touchy subject, especially in today's economy.

if you are doing a cover letter, i would add a note about the desire to move, and ask the firm not to contact your present employer.

if I were you I would not send unsolicited copies of your portfolio containing images of work completed at your current employer to contacts in the new city. This could, in my experience, lead to ugliness. Once you get an interview, you could always take pages with the work in question with you and show it "confidentially."

I find nothing wrong with using projects you worked on with your current employer in your portfolio, as long as all work is properly credited.
It is a tough issue, and in most times it is better not to tell your employer that you are looking for work elsewhere.
Otherwise, how would employees switch firms? specially when they have been with one for a few years?

you gotta do what ya gotta do..

use the work and meticulously note your contributions and give proper credit. also make note in the cover letter or via phone call like someone above me suggested. how else are you supposed to switch jobs?

OTOH, your current firm may be released from having to let someone go.... But I'd have another job lined up before you turn in that letter of res.

As a general comment, I find that way too many employees wait until they're ready to start looking for a new job before starting to accumulate materials for their portfolio.

If you establish a regular pattern of asking for, and collecting, appropriate images of projects you're involved with at appropriate project milestones, then your employer's not as likely to become suspicious (as we are inclined to become) when - all of a sudden - you start pulling large quantities of drawings and images (either in the open or surreptitiously) in a short period of time.

Most firms will understand, and support, the need -- and right -- of employees to have appropriate imagery associated with their project involvement. When you wait until you're ready to look for another job, it's hard to pull this stuff together without tipping your hand. (trust me -- we know when you're printing stuff for your portfolio -- there are no secrets in design firms)

It's always better to collect this stuff in an open and honest manner -- professional ethics dictate that the firm cooperate with you in a reasonable manner. Professional ethics also dictate that you not steal materials that do not belong to you - you should ask for permission, which permission should not be unreasonably withheld.

Here's a pretty useful document related to this topic, published by AIA: Personal Use of Documents

Never underestimate the sneaky! Do all this shit on the down low. Steal all files that you need and don't tell a soul. There are no ethics in architecture anymore. You worked on it so therefore it is partly yours. When you get the new job then you can tell the old firm to kiss your ass.

You can easily pull the wool over the bosses eyes!

I would have to agree w/Aquilla.

Sadly but there are no ethics in architecture. You happen to choose and do the right thing and you get spank in the ass and a NO for answer or the more diplomatic version, " let me get back to you on that, I am not sure if we can accommodate that, but let's see what we can do" and you never hear anything.

So as a short answer take what you need, and forget about ethics in architecture, and if someone says or sees anything, just say you are just taking the trash out or cleaning up your desktop.

loco77

your perspective is not remotely similar to my own.

it's sad that you live in that world.

There's ethics in architecture!

You should have a conversation with Ralphie at HKS. He'll tell you about all his values he has!

And how those impeccable values lead him to run a successful architectural business that eats away at cities, destroys neighborhoods and bankrupts general funds!



VALUES!

Agree with Unicorn


Where that f does distant lives? In a distant place that I never heard? You hiring? If you are, maybe I can be trained to think in a very ethical AIA professional way. Which I think is a bunch of BS.

I feel the AIA is getting old, we need a new organization that represents the new generation, not a bunch of old farts telling us how to live or organize our profession.

peace out.

I think that it's also understood your portfolio should clearly state where the work was done, for whom (unless that information is confidential) and what your role in designing/producing it was. Some years ago, my boss and I were interviewing candidates for a job and got the same project from three different candidates, none of whom bothered explaining in their portfolio the nature of their collaboration with the other two. By omission, they all seemed to be claiming that the work was, at the creative level, their's.

And here's the really amusing and awkward clincher: I was the project manager and design lead for the project in question when I was at the firm they were all trying to leave... and of course I was utterly uncredited in any of the three portfolios.

This was all unintentional of course.. they were all aware that I was at the firm to which they were applying (in fact, I introduced them) and presumably they at least guessed that I might see their submitted portfolios and that I would recognize their own projects and their own roles in it. They probably just took it for granted thatI wouldn't mind. Still, it was still, in my opinion, marginally unprofessional, and my firm was clearly not the only one to which they were applying with the same portfolios.

I lost ethics and values when firms lost loyalty! Take what you can when you can and don't look back.
If you worked on it and it can get you a better job then take it and put it in that portfolio.
Those that still believe in ethics in architecture probably have Norman Rockwell paintings on their walls!

Aquillathenun - you're nothing more than a common thief.

I happen to enjoy staring at Norman Rockwell paintings while drinking a screwdriver

damn skippy "you've been hit by a smooth criminal"