit bus yet, and feel like it may benefit you professionally to get on board- take a class at your local community college. Its relatively inexpensive, and because it is spread over a 'semester', it gives your brain a lot of time to stew in those tasty parametric juices. As a plus, you have an instructor and fellow students to help with questions.
I work for a large office and it's getting harder to find junior staff who know AutoCAD. Revit-only people are a dime-a-dozen - the valuable people are those who are comfortable in a lot of different software.
Revit is not hard to pick up if you know CAD and have some 3D software experience. It takes a little while to wrap your head around all the functionality because of the clunky UI. Really - just remind yourself that it's an imperfect piece of software, and if you're fighting with it, just get someone else to either help or figure it out for you.
Ha, sounds a lot like learning Autocad... for those of us oldsters who had to learn it after using something like ArchiCad or VectorWorks. Felt like shackling your drafting hands!
The best thing about revit is it is a great for screening out the software architect job openings in your search. otherwise I'd learn as best you can and be honest about your experience level. There is a lot more to architecture than moving a mouse weather it is revit or autocad. I'd say autocad is by far the more important tool
We're looking for two techs right now and I have the feeling that finding competent techs with Revit experience is going to be difficult. We're about to hire a senior tech with no Revit, because he can also do CA and be a mentor to the younger staff. It's not all about hard skills.
AutoCAD will never be going away but you will also need Revit.
I've been 100% Revit for 15 years. I tell anyone who will listen that I'd take someone with zero Revit knowledge but knows how to put a building together any day. The latter is far harder to find.
Lots of firms here in Canada are still using AutoCAD, Revit is use is on the way up, but the majority use both or just AutoCAD.
I know as a structural consultant we are client driven, so what the client wants and the client gets. And to be honest I am not going to do a sketch for a fire damage report for an insurance company in Revit.
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