Growth Opportunities in Architecture

Architecture offers promising growth opportunities for those who continuously learn and develop their skills. There are several paths for career advancement within the architecture profession, including:

1. Obtaining licensure: Becoming a licensed architect opens up opportunities for career advancement, such as taking on leadership roles in firms or starting your practice.
2. Pursuing specialized knowledge: Architects can pursue technical expertise in sustainable design, historic preservation, or healthcare design, leading to new career opportunities and higher salaries.
3. Advancing to management or leadership roles: Architects can progress to management or leadership roles within firms, which can involve overseeing multiple projects or teams.
4. Pursuing academic or research roles: Some architects seek educational or research roles in universities or research organizations, which can involve teaching or researching new design technologies and strategies.
5. Starting their practice: Architects can start their practice and be free to take on the types of projects they are interested in and build their brand.

Overall, the architecture profession can provide numerous opportunities for growth and advancement. Still, it requires a commitment to continuous learning and staying up-to-date with new technologies and trends in the industry.

Too Many Options? How to Decide Between Multiple Architect Positions the Professional Way

Whether you are in architecture or another industry, workers today are finding advantages to switching jobs periodically rather than remaining with the same company over a lifetime. From bigger paychecks to higher positions, the benefits of mobility cannot be understated. However, the way you move from one job to another speaks volumes about your professionalism as well as your capacity for working well with others. Consider these five tips to help you change architect positions without burning bridges.

The Time Factor

Giving notice is usually the first step toward moving up and on. However, how you handle your notice will make a significant impact on how your current employer views you once you are gone. While two weeks is the general rule for resignations, you may need to give time depending on your specific situation. The primary goal is to make the transition from you to your replacement as smooth as possible without sticking around long enough to make people feel awkward. When deviating from the two-week guideline, it is not usually advisable to change that by more than a week either way.

It’s Not What You Know

You know the adage, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” Every architect position you hold gives you the opportunity to build your professional network. You likely have some potentially valuable connections at your current company, which may prove beneficial in the future. Take the time to nurture those relationships before and after you switch companies and be sure to keep your contact information current in case previous contacts need to be in touch with you.

You Can’t Take it With You

Some things you should leave behind when you leave your position, such as company data, clients and fellow employees. Soliciting clients or employees is not an admirable practice and may be a violation of your contract. Take steps to separate your personal information from the company data file to avoid any suspicion of impropriety as you move to your next architect position. An attitude of transparency will make the difference in leaving your current employer on good terms.

Tie Up Loose Ends

At the same time, you also want to make sure you don’t leave any loose ends as you walk out the door. Personal belongings should be taken home with you as soon as you give notice. CNBC recommends you transfer benefits like your 401k as well. You also want to arrange to extend your healthcare benefits if your insurance coverage at your new company does not become effective right away.

Interview at the End Like You Did at the Beginning

Many companies have an exit interview at the end of an employee’s tenure. While this might seem like a tempting time to raise concerns or voice complaints, it is always best to keep this meeting just as professional and positive as your first interview was with the company. If you do have issues to bring up, do so in a positive way – in the interest of creating a better environment for your replacement and others.

NYT: Architecture Down…My Response..but not out

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.

Architects, Congress and the “S Corp.” tax hike

Very good article in THE HILL by George H. Miller, FAIA – 06/07/10 10:03 AM ET

When Congress returns this week, one of the first items on its agenda will be finding a way to pay for extending unemployment benefits to the millions of Americans who find themselves jobless even as the economy begins a slow and fitful recovery. The Senate hopes to begin work on the “tax extenders package” that was approved by the House of Representatives on May 28, just as lawmakers left for the Memorial Day Recess.

We sympathize with Congress as it looks for ways to pay for extending jobless benefits. Indeed, roughly 25 percent of my professional colleagues are unemployed – in some states the percentage is even higher – and would benefit from any extension, as well as from other provisions in the legislation, such as Build America Bonds. And yet, as world markets tremble from global debt anxiety, Congress is rightly pre-occupied with finding ways to fund the extension without adding to the ballooning deficit.

Bad decisions usually result when two such countervailing forces are at work. None is worse than the effort to help fund the extension by raising taxes on individuals and small businesses that form S Corporations. So-called S Corporations help to create jobs and economic growth by reinvesting hard-earned capital back into their enterprises. S-Corporation owners often pay themselves a salary, to which Social Security and Medicare taxes apply. But profits that are paid to the owner as a shareholder are not subject to payroll taxes. They will be for many S corporations, however, if this short-sighted provision passes and is signed into law by the President.

This type of tax hike comes at a time when many people – out of necessity due to layoffs and restructurings throughout the economy – are forming their own home-based consultancies, web design firms, landscaping enterprises and the like. If they structure themselves as an S Corporation – and many of them do – they would be caught up in this new tax just as they are planning to set up shop, hire staffers and buy the equipment they need to get started.

That is certainly the case in the architecture profession. We are struggling to find ways to restructure and resuscitate our careers and livelihoods after the collapse of the real estate market. Many of us operate as S Corporations, because it allows us the flexibility to compete in world markets and retain and attract the talent that has kept American architecture the envy of the world. We may be forced to lay off staff or stop hiring new staff to pay the new tax – even though this provision is in a “jobs” bill. The provision is particularly troubling in that it specifically calls out S corporations with three or fewer key employees.

We applaud Congress’s effort to find a way to extend unemployment benefits for individuals who need them. But as the economy begins to recover, now is the worst time to raise taxes on a sector that is a catalyst for job growth in the design and construction industry. After 27 consecutive months of contracting, the American Institute of Architects in May reported that architectural billings have trended upward for the third consecutive month. That’s an indication that new construction could be on the rise in nine to 12 months, which would create more jobs and advance our nation’s economic recovery.

Rather than hike taxes, Congress should enact legislation that generates revenue with little or no cost to the Treasury. One such bill is H.R. 5249, the Capital Access for Main Street Act of 2010, introduced by Reps. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) and Mike Coffman (R-CO). This legislation would change accounting rules for community banks with less than $10 billion in assets as they work with borrowers to renegotiate loan terms, avoid large sums of commercial foreclosures, and free up credit that can be used more constructively.

Unscrupulous businesses do use S corporation status to avoid paying their proper share of taxes and they should be caught and punished. But the Internal Revenue Service is already empowered to address that issue. This tax hike lumps together the good and the bad, penalizing thousands of honest small businesses that follow the rules. We strongly urge Congress not to support this inappropriate tax increase.

George H. Miller is president of the American Institute of Architects, based in Washington, D.C.