1. AS far as I know USC Arch doesn't offer a 3 year master of Architecture. It only offer master's degree for those who already have a undergrad degree in architecture or urban design. So for example, if you have a bachelors degree in philosophy you will not be able to apply to USC's master of arch program.

From the website: Two Degree Programs Are Offered

First Professional Degree
This 2 year degree program is intended for individuals who have completed a preprofessional undergraduate major in Architecture or Urban Design.

Post Professional Degree
This 1.5 year degree program is intended for individuals who have completed a five-year undergraduate professional program in architecture.

2. When I graduated USC Arch I found a job immediately. But that doesnt mean UCLA or Sci-arc won't do the same for you. They all have their pros and cons, they all have their own unique connections. I think at a time when the economy is bad as it is now, everyone is looking out for themselves.

If you are great designer and demonstrate unparalleled value, it doesn't matter what school you attended. As for your question about which school gives the better chance of receiving a high salary, I think you are already showing that you are in the wrong profession. Your questions demonstrate a lack of passion and devotion to a discipline that requires one to look beyond monetary value.

You should be looking at the curriculum the school offers, and more importantly look at the faculty. Is most of the faculty practitioners, who actually have projects that are built? or are they mainly theorists, quoting Deleuze all day? or are they recent graduates who are solely interested in rhino and fabrication techniques. You are paying a lot of money for someone to teach you or not to teach you.

3. Usually all school have some interest in sustainability. It is not a new concept. Again, look at the faculty. It makes a big difference.

hired immediately? ahhh ha ha ahhh ha ha......

"As for your question about which school gives the better chance of receiving a high salary, I think you are already showing that you are in the wrong profession. Your questions demonstrate a lack of passion and devotion to a discipline that requires one to look beyond monetary value."
ovalle, SOME people have responsibilities to take care of, and think of monetary concerns. The fact that architects do not make enough money is something that should be disputed and not taken in stride. On another thread, someone mentioned getting $2000 per month in LA - and others validated his/her claim. We really need to stand up for this!

Now now, let's not get judgmental. I doubt you nor anyone else here wants to hear my passion for the art, or my life's history and background. I simply wanted to save everyone's time and get straight to the questions.

Quite commonly, published college comparisons include percentage of grads hired within 3 months of graduating and their average salary. I can't find that info, and US News and W.R. (laugh all you like) does not include Arch. schools nor that info. This is not irrelevant information, at least not for me.

In terms of hiring and salary, my first guess would be USC, with their extensive and supportive alumni network, but that might just be me buying into their marketing. Sci_arc might be an amazing school, but with the impression I've gotten here, it's highly experimental.

Which begs the questions: Is Sci_Arc's education applicable to Real World? Are their students highly sought after? Or do firms prefer students from a more conservative approach? And where does UCLA fit in all this? How important IS an alumni network? Is there an "architectural good ol' boys" club? If so, it would seem that a small school like Sci_Arc might have a disadvantage.

Again, I'm talking about solely the LA market.

BTW, if you go here:
http://arch.usc.edu/Programs/GraduateDegreesandCertificates/MasterofArchitecture
and look at the far right column, three paragraphs down, you will read this:
"** Individuals who have a bachelor's degree with a major other than Architecture or Urban Design should seek a 3 year Master of Architecture. "

What the heck does that mean? Perhaps someone can chime in.

Meanwhile, I called USC's admissions yesterday and today and they haven't gotten back to me yet.

Didn't mean to be judgmental. The way you framed your questions appeared to me that you were seeing a shortcut into making money into a profession that really is very difficult to do so in the first place. anyways.

I would highly recommend visiting the schools, even now when most of them have summer session. Spend a couple of hours looking at the work, or even attend a studio review to see how the work is critiqued. It will give a great idea what is expected from the students and you will definitely see the quality of work being produced.

Let's ignore the job and money question for the time being.

First of all, you need to decide pretty quick what aspects of Architecture are the most interesting to you. Make a list and make it as detailed or trivial as you want. It is going to be super important that you figure this out, otherwise you are going to end up at the wrong school and everyone else in your class is going hate you for it. I don't say this to be an ass, but rather to help you avoid going to school for the wrong reasons. SCI_Arc, USC and UCLA all have their own unique programs and knowing what you would like to get out of school will help you to decide.

