Showing posts from category: unemployed architects
Could these words be costing you your dream job?
By Catherine Conlan, Monster Contributing Writer
Hiring managers and HR pros will often close out a job interview by asking an applicant if he or she has any questions themselves. This is a great opportunity to find out more about the job and the company’s expectations, but you can’t forget that the interviewer hasn’t stopped judging YOU. Here are 5 questions that can make a bad impression on your interviewer, scuttling your chances for getting the job.
1. “When will I be promoted?:
This is one of the most common questions that applicants come up with, and it should be avoided, says Rebecca Woods, Vice President of Human Resources at Doherty Employer Services in Minneapolis. “It’s inappropriate because it puts the cart before the horse.” Instead of asking when the promotion will occur, Woods says a better approach is to ask what you would need to do to get a promotion.
2. “What’s the salary for this position?”
Asking about salary and benefits in the first interview “always turns me off,” says Norma Beasant, founder of Talento Human Resources Consulting and an HR consultant at the University of Minnesota. “I’m always disappointed when they ask this, especially in the first interview.” Beasant says the first interview is more about selling yourself to the interviewer, and that questions about salary and benefits should really wait until a later interview.
3. “When can I expect a raise?”
Talking about compensation can be difficult, but asking about raises is not the way to go about it, Woods says. So many companies have frozen salaries and raises that it makes more sense to ask about the process to follow or what can be done to work up to higher compensation level. Talking about “expecting” a raise, Woods says, “shows a person is out of touch with reality.”
4. “What sort of flextime options do you have?”
This kind of question can make it sound like you’re interested in getting out of the office as much as possible. “When I hear this question, I’m wondering, are you interested in the job?” Beasant says. Many companies have many options for scheduling, but asking about it in the first interview is “not appropriate,” Beasant says.
5. Any question that shows you haven’t been listening.
Woods said she interviewed an applicant for a position that was 60 miles from the person’s home. Woods told the applicant that the company was flexible about many things, but it did not offer telecommuting. “At the end of the interview, she asked if she would be able to work from home,” Woods says. “Was she even listening? So some ‘bad questions’ can be more situational to the interview itself.”
With the economy the way it is, employers are much more choosy and picky, Beasant says. Knowing the questions to avoid in an interview can help you stand out — in a good way.
More interns are employed and getting licensed than during the throes of the recession. Read article http://www.aia.org/practicing/AIAB098254
aia, architect, architects, architecture, architecture jobs, Hiring trends, jobs, recession, unemployed architects
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architecture, Architecture billings index, David McFadden, design, jobs, recession, unemployed architects
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Online job ads for architects up 20% over year
Online job advertisements for architects rose 20 percent during the last 90 days compared to the same time period in 2012, according to Wanted Analytics, a firm that tracks online job ads. There were a total of more than 16,000 architect jobs advertised in the past 90 days.
New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., San Francisco and Houston topped the list of metropolitan areas with the most job ads for architects.
“Autodesk AutoCAD” was the most commonly required skill in architect jobs. In the past 90 days, 5,500 jobs required CAD skills, representing about 35 percent of all hiring demand.
The most commonly required skills in architecture jobs include:
Autodesk REVIT Architecture
Oral and written communication skills
Detail oriented
Self-starting/self-motivated
Project management
Organizational skills
Bentley MicroStation
Microsoft Office
Adobe Photoshop
Watch a new CCTV America video from the AIA.org website that highlights 7 consecutive months of gains in the industry
Temporary hiring takes center stage
U.S. temporary employment jumped by 20,300 jobs in March, compared with the previous month, and the year-over-year growth rate ticked up, according to seasonally adjusted numbers released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In addition, the number of temp jobs added in February was revised upward by 22,000 jobs.
Year-over-year growth in temp jobs had been decelerating since November. However, the number of temp jobs rose by 6.4 percent year over year in March, up from the 5.3 percent increase in February.
Further, the U.S. temp penetration rate rose to 1.94 percent in March from 1.93 percent in February.
