What is the best way to approach employers? How much contact is too much contact. What is the most effective means to send your materials? These are all question that we will discuss today and hopefully, we can get a lot of reader opinion about what works and what doesn’t.

The other day, a Young Architect reader, Tyler, wrote in asking a question that many of us have when we are job-searching. Here is his question to me:

“How much contact is too much contact? I would like to keep in touch with the firms I really want to work for, but how much is too much?  For instance, an associate at one of my favorite firms is in close contact with one of the professors I was really close with.  Through communication, he said that we should get together and have coffee some time.  That was a while ago, and I contacted him once shortly after he offered coffee.  About 3 weeks ago I contacted him again via email.  I understand he is probably busy and receives lots of emails.  He was also the contact to whom I believe most resumes/portfolios go to.  Which brings me back to my next question:

In regards to sending in resumes/cover letters/portfolios I follow the practice of using submission guidelines post on a firms website.  However, when no guidelines are given or one wants to send their information directly to someone specifically is it better to email or send via snail-mail?”

The Issues

Tyler is wondering about a number of things here:

1. How much pestering contact is too much and where do you draw the line between being persistent and annoying?
2. What is the most effective way to send your resume to employers when they do not specify how to submit your materials?

The answer to each question is “It Depends.”

But that would be too easy for me to say. So I’ll try to break it down a little bit.

How Much Contact Is Too Much?

To answer this question, we really need to think about who we are individually and who we are pursuing. There are certain personality types that will just leave it at an introductory e-mail and will never contact that person again. Others will follow up with a phone call, a reminder e-mail and thank-you notes as a rule.

In general, the more that you are willing to put yourself out there, the better your success rate will be. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

Also, we should look at this question form the employer’s angle. Often, things like e-mails and casually mentioning meeting for coffee are things that get forgotten after…2 minutes. People are busy and our attention spans are short. Sending a reminder e-mail to someone is simply courteous. I’m sure that in Tyler’s case, the person’s suggestion to meet for coffee was genuine and he would still be receptive to meeting up. Just know that people are busy and they don’t mean to blow you off.

If your reasons for contacting that person are to mutually benefit each other, then why wouldn’t you be persistent? Just know that you must be coming from a place where you are trying to help and add value. People don’t like feeling used to accomplish other people’s goals, even interviewers. That is why I advocate the Informational Interview over badgering someone for an interview for employment.

So, when seeking out job leads, it is most important to establish Rapport and build a friendship of sorts.

Rapport = Trust + Comfort

Snail Mail Vs. E-mail

This is a very typical question and people differ in their viewpoints about their answers.

The answer is that it depends on your style and who you are aiming for.

I personally set up all of my materials electronically so e-mail works best for me. I do this because it is low-cost and low-hassle. I just attach a file in an e-mail and they have everything that they need from me. I also learned that manufacturing physical portfolios and putting together nice packaging was very unrewarding when no one would follow up. So for me, I chose to have everything digital and cheap.

I also only send out resumes when I see a job posting. However, many large firms are always looking at resumes and if it is your goal to work for a big firm, then it is perfectly fine to send them your materials unsolicited. That is how I attained my first job.

I think other people with a different personality than mine like genuinely the process of putting together resume packages. Casey Kent, from the first resume workshop was adamant that he wanted to send out packages and hand-make all of his materials. He even went so far as to custom-design an array of stationary to match his resume. In this case, Casey seems to just enjoy the process of making this material and creating “an experience” for the employer.

Finally, if you are going to send out your materials via snail-mail, make them memorable. I say this because mail is not all the same. If you are going to send something in the mail, it should be almost like an artifact. This is covered in Jonathon Fields’ book, Career Renegade, where he talks about ways in which you can get the attention of influential people.

One of the best ways to grab someone’s attention is to send it in overnight mail. Yes, this is expensive, but the employer will see that you have specifically targeted them and that you view your materials as very important. There is an urgency to this kind of mail that stands out.

I sent an overnight package to LA years ago to a firm that I loved. I sent it so urgently because I was vacationing in LA and decided to “job-hunt” at the last minute. While I didn’t get a job, I did receive an awesome phone call from the principal of the firm. She explained that they were not hiring but that she appreciated the package that I sent.

With that said, physical mail is not my style anymore, but that doesn’t mean it can’t work.

Reader’s Thoughts

Okay so it’s your turn. What do you think about networking or seeking out job leads? Are there any rules of thumb you can suggest? Do you have any stories of what worked and did not work?