Also make sure if and when you visit the school you see the work being done by the program you are interested in. SCI_Arc gets its reputation of being experimental largely because of the March2 program, which is the program for people who have already have an Architecture background. Since they assume you've already done all the structures and traditional design stuff, they tend to push that program in a more progressive direction. That's not to say that the March1 and the UG program are conservative, rather that the scope of work between the 3 programs can often, by not always, be different in focus.

All 3 schools as far as I know have similar sized programs and enough people have graduated from SCI_Arc in the last 30 years that there are enough alumni around town.

Real world? Dude, if this is all you care about, screw grad school and just go to ITT Tech and get a drafting degree, take the LEED exam and be done with it. The purpose of graduate degrees is much more multi-faceted than simply being a career prep. Again, all 3 schools are going to take a different approach on the matter. While SCI_Arc may not focus directly on things like green design, structures, etc. what they do offer in their "highly experimental" setting is a broader range of tools, classes and options as an architect that a more traditional school may not cover. Without being too crass, the expectation at SCI_Arc is that you would be working in a more progressive and challenging office after graduation, not drawing bathroom elevations at Gensler. So while on the surface it may seem like the program is only focused on formal aesthetics, it's actually engaged in a much deeper discourse. Personally, I appreciated that the program was not so rigidly defined - I enjoyed having a studio where I made a film instead of a "building" and there were classes that taught Japanese Painting. But I decided I didn't want to go to school that was all about building codes and green design because I don't really care about either.

Now finally to get to the salary question. I totally understand that financials are important. With any luck by the time you are finished with school this whole economic mess will be over and everyone will have the job they want. However that probably will not change the fact that architecture is a low-paying profession and which school you went to is not going to magically add an extra 0 to the paycheck. Only thing that would do that is going to the cheapest school so you have less loans to payback therefore netting more income. Although I know people who graduated and managed to get $60,000 a year jobs in LA, that is not common. $2000 before taxes is more like it, especially if you have 0 experience.

I can't reiterate though how little you should be concerned with getting professional skills in grad. school. Any hack can learn most of what you need to know in the first year of working in about a day, considering your first year of work will probably be doing redlines on some POS stripmall. I would see your education as an opportunity to explore what you are personally passionate about in Architecture as this may be one of the few times you get to do so. You have the rest of your life to dread waking up everyday to do shit you have no interest in. Enjoy the little time you have.

Thanks very much for your opinion. I appreciate your Sci-Arc insight. Are you suggesting that Sci-Arc might not be the best school for green or sustainable architecture?

Although it's an interesting suggestion, I'm not sure that a degree from ITT Tech is the direction I want to pursue. I'm a rather intelligent guy who needs a challenge, would like to push the envelope, but needs to be paid for it. Which brings me to salary...

I'm assuming that you meant $20,000/yr, not $2000. $20k is less than $10/hr. I doubt that's correct. According to this site: http://architecture.about.com/cs/careers/f/archsalary.htm, which references DesignIntellegence, the mean salary after graduation is $47k. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, even the bottom 10% of archs make at least $40k/yr. I can live with $47k, initially :)

Here's a great salary survey for this year. I searched and it doesn't look like anyone has mentioned it here yet:

http://dp.storymaker-se.com/DaliDataProxy/x.aspx?cmd=query&id=bcmeta&exp=96836a50-b83c-445a-92f5-0a6a7ee0615c&t=exp.htm

salaries will be low if you are not experienced because you will need to be taught a very great deal before you will make money for the office you work in. that evens out pretty quickly but never gets particularly high.

short of spending 3 years in an office working every day i don't think there is any way you are going to learn to be productive as an office-ready intern in any school, regardless of its hype or its predilections.

so don't worry about it. no one will expect you to be ready to work as a proper architect from day one. which is to say, go to the school that offers the courses you are interested in rather than the one that might possibly teach you more technical work. like someone pointed out above you can learn all of that stuff pretty quickly once you get into an office setting.

