I find it hard to believe that a firm would be willing to pay relocation costs, pretty much ever but especially in this economy, so yeah, they are probably mostly looking for locals.

Oh, I know that firms don't pay relocation (although my dad seems to think they do...). It's more the question...after I graduated, people were relocating all over the country and world. Firms were recruiting from all over. Now, do you think that firms are only recruiting locally? If I send my resume to a firm in NYC or Boston, or well, anywhere since I live in the middle of nowhere, am I out of the running just because I'd have to move? I saw one ad in the jobs section and it said "NYC residents only." Is this a feeling throughout the field right now?

SOM is based in Chicago.

SOM has offices world wide including Chicago, NY, San Fran, Hong Kong - prob more too

there was a los angeles office too but it was shut down a few months ago.

I don't see why they would care if the person is local or not if they're not covering relocation costs anyway. Maybe if they were looking for registered architects?

I would think this would be a good time for employers to be pickier with their employee choices regardless of where they're currently residing.

I have worked for some of the good offices in NYC and well, if the CV didn't have a NYC address we moved on to the next one.

I can only relate what I am seeing because I'm sure that larger firms with HR staff operate differently: Under normal market conditions, our firm considers folks from anywhere, but over the last six months we were receiving an unmanageable response to our ads even after specifying that only local applicants will be considered. Thousands of applicants for one job posting with extremely specific requirements. Here in LA the ratio of quality people looking for work vastly exceeds demand. It's depressing and getting worse.

It's not what anyone wants to hear but just like everyone else, firm managers are under enormous pressure to work efficiently. It doesn't make a lot of sense to try and accommodate the complications of interviewing and hiring someone from far afield when even without job advertisements posted we are getting three to five people walking in the front door a day with their portfolios.

Honestly, if it was me I would be using a friends local address if you are looking at cities other than the one where you live, or just resolve to sit this recession out and do something productive with your time that you won't have a chance to do later. On September 12th, 2001 my GF and I rolled into LA after grad school, had 2 interviews canceled, and was subsequently unemployed for about 8 months, with no ability to claim unemployment because of the perhaps ironic requirement that you must have worked in order to be considered unemployed. Not totally defeated, I busted my ass churning out applications and redoing my portfolio for probably 2 months. Finally, after I was turned down for a job sorting boxes by zip code at UPS (second interview) because the supervisor recognized that it I wasn't likely to be a long term hire, I said fuck it and spent two months eating only food from the bottom shelf of the grocery store, teaching myself how to do visualizations and writing articles for zines. Since this is a Ronald Reagen pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of story you've probably guessed that it was the stuff that I did after I stopped looking for work that finally got me employed. I thank God every day that Gensler canceled my interview.

I've been on the interviewing end and location has never given us a pause, except if the person was being difficult about coming in for an interview.

I honestly think it has more to do with the fact that I don't know of a single firm that's not teetering carefully on the edge of preserving jobs for the few employees they still have on staff. And I just mean that realistically -- I don't mean to be a downer. Completely truthfully if I were you I'd fill out applications at Borders and Starbucks in the meantime. The upside to being in a smaller city is that those jobs might actually still be around right now -- they're flooded with applications in the big cities.

Everyone I know who's still working has a strong plan B in the works, because I don't know a single architect who feels their job is truly safe right now.

That said -- I'm guessing DC might lift up more quickly than other parts -- and the smaller cities will have fewer firms to fight over the few education / govt projects.

Yeah, SOM was just an example. I know they are in Chicago, but probably close to 1/4 of my graduating class went to SOM NY. Replace SOM with DS+R, REX, whatever.

Anyway, yeah, I'm applying all over the place. Mostly architecture, hoping for that one that might come through. I've had interviews out of state. I was just curious how things have changed with the crap economy. When I graduated in 2007, you could basically pull your job out of thin air. Hell, I interviewed in NYC for a job in Tokyo.

But I have also applied at some retail (which don't seem to be hiring, they already closed one of our two Starbucks), and some other design stuff. Like Janosh said, I don't qualify for unemployment since I quit my job. I should be getting my pension for Japan soon though haha. Pension, makes me laugh. Heard it can take five months, it's been...three. It will probably take longer since no one has any money.

I've been doing a lot of stuff to try to stay busy. Wrote a stupid book about my time in Japan, planning to take LEED in a few weeks (after I cough up $400 that I don't really have), then my next project would be to run through some Revit tutorials, do some guitar mods on my BC Rich Warlock, and brush up on Rhino skillz. I want to try modeling a Transformer to practice difficult forms, textures, and lighting. My portfolio is pretty fresh, as I just revitalized it a few months ago. At least I'm livin' for free with the 'rents.

hasselhof -

i'm with janosh - location alone is probably less of an issue than having enough work to actually hire (unless for a very short burst).

i'm coming to the point where i'd encourage everyone in your position to screw trying to go through the 'conventional' employment channels at the moment. they just aren't going to be there. instead, figure out what you can do to create something for yourself. meaning, if you're great at renderings, try to pump that out. take a small loss for the first couple of months, but do something to actually make money while you're sitting around. figure out how to really create a 100K, zero energy house. anything besides just brushing up on your revit, rhino, etc. skills. that's not going to get you a job right now.

i've gotten so pessimistic on this economy, i've come all the way back around to being optimistic again. be entrepreneurial. look at the biggest problems facing us as a society - figure out how to make us leaner and greener. create. invent. do something none of us who are trying just to keep the doors open can do. promote the hell out of what you've done. make a career - don't wait for one to open up.

Was talking to a friend last night who is in marketing (not for architecture). They are looking to hire a graphic designer and posted a simple ad on the local Craigslist requesting only local applicants.

They are now sitting on hundreds of resumes from all over the world. Now they are reposting the ad in the local paper and just tossing the pile they currently have in the trash. Said it's not worth their time to even sort out the local people.

Asked why they only want locals - he said there are plenty of unemployed people right here and they're interested in helping out a "local" in these tough times.

Unless you have very specific skills I can imagine arch firms would do similar.

Local knowledge does matter for certain positions on the design team. You gotta know local codes, know the building department/permit process, know the entitlement process, know the clients, know the local consultants, and be able to design for the specific climate.

otherwise you get glass skyscrapers baking in the desert sunshine and uninsulated houses in the arctic.

So interns/recent grads/CAD monkeys don't need to know squat about the localisms where they practice, but beyond that, being local has advantages, especially for project architects, project managers, and project designers and better have roots.