How about the delivery method? Snail mail or E-mail. What works and what does not?

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1. Resume Hacking
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3. Workshops To Continue…

We have been talking about and reviewing resumes lately. That’s all fun but I want to add a little interest to this discussion. Today, we are going to talk about an experiment that you can do to inform your resume materials and ensure that your submissions get noticed. In fact, I guarantee that you will have more success once you have completed this experiment.

Do I have your attention now?

Good.

The Experiment

This experiment actually has its roots in the Pick-Up Artist (PUA) community whereby horny men determine the best way to approach women online and set themselves apart from the other less creative horny men. Sounds like a stretch right?

What you will learn from this experiment is simply what your competition is doing and what methods are the most effective. While this method is by no means ethical, it is still way too effective to ignore.

In short what we are going to do is advertise (for free) for the exact  job that we are looking for, monitor the submissions that we get from other job seekers,  select the most effective excerpts from those submissions, and re-apportioning them for our own use.

If you are interested in learning how to implement this strategy, here are the steps:

Step 1: Find Your Ideal Job

Go onto the large national databases for architecture jobs (Archinect, AIA, etc…). From there, search for you ideal job; the job that best fits your experience level and career pursuits.

Once you find that perfect job description, copy the text straight from the advertisement and paste it in a text file. Be sure to eliminate any text that refers to specific comapny names or projects. Note: You might want to chose a job advertisement that is out of your region so as to not confuse people when you advertise later.

Step 2: Advertise For Your Ideal Job

In this step, you will put on your management cap.

Open up your local craigslist job site.  Go into the arch/engineering jobs link and, at the upper right-hand corner, click “post.” From here you will be able to create a job-wanted ad. Insert the text that you saved earlier into the advertisement. Keep your e-mail confidential and use your regular e-mail account for the contact. Submit the advertisement.

Step 3: Collect Resumes

There is not much to this step. Simply save all of the submissions that you get from other job seekers into a folder on your computer. Leave it alone for a few days and let the resumes pile up.

After about a week, you can take your advertisement off of craigslist.

Step 4: Review Resumes

Once you have all of your submissions, read through all of the materials you received. Note what the applicants did well and what they did poorly. You may be surprised to find a wide array of quality in the resume submissions.

Pay particular attention to the cover letters and resumes. It is here that you can really steal a lot of content from others. I say “steal” but really I mean that you can use the wording that people used that was the most effective. Put yourself in the mind of an employer and seek out the material that appeals to you most.

• I would caution against reading into portfolios and websites too much. You might find yourself in a position where you are trying to copy multiple presentation styles, which could lead to a very inauthentic portfolio on your own part.

You may only find a few excerpts that you can really use for your own materials. That is okay however because you only need a little bit to really enhance your own resume materials.

Step 5: Enhance Your Materials

Now, based on the wealth of information that you have gathered, you can really polish your stuff.

Closing Thoughts

This method can really help to push people to the next level in their job search. It is difficult to mindlessly send out resumes in a vacuum and receive no feedback. Through this experiment, you can eliminate mistakes that many people make while utilizing effective techniques to make your materials stand out.

Enjoy and let me know how it goes in the comments below!

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2. Young Architect Resume Workshop
3. Resume Workshop: Undergraduate Resume Critique

Last week’s Resume Workshop was a great success as the resume entries all received great feedback from other readers and were able to come away from the experience with a ton of suggestions for what to do with their resumes. So, building upon that success, I would like to make the workshop a weekly feature on a trial basis. Here are the details.

Details

Each week, I will open up submissions for resume, portfolio and cover letter reviews. Each Monday I will pick one submission from the previous week’s submissions at random. Throughout that week, readers will have the opportunity to review and comment on other people’s materials. This way, readers will be able to see what other job seekers are doing to prepare for their job hunt and we can see different perspectives on what people like and dislike.

How To Submit Your Materials

You can submit your materials to youngarchitectonline@gmail.com with the subject line “Young Architect Workshop.” You can submit just about anything to be reviewed from your resume, portfolio, website, cover letter…whatever. As I will be picking the submissions at random, I won’t be picky about the material that is submitted.

Please submit a PDF file or a link that can redirect to any files already stored online. I can’t post large PDF files to this website due to server limitations, but I would be happy to post a link to larger files.

What If Your Submission Is Not Featured?