JonnyJett: I applaude your efforts to explore compensation questions before embarking on an education in architecture - too few do that and then are surprised and depressed upon graduation.

My two cents:

1. Be cautious about any data you review from DesignIntelligence. I generally find their research to be shallow, unreliable and often misleading.

2. IMO, the only authoritative - and really useful - salary survey is the one published by AIA.

3. For entry-level staff, 'hirability' and starting salaries have almost nothing to do with the school the candidate attended and everything to do with what the candidate brings to the table - i.e. intelligence, dedication, maturity, poise, portfolio and work experience. You would think there would be a strong correlation between those two concepts - there's not.

4. I strongly recommend keeping your student loans to an absolute minimum. A significant debt burden upon graduation will make your life miserable and severely reduce your flexibility to tailor your career around your professional desires.

Good luck.

The difference in salaries from any school will be negligible. Just because you have a better education, or are more talented for that matter, does not mean you will earn more.

This is my biggest gripe with the profession - the pay is the same across the board.


I'd honestly completely forget that one in your research, you will never have accurate info (things like the economy sucking are too powerful an impact to make any sense of surveys).


#1 - decide what is important to you, look up faculty and what they care about (which is what they will teach), go talk to them.

#2 - visiting schools doesn't do much unless you can see/talk to current students, otherwise you are looking at empty studios that mean nothing

#3 - forget money altogether in relation to school. If you care an ounce about compensation then you'll need a business degree or a ton of experience

#4 - I, personally, didn't worry about loans. But I made a difference path, too, which has helped me not worry about compensation (or my loans, which is a ton). If you do care about pay, you'll need to do something different than everyone else, otherwise you are just another intern working for peanuts.

#5 - lastly, if you really care, call around to the firms that you would like to work at (and at least a few that have solid reputations, even if you think you don't want to work there, you might change your mind) and ask them what they think of the schools.
I am a UCLA grad, so I'll toot their horn all day (even though I don't think it was the best education - my undergrad at UF was far more thorough, but I don't think any top school with celeb architects will offer the fundamentals in a cohesive way).

#6 - get a business degree at the same time, keep your options open, you will changed your mind down the road about many things you think you know now

Be careful about Design Intelligence "surveys", in my experience they are not very accurate. Also, from my current, up-to-date knowledge of salary ranges in 3 cities of differing sizes, an average of $47k is much too high for a 1st year intern salary. So, be careful.

The reason you don't see much salary info out there (like in US News & WR, which is a fine source for many fields, but unfortunately not architecture) is that salary info in this field is extremely opaque and rather arbitrary. Unlike, say, law or business, there is very rarely a clear, demarcated trajectory for advancement or pay raise within a firm, and I have yet to work in a single office in which salary rates were shared between employees or listed anywhere. The fact is, it's extremely difficult to know what to expect monetarily in this field, extremely difficult to know how much to ask for, and extremely difficult to gauge how well you're doing by using salary as a marker. (For me this is a personal frustration as it makes it more difficult to understand what your boss's expectations of you may be, and to set goals for yourself for improvement, etcetera.) So it's very hard to know where you stand, at any given point. To me, this impedes personal growth and progress -- it probably doesn't bother some people, but it sounds like it would bother you, given your posts here -- so I thought I'd let you know what you're in for before you head into this field.

SO, back to my original point. Salaries vary EXTREMELY widely from city to city, and again even within a city. To give you an example, when I graduated from university between 5-10 years ago, average starting salary in the town I lived in was $28k. However, the average for friends who got jobs in DC and NYC landed around 35k-36k. My first job out of school was for about that, in a different large city. I knew no one who got a starting salary higher than 40k. These were all at large, expensive cities (high cost of living). I would be supremely surprised if first year intern salary average -- across all of America, not just big cities -- had shifted from about 30k between 5-10 years ago to $47k today.

From watching interns get hired lately I'd say, if you are talented and a good worker, you could budget for an average of about $40k as a starting intern and that might help guide your school decision, vis-a-vis student loan debt amount.