However, the U.S. added fewer jobs overall in March than February. Total non-farm employment rose by 88,000 jobs in March compared with an increase of 218,000 in February – Sending a clear signal that firms are exercising caution, temporary hires outpaced permanent hires for the same period.
The U.S. unemployment rate still fell to 7.6 percent in March from 7.7 percent in February. The college-level unemployment rate, which can serve as a proxy for professional employment, was unchanged from February at 3.8 percent.
In other industries, construction added 18,000 jobs in March. The BLS reported construction has added 169,000 jobs since September.
Click on the chart below to enlarge.
Click on the chart below to enlarge.
This post is a composite of articles from Staffing Industry Analysts and AIA.org websites
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architecture, Architecture billings index, AutoCAD, Autodesk, bentley microstation, BLS, business, construction industry, construction spending, design, Houston, jobs, Los Angeles, New York, recession, Revit Architecture, San Francisco, unemployed architects, Washington D.C.
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When it comes to sourcing the right interview candidates, I’ve never been keen to use recruiters. But I recently changed my mind.
My company, Metal Mafia, has an excellent candidate screening process, a super training program, and a very successful team of employees to show for it.
But hiring has always been a difficult task for me because each time I get ready to hire, it takes me forever to find the right type of candidates to even get the screening process started.
Despite the fact that I carefully consider where to advertise for candidates–I try to maximize the search dollars and get a good mix of potential applicants–it always takes me a long time to find people suited well to the company, and therefore, even worth interviewing.
I’ve tried everything from placing ads on large job boards like Monster.com, to smaller specialized job boards that cater to sales hires or fashion jobs, to local university boards where I can post for free (or close to it). Each time, I experience the same slow crawl toward finally finding the right person. It has taken me up to five months to find the right kind of hire in the past. So in November when I decided I needed to think about hiring for the new year, I was not optimistic.
For me, recruiters have traditionally been out of the question because I figured they would be a waste of time and never be as good at sending me the right people for the job as I would be in reviewing resumes myself. They’re also too expensive for my small budget. But as I got ready to place my job ads again, one of my senior staff members came to me and offered me the name of a fashion recruiter she knew and thought could help. I was skeptical, but I called her anyway, figuring listening would cost me nothing.
The recruiter convinced me she would do a thorough job, but I still hesitated because of the price. I do not have large sums of money to devote to the hiring process, and by my calculations, when all was said and done, using the recruiter was going to cost me three times as much as my usual techniques. On the other hand, the recruiter would only charge me if she found someone I decided to hire, which meant I was risking nothing, and could always come back to my original methods. I bit the bullet and signed up, reminding myself “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
The recruiter sent me the resumes of 10 entry-level candidates. I screened six by phone, met three in person, and found the right hire–all in a month. The cost suddenly became much less, because I saved so much time in the process, and because I got a pool of applicants who were decidedly better to choose from than in the past. Even more interesting, perhaps, was an insight the right candidate shared with me during the interview process. When I asked why she had chosen to work with a recruiter rather than post on job boards, she said “because recruiters make sure your resume gets seen, while submitting via the Internet is like sending your resume into oblivion.”
If most people these days are thinking like my new hire, the recruiters will clearly have the best selection of candidates every time. Looks like I’ve got an essential new hiring strategy.
Vanessa Merit Nornberg: In 2004, Vanessa opened Metal Mafia, a wholesale body and costume jewelry company that sells to more than 5,000 specialty shops and retail chains in 23 countries. Metal Mafia was an Inc. 500 company in 2009. @vanessanornberg
architect, architecture, architecture jobs, construction, Consulting For Architects, David McFadden, Design, Freelancer tips, Hiring trends, Interior design, jobs, recession, unemployed architects
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Last month, the New York Times published an article discussing how while college is a great investment, a major in Architecture is not one. Because the unemployment rates for architecture graduates were the highest, that was the major to make the enemy. Let us forget the fact that the return on investment is not only higher than majors such as anthropology and archaeology whose median was $28,000 as well as the fact that journalism was not very far behind on unemployment numbers. Architecture is the enemy.