I will only be accepting one submission per week. If yours was not chosen, submit your materials again for the following week. I am not anticipating a large amount of submissions so you should eventually get your turn.

If you are impatient, you can also post a link to your resume/portfolio on the Young Architect Facebook fanpage. Readers have been pretty good at providing feedback there so far.

Closing Thoughts

So we will see how this goes. I am encouraged after last week and I am interested in seeing if this forum has legs. Submit your resumes today for consideration next week…or…let me know what you think about the workshop in the comments below!

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Today, we are going to take a look at the other resume featured in our workshop. This resume was submitted by Casey Kent who is a graduate student looking to re-enter the struggling architecture industry.

First Impressions

If this were a competition (which job opportunities are) Casey would have gotten the most callbacks for interviews out of the two resumes. This is simply because his resume is memorable.

Casey has a bold color scheme which matches with his website, which is actually more impressive than his resume, in my opinion. I feel that his color scheme can be tweaked to allow for his resume to be printed out easily on a laserjet. Casey should adjust the tone of either the pink lettering or the gray background to create a contrast between the two. I would suggest going with a lighter shade of pink for his lettering.

Major Problem

In his comments on the original post, Casey has been insistent that he is going to hand-manufacture these resumes. I find that to be a huge trap that he is getting himself into and a stumbling point that will retard his application process. Still, this is a very typical pursuit, particularly from recent graduates. These students have ideas of limiting their job-hunt to a select few dream-firms, thinking that their creativity is going to blow them away. I think that Casey has the creativity to impress employers, but in these times, these are not realistic expectations.

Here are thoughts that come to mind when I see someone looking to do this.

• Why would Casey want the burden, cost and responsibility of creating all of these physical artifacts?
• Understand, that regardless of your intentions, it will be photocopied and/or printed out in b/w, whether you like it or not.
• Casey’s resume was on an unusual size PDF, 6″x20″, so it would not print out on a standard 8.5″x11″ laserjet.
  • Casey insists that his resume won’t be distributed digitally, but has a more traditional resume for distribution.
• Why would you want to fold your resume? It is another manufacturing process for Casey to do, and it requires precision.
• Couldn’t the two-pages be consolidated into a one page, one sided document?
  • That could be used as a digital copy to be distributed instead of a “traditional” document. Why have two seperate resumes when one can serve multiple purposes?
• On a positive note, I do like that Casey has mentioned that he has a coordinated set of stationary to compliment his resume. The thorough thought that has gone into his “branding” is to be admired.

Points Of Contact

Should simply be “Contact.”

Objective

Casey’s objective needs to be simplified down to one sentence which stated the kind of position that he is looking for. The rest, the selling of yourself and the ideals you are looking for in your future company,  should be included in your cover letter.

Education

Omit High School. Unless the school is exceptional, it is not necessary. Everyone that has a college degree has most likely graduated from high school. Instead of adding to your resume, it comes off as “filer.”

Work Experience

I like what Casey has done in his work experience. It is neat and concise. Casey also uses action verbs in describing his duties.

My only concern here is that Casey seems to reuse the same text in his “DLR” and “Zmistowski” experience. I would just run a thesaurus by the text and change up some of the verbs. Other than that tiny suggestion, the content here is solid.

Personal Interests

There is far too much text here and it needs to be simplified.

I debated whether including this section is good or not; whether it adds value or just takes up space on the page. I feel that it this section is fine if the content demonstrates value and encourages interest. I like knowing that you have a wife and a dog. However, as an employer, I don’t want to know about your golf handicap. It comes off as being more “cute” than “professional.”

I think that Casey’s “Random Thoughts” section of his website illustrates more about him than his “Personal Interests” section, or even the “Objective” section for that matter. I don’t really know how these would correlate, but I think that if your resume is intriguing enough without those sections, that your employer will visit your website and find out about you themselves.

Closing Thoughts

As I mentioned with my critique of Patrick’s resume, please take these suggestions with the best of intentions and incorporate those suggestions that you most agree with.

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1. Resume Workshop: Undergraduate Resume Critique
2. Resume Workshop: Here Are The Resumes!
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You have all had a chance to review the resumes for this week. Now you get to see what I have to say about them. Here, I will review the undergraduate level resume submitted by Patrick Beseda.

First, all of your comments have been awesome and I feel that I don’t even need to post my own critique. Still, I had planned on putting my input into these resume reviews and I am going to follow through. So here goes nothing.