I should say, salary info is kept intentionally opaque in this field. I think bosses who consider themselves "creative" like to have ultimate flexibility and control in setting pay rates and architects don't know better than to allow it to happen, unfortunately. So it's kept opaque and randomized, and the boss is in an enviable position that in any other field wouldn't fly. Just my 2cents.

actually, the reason why salaries in architecture are so "opaque" (which mantaray is correct to note) is that it is actually very difficult for 'bosses' to set a standard for salaries.

for example: do you provide a standard rate for all young staff who have just graduated? what if some of those young staff have also worked while in school? how much do you reward for previous office experience? how much do you pay someone who has a 5-year undergraduate year degree, but who worked part-time from year 3 to graduation versus a 2- or 3-year Masters graduate but with no real office experience? do you pay a young staff member who can handle Rhino, V-Ray, Microstation, InDesign, and Grasshopper the same as someone who is older but can only do Auto-Cad, and yet is a good designer?

i have no experience with the law or medical profession, but it would seem to me that architecture is one field where those entering into professional practice have a much more diverse and variegated entry position than these other professions, and therefore salaries are much less determined by well-established fee rates.

oh dlb, I completely agree with you. I don't think salaries should be at set rates, either. I think they should be at set ranges, with adjustments made at the discretion of the overseeing manager. This is the way the law field operates, from what I'm told by my lawyer acquaintances. Also, don't forget the ability to reward good work, or to help attract particular talent, as is often the case in the business world (for example, the use of a signing or end-of-year bonus). Another helpful thing is to have set review periods for advancement or adjustment, as well as set incremental advancement opportunities. (For example : if you pass the ARE, you move into "x" position with "x" salary bump, transparently, which would be a great motivator for the many interns who choose not to take the ARE. Too many firms provide no clear incentive for growth, and no clear incentive / fostering of periodic self evaluation.

Architecture firms too often fail to appreciate the fact that if you don't provide continued, clear opportunities to move up in both responsibility and pay, you will lose your best talent. This is a key management tenet and is capitalized on in other industries. In architecture, the best talent leaves, either to competing firms that DO offer upward movement or to establish their own firm. Yes, some would do this no matter what, but you could certainly make it attractive for those on the fence (for example, changing firms and starting your own firm both have pretty clear downsides -- it's not a cut and dried decision).

I think this would improve working environments for everyone, including the boss; it makes salary negotiations easier, it helps everyone feel secure and happy with their contribution, and would help eliminate the flip side of the situations you brought up, which is :
What happens when someone seems like a great candidate and you give them a big salary to bring them on board and then find out that they are really not worth the money? (Although not bad enough to fire.) You're then stuck continually paying them at a rate much higher than they deserve, forever. If you stick with standard ranges, plus one-time bonuses, you minimize the chance that you'll bring someone on at a way too high salary. (And yes we all know this happens too frequently.) You could bring them in at the top of the range, with a one-time signing bonus, and then if they don't perform up to par, you're only out the different of the salary range.

I guess this is probably a topic for another post, so I'm sorry, Original Poster! dlb, I find it an interesting question and I really do NOT think I have all the answers. Would love to discuss more -- I've really only begun thinking about this and, not having been a boss, can only see part of the story of course. I really don't know how to change the problem but it is an interesting question to me. Perhaps I'll create a new post when I have time.

p.s. This is probably the #1 complaint I hear from my friends in the field, even above actual pay compensation complaints. I am not exaggerating. Over and over I hear "there's no way to move up in this firm... so-and-so is getting way more money than I am and he can't even put a set together... why bother taking the ARE, it's not going to help me in any way..." etc.

manta:

you point to all the ambiguity and uncertainty of running an office.

to be honest, i would just as soon lay it all out on the table and let the whole office decide. nothing is more traumatic than trying to be fair in terms of salaries. it is the part of being a "boss" that i detest the most. so far, it has never been possible to be fair - as fairness can only be determined based on particular parameters, which are always in conflict with other parameters. i would be interested in a scenario where ALL staff sit around a table and determined the value and relative worth of employees. the idea that it is possible to 'objectively' determine worth is usually contradicted by the many factors that influence any valuation of individuals or their contributions.

you are probably right to say that a range is a good mechanism for setting rates and value. and you are quite right to note that setting a "pathway" to advancement is a serious mechanism to maintaining good staff.

but it should be noted that over the last 10 years, my experience is that staff has developed un-realistic expectations with regard to salaries. in these last 10 years, it has been harder as an employer to get good, experienced staff and yet new staff have expected high salaries - even upon just graduating. the new economic situation has altered this condition somewhat - which is mostly a re-calibration of salaries and status. it remains to be seen if this is a temporary shift or a new regime. my sense is that it is too short to really effect staff expectations.