My response to this is two-fold: For one, it is a horrid recession for all majors as well as all graduates. Personally, I met a woman with two Masters in Government who has had to start her own freelance writing business to get food on her table. This is not the time to point fingers at anything, let alone educational factors. Secondly, like every major a person chooses, they must be passionate about it and ready to work in any avenue to survive. I see many majors today in the same boat as struggling actors, taking acting classes during the day and trudging through auditions…but one day find their break. Like every art-related career path like architecture, this is the life we chose. Statistics don’t make passion, people do.
architecture, architecture jobs, Hiring trends, starting a business, unemployed architects
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architecture as a major, architecture career, architecture jobs, architecture majors, architecture profession, architecture schools, architecture's future, economy and architecture, recession's affect on architecture
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The pace of purchased new homes fell to a 313,000 annual pace, the slowest since October. Though an analyst says there are signs of life in some regions, “we’re not seeing a broad-based recovery.”
(Bloomberg) – Purchases of new homes in the U.S. unexpectedly fell in February for a second month, a sign the recovery in the housing market may be uneven.
Sales dropped 1.6% to a 313,000 annual pace, the slowest since October, from a 318,000 rate in January that was weaker than previously reported, figures from the Commerce Department showed Friday in Washington. The median estimate of 78 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for 325,000.
Sales of new homes are struggling to gain momentum amid increasing competition from foreclosures, which are hurting all property values. Nonetheless, a pickup in hiring, growing incomes and mortgage rates near a record low are making all houses more affordable, which may help underpin the market.
“There are signs of life in the market in certain regions, but we’re not seeing a broad-based recovery,” said Michelle Meyer, a senior U.S. economist at Bank of America Corp. in New York, who forecast a 310,000 sales pace. “Builders are still competing with existing inventories. The spring selling season should show some modest improvement, but it will be limited.”
Economists’ estimates ranged from 310,000 to 350,000. The rate for January was previously reported at 321,000.
The recent slowdown in demand has pushed up the amount of time it takes to sell a new house. There were 150,000 new houses on the market at the end of February, matching the prior month’s record low. The supply of homes at the current sales rate climbed to 5.8 months’ worth from 5.7 months in January.
Purchases, tabulated when contracts are signed, fell in two of the four U.S. regions, led by a 7.2% drop in the South. Sales fell 2.4% in the Midwest and rose 14% in the Northeast and 8% in the West.
The regional breakdown affected prices as demand fell in the South and Midwest where homes are less expensive and rose in the Northeast and West where they are costlier.
The median sales price increased 6.2% in February from the same month last year to $233,700, Friday’s report showed.
New-home sales have lost their ability to forecast the broader market as demand shifts to previously owned houses. Purchases of existing homes are calculated when a deal closes about a month or two later. New properties made up almost 7% of the market last year, down from a high of 15% during the last decade’s housing boom.
Existing-home purchases eased to a 4.59 million annual rate last month from a 4.63 million pace in January, the National Association of Realtors reported this week. Even with the decline, January and February sales marked the strongest start to a year since 2007.
Home foreclosures remain a concern for builders. Filings fell 8% in February, the smallest year-over-year decrease since October 2010, as lenders began working through a backlog of seized properties, RealtyTrac Inc. said last week.
“February’s numbers point to a gradually rising foreclosure tide,” Brandon Moore, RealtyTrac’s CEO, said in the statement. “That should result in more states posting annual increases in the coming months.”
To hold down borrowing costs like mortgage rates, Federal Reserve policy makers last week said they will continue to swap $400 billion in short-term securities with long-term debt to lengthen the average maturity of the central bank’s holdings, a move dubbed Operation Twist.
The National Association of Realtors’s affordability index climbed to a record high in January, underpinning demand. That may be why builders are gaining confidence.
Builders this year have broken ground on homes at the fastest pace since October to November 2008, according to Commerce Department figures released this week. Permits for construction climbed to the highest level since 2008, the same report showed.
The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo index of builder confidence in March held at the highest level since June 2007. Sales expectations climbed for a sixth month, according to the March 19 report.
Ryland Group Inc., which builds homes with an average price of $255,000 in 13 states, said it has a positive outlook for 2012.