First Impressions

At first glance, Patrick’s resume looks very basic and novice. It lacks much of the flair and sexiness that we often see in many student resumes/portfolios. So that could be a potential negative to his resume. I personally do not think it is too simple though. I am prone to liking minimalism and I would rather see less than more. With that said, if you are pursuing a simple resume, whatever you do present has to be elegant.

I would suggest going away from a Times New Roman font and going with an Arial or Calibri. I would use different fonts and font sizes for section headings, school names and employment positions. Look for fonts with crisp clean lines like the ones I mentioned above.

On a positive note, Patrick’s resume is one page. I cannot stand seeing multiple paged resumes.

Navigation

One thing that Patrick’s Resume is lacking is hierarchy. This is where visually you can easily navigate through a page as the most important headings help to organize the document.

Additionally, Patrick needs to group his contact info. I would place all contact information aligned to the right of his name.

Objective

I noticed that there was some discussion about objectives in the comments and many people thought that they were not necessary. I would ordinarily agree but not in Patrick’s case. Here an objective statement is warranted because his previous work experience and his degree do not hint that he is looking for an architectural job.

His objective however should be less vague and more specific. His first sentence to me: “I’m a structural engineering student looking to work in the architecture industry.” speaks more to his intent than his objective statement currently does.

Education

Patrick should eliminate his GPA score. A 3.0 does not stand out in a heap of resumes and screams average (I wasn’t even a 3.0 student in undergrad so I am speaking from a point of empathy here). As a rule of thumb, only include a GPA if you were near the top of your class.

Also note that the Education section should be at the top of the page (above the Work Experience) if you are a student or recent grad. If you have recently been laid off and are searching for a job, your work experience should go before your Education.

Work Experience

I don’t really have a problem with the content of Patrick’s Work Experience section because he really does not have any relevant architecture experience. So instead, Patrick is highlighting his versatility.

This section reads sloppy however. The dates are pushing everything else to the right of the page. Instead, Patrick should include the dates underneath the name of th company he was working for. That way the resume will read better as a whole and he can take up more vertical space on the page.

Next, I would move your experience with The Oredigger to the top of this section because it is a current job of yours. Some might say that the Intern position is more relevant and should be at the top, but I think that both employment experiences are equally important to this section.

Activites

I think Patrick’s activities are fine. I would omit the words “member” from them because it goes without saying and highlights that he did not take an active role in the organization.

Skills

If Patrick has professional experience analyzing, designing, and surveying, then they should be listed under work experience. If he learned this scholastically, then they should be included as bullet points under his Education.

Other Ideas

Patrick might want to add more meat to his resume by highlighting awards he has received or publications he has been featured in, if any.

In Closing

So those are just some of my quick notes on Patrick’s resume. Many of my comments are similar to those posted by other readers. As with all advice, I would tell Patrick to take the advice that he likes and forget about any advice that he doesn’t agree with.

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Last week, I put together something fun that I think many of you tech-savvy people might be interested in. In short, it is a Twitter list following some of the top architecture news and commentary on the Web.

After running a quick poll on the Facebook group, and searching through other Twitter lists that youngarchitect was featured on, I thought it would be a good idea to put together a resource for the Young Architects out there that would like to stay on top of architecture news and to find opportunities within the building and construction fields.

So now I give you Twitterarchi.

Work In Progress

Now I want to make it clear that this list is just a first stab at putting together a comprehensive list of architecture-centric twitter feeds. It will evolve over time. I have already added and deleted feeds on the list according to how valuable the content being offered was.

For instance, I removed the Treehugger feed because it completely dominated the list. They post far more often than the other feeds and the content was not even relevant to the construction/architecture community.

Likewise, I added the AIA National feed because they pose good questions. This despite the fact that in general, I think the AIA sucks, or at least their website and programs.

Grow The List

So now I hand it over to you. Write me, comment below, contribute to the facebook group, @youngarchitect me, …whatever… and let me know who I should add to this list to make it even better.

And please, if you are looking for a great place to find architecture news without going to all kinds of websites, just add the Twitterarchi list to your Twitter profile. It is that simple.

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Work is essential for a productive life. However, your work comprises only a portion of a fulfilled life. It is necessary to pursue balance in your daily schedule to lead a happy life. Balance is what will keep you from becoming burned out.

Bad Overtime! Bad!

Anyone who knows me or has read my blog for a while (there were two years of posts before my site crashed) will know that I view overtime as a major no-no.