I can see this being a problem, but wouldn't this be helped with greater transparency? In my experience, when people don't know something, they tend to assume the worst. Hence all the "I should get paid more... I think so-and-so gets paid more, and he does NOTHING" whininess. Just a thought. I think insecurity fuels speculation, and speculation seems to fuel beliefs that one is being shortchanged somehow and "deserves more". Perhaps I'm a bit of a pessimist, but it really seems a part of human nature, to me.

yet new staff have expected high salaries

I agree, I've seen this too, especially in the attitude of job-seekers I've seen. I think the Original Poster's "average" of 47k entering salary is a great example. There's a lot of misleading info out there, and I think it creates a situation where the job seeker feels that, in the absence of concrete expections, he has no option but to ask for the most he can conceivably ask for, understanding that if the boss wants him, they can negotiate downwards from there and hopefully arrive at a mutually-satisfactory conclusion. This should work out OK in the end (even though it's a waste of everyone's time). I do agree with the difference in attitude though -- there's a difference between saying "I should be paid X amount" and "I will ask for X amount and see what works best for them and me".

Very interesting to hear your side of things, by the way. I truly wish more bosses were more frank. I have worked in one office where this was the case and it was vastly more satisfying for the employees. I would not have left that firm if I hadn't had to make a geographical change; it was exciting to feel like you were contributing, at your job, to your own career as well as to the career of your boss. (As in, you knew there was a place for you in the future and you could really have a hand in forming a great firm, as opposed to simply working in a firm for a paycheck.) That was one job out of the... hmm 8 or so I've worked in.

now, back to studying for my exam so I can be a better architect!

well .. since it appears that nobody actually read my earlier post on the topic of salary surveys, let me say again that the periodic salary surveys conducted and published by AIA are both a) very comprehensive, and b) provide specific wage information for specific communities — not just the national averages. This survey also looks very specifically at the most relevant stages of a typical professional's career, so the information provided can be applied to a specific individual's situation without an extraordinary amount of extrapolation or guessing.

That's odd, why would you assume no one read your post? I second your appreciation for the AIA salary surveys.

;o) -- maybe it was just stuff like: "..the reason you don't see much salary info out there (like in US News & WR, which is a fine source for many fields, but unfortunately not architecture) is that salary info in this field is extremely opaque and rather arbitrary."

Right... and it is... I don't get you. Oh well. Yes you can find salary survey info if you buy a document from your local AIA office but to my mind that doesn't qualify as "out there", certainly not in the US News & WR sense that the OP was asking about... Also I don't see a tradition of management being opaque re: salary info as having anything to do with the AIA survey, which is anonymous, difficult to access, and has nothing to do with all of my points above regarding bosses withholding salary info from employees and not keeping to a clear and transparent standard of salary... To my mind these are very separate and distinct categories. Mass media availability of salary trends =/= AIA survey report; AIA survey report =/= transparency of salary structure to employees within an organization.

Please forgive me being pedantic, it's only because I'm studying some esoteric and extremely precise blather for a test! Anyway if you know me around these parts you know I don't usually debate points like this. take with grain of salt please.

I meant what I said about the $2000 a month and I know offices that pay less than that. Most of the people in my class are working at jobs that pay less than $30K and some of them have 2-5 years of experience.

So chew on that.