“We finished the year on a strong note, entered the year optimistic and still feel fairly optimistic today,” Larry Nicholson, president and CEO at the Westlake Village, Calif.-based company, said March 6 at an investor conference. “The good thing about the traffic we are seeing is it’s new traffic. We feel a lot better than we did a year ago. Hopefully, we can keep this trend up.”
‘Like’ CFA’s Facebook page for job openings for architects and interior designers
Check out CFA Founder/CEO David McFadden’s about.me profile!
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Unable to line up tenants, developer to cap his second Trade Center tower at seventh floor.
Developer Larry Silverstein is planning to halt construction by the end of the year on the second of the two towers he is currently building at the World Trade Center site if he can’t find a major office tenant, sources close to the company said.
Minor modifications have already been made to the ongoing construction of the tower that will allow it to be capped at the seventh floor—73 short of its planned height. Retail tenants would be sought for the seven-story podium.
If Mr. Silverstein finds a tenant before the tower is capped, he can go ahead and complete what will be known as 3 World Trade Center, although there might be some delays, depending on when the deal is struck. The building was slated to be completed in 2015.
Mr. Silverstein is not currently close to signing a tenant, sources said. The building’s cap can be removed and construction can resume after he finds one. Mr. Silverstein’s spokesman declined to comment.
The move to cap the tower stems from a 2010 agreement between the developer and the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, the site’s owner, to end a long-running feud. Under the deal, Mr. Silverstein has to pre-lease 400,000 square feet in his second tower, line up $300 million of private equity and secure private construction financing in order to qualify for debt guarantees from the Port, the city and the state.
But amid financial tumult in Europe, a weak U.S. economy and a cooling in the city’s office-leasing environment, Mr. Silverstein has been unable to attract a tenant. Experts say his near-term prospects are dim.
“The willingness of large-scale tenants to commit in this environment is limited because companies don’t want to go out and spend a lot of money,” said Peter Hennessy, president of Cassidy Turley’s New York Tristate Region. “It’s not the building; it’s the market.”
Cheaper to stay put
Despite a host of government incentives to lure firms to lower Manhattan, Mr. Hennessy estimates that a 400,000-square-foot tenant would need to spend about $100 million just to outfit an office. Faced with those kinds of costs in a lackluster economy, Mr. Hennessy said, it’s likely that more companies might opt to renew their current leases.
Morgan Stanley, for example, has been searching for months for between 1 million and 1.4 million square feet. Now, sources said, the bank is very close to renewing its lease at 1 New York Plaza and taking some additional space there, which would be a much more cost-effective option.
While other big companies—including Time Warner, News Corp. and Credit Suisse—continue to prowl the market for huge digs, their ranks are thinning. Last year, the number of tenants seeking more than 100,000 square feet tumbled 23%, from 74 to 57, according to Cushman & Wakefield Inc.
To land tenants, Mr. Silverstein faces competition from both existing buildings and other planned state-of-the-art towers. Related Cos. and Oxford Properties Group are seeking tenants for their massive project at the Hudson Yards west of Penn Station, while Brookfield Office Properties wants to lure firms to the 7.4 million-square-foot complex it plans in the same neighborhood. In addition, by the end of next year, as several large tenants move out, Brookfield will have 2.8 million square feet of space available at its World Financial Center—37% of its total—across West Street from Mr. Silverstein’s towers.
Seeing is believing
Sources say Mr. Silverstein’s tower has an advantage over other planned projects for now: Tenants can actually see the start of the building and visit the World Trade Center site. In contrast, except for one building, Related has to build a huge platform over the rail yards before it can start construction, as does Brookfield. That requires tenants with the imagination to envision the finished product and the confidence to take a chance that the neighborhood can be successfully transformed into a premier office market.
In addition, all three landlords are seeking tenants at a time when they are getting more skittish. While overall activity rose 16% last year, the amount of space leased in the second half of the year fell by 31% from the first half of 2011, and was down nearly 10% from the corresponding period in 2010.
