what you're really asking is how to get just the right amount of productivity you need in your firm.

interns tend to be inexpensive because they aren't all that knowledgeable about what we do in firms and we're required to spend time (sometimes lots of time) training them in the realities of professional practice. so, they're not necessarily all that much of a bargain.

on the other hands, experienced staff can produce more in less time, but they also cost more per day -- you need to have sufficient steady work to make their employment worthwhile and affordable.

these are genuinely hard decisions for new firms ... many of my friends who have started sole-proprietor firms have tended to tap in to contract labor until such time as they have sufficient volume to warrant a full-time employee. i have other friends who share office space with other sole-proprietors -- in those cases, they also tend to share staff.

good luck

From my experience the first staff I hired was technically strong, with good computer skills. The idea being that they had all the ability to be productive and allowed me to go drum up work and do the front end design stuff while getting the work out the door. It also happened that they were pretty good at design so over time I gave them more opportunities. I would have considered a technical grade but the extra design skill was really great to have. A new intern or grad is best left when you have a few other staff to hold their hand and assist. I have found that there needs to be a variety of skill sets and billing levels to do certain tasks. When you are trying to optimize your time and energy some times you need an intern who can do errands and simple tasks because it doesn't make sense to send the most expensive staff member to do the task as you can't charge for it.

if i were you, id go to UIC, talk to an old prof, find a 4th year who can model and cad well and bring them one... you dont need them to know much beyond how to use cad commands...

one old hat who's a good teacher/communicator and one smart, diligent intern can crank a project out. this has been the formula for virtually every successful project team i've worked on (on larger projects multiple the number of smart, diligent interns times two). it's pretty simple actually, not all that different from how it's always been done.

"smart, diligent interns" this is the million dollar question. How many actualy will put the effort into a residential addition in the suburbs, or small office expansion in an industrial park they do for a suck - ur - dick rendering of a hotel in Dubai.

Well - only one way to find out, eh

not all recent grads are created equal. if you hire someone who is more interested in working on a hotel in dubai than the kind of projects you're going after, you will be disappointed and so will they. look for academic programs that focus on the kind of design issues and methods that you want to pursue, then recruit from there. a quick flip through the student work gallery of a few local architecture schools should make it pretty evident where you do and don't want to look for interns.

the other thing to keep in mind is that the best interns, the smart, hard-working ones, don't do good work just because you want them to. they do it because they are self-motivated and want to learn something from their experience, and if you are as disinterested as you profess to be in actively teaching them something, the smart kids are going to pass you by for better opportunities.

Yes you are correct

don't think of it as hiring interns...think of it as exploiting interns and it feels much more satisfying

what's a "technical grade" architect? Are there really young architects out there who are happy just drawing CDs and stuff and don't want to think about design?

here's a quote from an interview that i did with the guys from ply architecture... they seem to lean in the direction that you were talking about... paying for someone who actually knows what they're doing rather than paying less for an intern...

"We’ve changed the make up of the office. At one point we thought that we could have someone with very little experience in the office because we were there and there was less overhead and issues like that. Now we’ve tried it a number of different ways and the best scenario is to have people that are pretty invested in what they’re doing and have some experience. Right now we have a pretty good range from someone that has 8 years of experience through to someone that just graduated from undergrad. So when we’re not there, it’s a lot like a design studio. We’ll come in and give some criticism and have them develop the project in a couple of different ways then come back and critique that. We give them freedom to be part of the project, but we give direction to it."

Wow - Ive actualy never been involved in design within an architects office actualy. Ive designed for Design Builders, and been involved with a couple remoding awards - but I never expected an intern to actualy expect to do design work. Its sort of the price you pay - work for a big high design design firm, expect to eat it - remember only little trees grows under big ones.

grade should read grad

and its someone who didn't graduate from architecture school but from a technical school/ institute and actually knows how to put a structure together without the contractor laughing at them.

worst thing you can do is hire, someone who went straight from undergrad, and right into gradschool at an ivy, or other aclaimed institution, i have had more trouble working with these kids then any other coworker, they all feel a sense of entitlment, that that they should be designing from the get go, most of them dont know their place and have a really hard time with motivation when it comes to the intricate little details that need to be known to create a succesful project.

evil -

if it's your first employee, i'd personally stick to someone between 2-5 years and who is pretty technically inclined (no matter their relative design skills). you'll get the benefit on not having to train them on every single little thing, but they're probably not too jaded yet either (maybe).

and, to your question about whether they will put in the effort towards a small addition - if you can vest them emotionally in the outcome of the project, then absolutely. if you treat them as a means to an end, they'll know it and won't do squat after a time.

I'd look for a balance of part timers and find a firm that is small and interested in partnering for larger projects. This keeps your overhead low, allows for flexibility of growth and the ability to adjust per project.

You'll also build relationships for later on, should you be in a comfortable position to hire them (reliable people are so hard to find).

I've also found you get what you pay for. Skilled people save time, money and stress. Later on when your time is worth more spending working with clients and managing is a good time to find the intern to fill in the gaps.

Thanks all for the responses - Does anyone know when autodesk will release the office robots?

pretty much everything i can think of or have done has been covered.

can't stress enough the importance of building around one very smart and talented person you can rely on and trust. i started with one lower level design assistant and quickly added the detail oriented, very smart one soon after - she was a fresh graduate but at the top of her class. so the second one manages the first assistant and a subsequent addition to the staff. not big enough of an office to grow any bigger yet, but have partnered with a contractor to share office space and adminstrators.

i think i'm particularly fortunate but i do spend some time training her and everything gets soaked up like a sponge so i never have to say things twice. of course, it helps that i have been teaching at a design college and simply recruited the best available when i needed them, already having trained them in both design and technical skills the way that i would like.

im going to work for the guy who cares