I think Morse Code was insinuating the opposite, in fact. You won't know about which school pushes sustainability, however, until you visit and check out for yourself. Review the studio work, ask the faculty / administration how much green design is taught / encouraged, and I guarantee you'll see in a heartbeat if the school is into it or not. Do their eyes light up and they immediately have projects at hand to show you? Or do their eyes kind of glaze over and you get a generic-sounding, perfunctory answer? Everyone will SAY they push green design, but few schools really care about it enough to teach it in design studios. Most of the actual mechanics of "green building" you will only learn in practice, anyway -- fundamentally, design schools are focussed on teaching you the tenets of design, what the design process is (for you), etcetera. So while you may learn best general design practices like "a skinny building provides more opportunities for cross-ventilation", it's not like you're going to learn how to detail a green roof. (Thank goodness.)

Design school is design school.

Mantaray, you're procrastinating by giving such long and thoughtful answers. Now get back to your studying!

From reading everyone's replies, I've come to these conclusions so far:

1. It doesn't matter where I go to school in relation to getting hired and salary

2. Try to graduate with the least amount of loans outstanding.

3. USC's alumni network may or may not make a difference.

4. The relevance of salary surveys is debatable. Despite what has been said, I still would like to browse the AIA survey, though I haven't found a site where I can download the PDF (other than AIA itself). Anyone care to share?

5. Ask a lot of questions when visiting schools, and try to go when classes are in session.

Here's the bottom line question: In landing a good job, what really matters? A good portfolio? Good grades? The School's reputation? The alumni network? Your internship? Rank in graduating class? Your own personal network of architect friends? What?

Grades and class rank do not mean anything in Grad School, unless you are planning on going to get a Doctorate degree. Some of the best students in my class are either unemployed or working shit jobs while some of the worst, laziest hacks got great jobs doing awesome work.

Bottom line, it's not what you know but who you blow that gets you by in this profession. So if you are that concerned about your career, better turn up the Marvin Gaye and strap on the knee pads. As they say, you can't spell success without suck.

JonnyJett: because the AIA goes to considerable expense to compile a compensation survey that's actually worth having, it's a copyrighted document that's not freely circulated in its entirety ... it's generally not found in the public domain until the next edition is released. However, you probably can view a copy at your local AIA office. Many schools of architecture also maintain a copy.

However, if you just want a limited amount of information, feel free to e-mail me and I'll excerpt some data from my copy at the office and send it to you.

don't listen to morse-y. architecture as a profession does not usually reward laziness and sloppy work.


the good students at my uni pretty much all went on to work for amazing offices (OMA, Ito, SANAA, etc), and are now beginning to do amazing things on their own. the poorer students are doing well on less interesting projects, like planning and detailing hazmat projects (technically challenging but not so sexy). the students who were really not good at all are generally not in architecture anymore.


where you go only matters for who it introduces you to and the extent to which you are challenged at school by profs and peers. if you don't need that because you are a self-starter don't worry about it.

if you just want a 9-5 job with reasonable salary then any school is also fine. you won't be paid more for going to one place instead of another. if you go to a really hooked in place then you might even get less than average because you could find yourself attracted to working for one of your famous professors who don't usually give the best remuneration...

if you expect to make exceptionally good money as an architect i would advise reducing your expectations. few do.

"architecture as a profession does not usually reward laziness and sloppy work"

true. it rewards ass-kissing and occasionally arrogance. and if you are real lucky you get both in the same package.

"the good students at my uni pretty much all went on to work for amazing offices"

was this like 5-10 years ago? good luck having that happen now.

jump nails it.

In my experience, what helps land you a job -- in the majority of cases -- is the following, in order of importance :

1 personal qualities / personality / personal "fit" in firm

2/3 work experience / portfolio quality (both impt in different ways, and to different extents at different times in your career) (if you're interested in offices with more ... design-oriented projects, for lack of a better word, then portfolio will mean more; if you're more interested in more 9-5 type corporate offices that don't push design boundaries as much, then portfolio is going to be much less impt than work experience)

4 network of contacts (this is less important in the good times & more important when times are tough, like now) a contact will get your foot in the door but in this biz it won't get you the job.

...