Of course, large deals get done even during choppy times. Two months ago, luxury leather-goods maker Coach agreed to be the anchor tenant for a new tower at Hudson Yards. And just last week, publishing giant Condé Nast exercised its option to lease an additional 133,000 square feet at 1 World Trade Center. That will bring the publisher’s total to 1.19 million square feet in that building, which is being developed by the Port Authority and the Durst Organization.
But sources said the Condé Nast deal was heavily subsidized by the Port because it wanted a strong anchor tenant to establish 1 World Trade Center as a premier corporate location. For example, the Port has agreed to assume the last four or five years of Condé Nast’s lease at its current headquarters at 4 Times Square.
Mr. Silverstein has the right to build three office buildings on the World Trade Center site. The first, 4 WTC, is a 72-story building that is due to be completed next year. About 60% of it is leased. Below-ground infrastructure work is being done on the third tower that is expected to end soon, but the building is on hold indefinitely.
David Goldstein, an executive vice president at Studley, said it’s possible that Mr. Silverstein may find a tenant as firms seek to take advantage of the current environment.
“There are lots of opportunities in this market,” said Mr. Goldstein. “And I wouldn’t count Larry out.”
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debt guarantees, Larry Silverstein, office leasing, peter hennessy, retail tenants, term prospects, tower line, WTC
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Redeveloping the six-block-long property overlooking the Hudson will give a huge boost to efforts by the government and a growing number of developers to recreate the long-desolate far West Side of Manhattan.
Even Richard Kahan thinks it’s time to demolish the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center—and he built the facility 26 years ago, as head of the Convention Center Development Corp. Mr. Kahan also praises Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to transform the site into a mixed-use development modeled on Battery Park City—a project he also once led as the head of the BPC Authority.
“I don’t like seeing my buildings torn down, but a mixed-use project is the highest and best use for that site,” said Mr. Kahan.
Legions of real estate executives agree with him. They say that redeveloping the six-block-long property overlooking the Hudson will give a huge boost to efforts by the government and a growing number of developers to re-create the long-desolate far West Side of Manhattan. The governor’s vision of a mix of office buildings, apartment houses, museums and parkland for the 18-acre site would close a key gap. To the south below West 33rd Street is a fast-rising area along the hyper successful High Line and the ambitious Hudson Yards redevelopment. To the north across West 41st Street stands a bevy of newly constructed high-rise apartment towers.
“It’s a great location,” said Douglas Durst, chairman of the Durst Organization, a prominent family development firm. “I’m sure my family would be interested in it.”
New York history, however, is littered with big, bold plans that have gone nowhere, including plans for expanding Javits. The governor’s latest plans are particularly complicated. To move the project forward on the West Side, an immense new convention center must first be built in Queens, a task that carries its own challenges. Beyond that, crafting a new neighborhood on the Hudson will require billions of dollars, community consensus and a slew of government studies and approvals. And it comes as a time when financing for big projects has all but evaporated as developers from the neighboring Hudson Yards and Atlantic Yards in downtown Brooklyn can attest.
Lots of Upsides
Still, the proposal has significant advantages. The governor has anointed it a top priority, so he will likely use his considerable power to see it through. In addition, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has long set developing the far West Side and the city’s waterfront as goals of his administration. Meanwhile, the extension of the No. 7 subway line, slated to open in December 2013, will make it much easier to get there.
“There’s no reason this can’t be done,” said Mitchell Korbey, chair of the land use and environmental practice group at law firm Herrick Feinstein. “But projects like this take maybe 30 or 40 years.”
He said devising a detailed master plan that complements other initiatives in the area will be more important than building quickly. That means considering what Related Cos. and Oxford Properties Group are developing at Hudson Yards, a 26-acre site bounded by West 30th and West 33rd streets, on a platform over the rail yards west of Penn Station. Meanwhile, Brookfield Office Properties plans to build 5.2 million square feet of office space over the yards west of Ninth Avenue from West 31st to West 33rd streets. Hope also springs eternal that long-delayed plans to turn the stately post office across from Penn Station into a grand train depot named after the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan will materialize.