8 school rep.
I won't say this isn't a factor, b/c we're all human and we know it is, but keep in mind that what your potential employer thinks of your school may have next to nothing to do with what the rest of the world thinks of your school. For one, your potential employer likely graduated 20 years ago and has no school what schools do what nowadays. For two, few of us ever get the opportunity to experience more than 1 or 2 schools max, therefore many of our opinions on school rep is truthfully based on haphazard acquaintanceships with random program graduates scattered here and there across time. So, I won't say not to think about this at all, b/c school rep. can indicate things like "is this school interested in green design or not", but I wouldn't worry about it in the context of employment


Aside from above, a few things to know :
students are not ranked in the vast majority of grad design schools. some few grad design schools do not even give out grades.

grades are almost meaningless in design school. actually i cannot even think of a single time they might mean something, but just in case there is, i will refrain from saying they are utterly meaningless. TA-ships are awarded either on entering portfolio merit or on design or research project merit later. design awards are based on quality of design / research. grants based on research proposals... etc.

not one employer will ever ask to see your grades, or be in the slightest interested in them if you somehow found a way to put them on your resume.

---
I just passed a couple practice tests so don't worry too hard about my studying. thanks for your concern though!

lol. i honestly don't think that is the case, morse, even today, but i appreciate the humor in your cynicism ;-)

yes it was a few years ago, and yes times are hard even for the best and the most talented. doesn't mean that the rule doesn't hold...

I have been through this a few times already (down-cycle i mean). it is not easy to watch nor easy to deal with, yet i cannot help but think that rem is still only going to hire the best people he can find regardless of the economic situation.

somehow i wouldn't rely too much on ass-kissing as a way to get through the poor economy. having a great personality wouldn't hurt though!

Honestly I have seen so many jobs that have turned into a wage auction with the person willing to work for the least amount of money wins in the past year to really discredit the "traditional" traits that got people jobs in the past - experience, portfolio, etc.

It's very disheartening to see friends and colleagues with experience and skill turned down for jobs only to find out someone else with less experience and skill got the job because they were willing to work for a smaller salary. Granted, that office got what they paid for, but somehow it seems like fewer and fewer offices even care.

This is exactly the situation faced by the principals who own and run design firms. The fees available for new work (where it exists) are very very tight these days -- and no amount of grousing or complaining or wishful-thinking is going to have any real impact on those basic economics.

The situation I describe in the paragraph above has a natural impact on the wages firms are willing, and able, to pay for labor. Productivity in our profession is very hard to assess - especially when you don't know the person sitting across the table from you during an interview. Consequently, because it is so hard to make productivity tangible, wages become a surrogate basis on which to make a hiring decision.

Is this fair -- probably not.

Is this a natural consequence of the situation in which we all find ourselves -- probably so.

I totally respect that offices are running on tight financial resources and that clients are trying to low-ball the architect as much as possible and offices are so desperate for work they will take anything that comes in the door. I get that. I personally am running on tight financial resources so I understand that the money only goes so far.

What would not only be helpful but also slightly less deceitful is if the office would just come out and say "this is how much this position will pay hourly/monthly/salary." And this is where I see that it turns into nothing more than a wage auction because frankly, there really is no way to gage what you should be making anymore. Salary polls are wildly inaccurate and the current economy has made comparisons even from last year way off.

Offices know how much they are going to pay the potential employee. Stop making us guess.

We will if you will !

:o)

thats an interesting experience, morse.

i hadn't heard of that. personally i wouldn't be interested either as employer or employee to do that. my partner is developer so he understands economics quite well (he is also licensed architect), but at same time we both see nothing fruitful coming from opaque practice. we are small so maybe can get away with that, but in general i don't see any benefit.

in the end it will not pay out. there is just too much investment in staff required by an office to mess about with bringing wages down to nothing and taking the most desperate player. unless it is for a model maker or similar, in which case the job is not a good one to begin with.

as far as guessing goes. i think you should live with that aspect of our biz. it is good practice for when you have to negotiate with contractors. they are always complaining that they are losing money, and we are always wondering how truthful they are being. that doesn't make life any easier, unfortunately. but it is the way things work usually...and not just for us...

well like many things in LA, I think the architecture profession has become very "sceney" so unless you are in with the right people, your pretty much screwed.

Which I guess brings us full-circle back to the original post.

Tah-Dah!