The developer with the most at stake is Related. It has several projects under way there. Late last year, Related and partner Oxford announced they would build the site’s first tower, a 51-story spire at West 30th Street that will be home for luxury leather-goods maker Coach. To build out the rest of the site, however, the developers must first erect a $1.6 billion platform over the tracks.
The timing of the Javits project could be critical for Hudson Yards. If it comes to fruition before Hudson Yards has lined up big tenants, Javits could pose a threat as a cheaper alternative, since it won’t require building a pricey platform. On the other hand, if the project takes too long, it could be an eyesore that drags down Hudson Yards’ value.
“We look forward to reviewing the details of the proposal, which is even further evidence of the potential of Manhattan’s West Side,” said a Related spokeswoman.
Source: Crain’s NY
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Douglas Durst, Herrick Feinstein, Hudson Yards, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Mitchell Korbey, Richard Kahan, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
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Did you know that seasonally adjusted full-time employment in September 2011 was lower than it was when the recession officially ended in June 2009, and that this was the case for 26 of the first 27 post-recession months? What’s more, the economy had over 8.7 million fewer full-time workers in November 2011 than it did when full-time employment peaked four years earlier in November 2007.
Full-time employment finally surpassed the June 2009 level for two consecutive months in October and November. Hopefully it will keep going up, but the economic policy barriers to continued improvement are quite substantial.
For those who are wondering, during the first 29 months after November 1982, the official end of the Reagan-era recession according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, full-time employment increased by almost 8 million:
Currently, the economy has 417,000 more full-time workers than it did when the recession officially ended in June 2009.
Readers will also see that the increases in the number of full-timers continued to climb after that. By the end of 1986, over 11 million more Americans (almost 14%) were working full-time than were doing so at the end of that era’s recession.
ISLE STYLE: An Escher-esque visualization of Cornell University’s bold new plan for a high-tech engineering campus on Roosevelt Island.
Proclaiming it a “defining moment” that will revolutionize the city’s economy, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday offered a first look at Cornell University’s gleaming-new graduate school for applied sciences that will be built on Roosevelt Island.
“It will transform our economy,” the mayor declared at a press conference just 72 hours after Stanford University stunned City Hall by announcing it was dropping out of the yearlong competition to attract a premier engineering school that will serve as one of his administration’s enduring legacies.
Bloomberg described the proposal submitted by Cornell and its partner, Israel’s Technion, as “far and away the boldest and most ambitious.”
“Their proposal called for the most students, about 2,000 a year, the most faculty, about 300, and the most building space, over 2 million square feet,” he said.
Cornell announced last week that it had received a $350 million gift, the largest in its history, from an anonymous donor for the project.
That deep-pocketed donor was revealed yesterday as Charles Feeney, a Cornell alum who made billions as the founder of the Duty Free Stores.
Seth Pinsky, president of the city’s Economic Development Corp., estimated that the number of engineering graduates here will increase by 85 percent once the campus is fully functional in 2037. Operations are scheduled to begin in leased space in September.
In addition to classrooms, labs and dorms, the $2 billion campus will includes “incubator space” for start-up companies and what was described as “spinout space” for commercial applications of research-and-development projects.
Cornell is also immediately establishing a $150 million fund for new tech ventures that agree to stay in the city for at least three years.
“History will write this was a game-changing time in New York City,” the mayor said at Cornell’s Upper East Side medical school.
Officials predicted that Cornell would eventually help generate 30,000 high-tech positions along with 20,000 construction jobs and 8,000 permanent jobs at the school.
The 11-acre school is to be built on land now occupied by Goldwater Hospital, whose patients are to be moved to the former North General Hospital Harlem.
People-powered
Cornell-Technion’s proposed graduate school for applied sciences
* Location: 11 acres on Roosevelt Island now occupied by Goldwater Hospital
* Total square feet: 2 million
* Completion date: 2037
* Permanent jobs: 8,000
* Temporary construction jobs: 20,000
* Jobs created from high-tech spinoffs, licenses and corporate growth: 30,000
SOURCE: NYC Mayor’s Office
architecture, architecture critic, architecture jobs, Design, Hiring trends, jobs, Landscape Architecture, modern architecture, new buildings, Residential, unemployed architects
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