My workday is from 8:30am to 6:30pm each weekday. That comes out to roughly 9 hours a day when you factor in a lunch. I also give myself a half day each Friday so it all evens out to about 40 hours a week.

I tell you this because I want to highlight the fact that recently, I have cut all of my work, including the writing for this blog and the development of other side projects, down to this timeframe.

I thought that this post would be timely as I had originally intended to post the resume submissions for the Resume Workshop on Monday. However, we were busy at work and I needed to pick up the slack on someone else’s projects. I love days where I spend all day grinding out projects and being super-productive. It reminds me that I like architecture a lot because I work hard but enjoy the work I do.

Though I was working hard yesterday, I still arrived and left work on time.

It was the other work, my side projects and this blog, that needed to take a backseat in order for me to focus fully on my pressing architectural projects…the stuff that pay the bills.

My Personal Change

A little more about me:

I take on way too many projects. If you were to ask those that have worked with me or my family and friends, they would generally site my weakness as having too many interests or projects. It seems that despite all of my efforts, I am not a great multi-tasker. I take comfort in the idea that I don’t think most people are good at concentrating on various projects at once either.

Not too long ago, I was drowning in my projects. I was having nervous breakdowns, panic attacks and restless sleep. Every aspect of my life was on shaky ground.

So I did what I normally do in these situations; I analyzed the problem to death. I became a mini-expert in personal development, productivity, minimalism/simplicity, spiritualism, and life-hacking.

The one truth that I found to change my life the most drastically, was that I needed to eliminate all of the extraneous aspects of my life.

In a book I am currently reading, The Art of Happiness, by the Dalai Lama, he sums up my revelation very well:

“…one begins by identifying those factors which lead to happiness and those factors which lead to suffering. Having done this, one then sets about gradually eliminating those factors which lead to suffering and cultivating those which lead to happiness. That is the way.”

I identified overwork, including on my own side projects, as a source of suffering. I completely avoid my laptop at home now. Instead, I will relax and read a book like the one above. Keeping these clear boundaries establishes priority in my life. It also establishes balance.

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Last week, I posted that I would be doing a resume workshop. The readers have submitted their entries so now it’s time to take a look at the resumes that we will be discussing this week.

First, I want to apologize for the delay. I had intended to post this on Monday. However, we have been working hard recently at the office which is a welcome change from our normal thumb-twiddling.

Onward and upward.

Below you will find the two resumes that were submitted.

What!?! You may have been expecting to see 5 resumes and a portfolio to review. Unfortunately, I was a little too ambitious and I expected a larger response from our tiny little community here. I realized this about 5 seconds after I published the post. Such is life!

But I do think that the two examples are good ones to start with.

Resume 1: Undergraduate

This resume is from Patrick Beseda, a student. Here is what he wrote me:

I’m a structural engineering student looking to work in the architecture industry. Hopefully after my undergraduate degree I’ll get into a M Arch program. I have a strong interest in architecture and it’s definitely what I want to do as a career. I was also wondering if you could give me a few suggestions for places to start looking for internship work, either as an engineer interested in architecture or a beginning architecture student.

And here is his resume (click to view PDF):

Resume 2: Graduate

This resume is from Casey Kent, a graduate student. Here is what he wrote me:

I’d love some feed back on my CV.  My main intent is to grab some attention and give the receiving companies a teaser of both my graphic competency and brief skill set.  Is it too much?  I’v gotten good review from prof’s and some local professionals.

And here is his resume (click to view PDF):

Analysis

Before I put my two cents in, what do you guys think? What is good about these resumes? What is bad about them? How can they become better? Do their resumes help to achieve their goals that they wrote to me about? Could you take anything that they have done and use them on your own resume?

I will be posting my own analysis of these resumes later this week. Until then, I hope that you, the reader, can help out Patrick and Casey.

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1. Resume Workshop: Undergraduate Resume Critique
2. Resume Workshop: Graduate Resume Critique
3. Young Architect Resume Workshop

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Would you like another opinion about your resume and portfolio? If so then today is your lucky day!

I’m feeling pretty generous today so I thought I would help you guys out. I have received numerous requests via e-mail to review resumes, cover letters and portfolios since starting Young Architect. In every case, I have been more than happy to help out and I have received positive feedback as a result.

Today I am looking to extend this service but on a public forum. If you are looking to makeover your resume and portfolio, let me know over the next week.

The only caveat here is that you must be willing to share your resume or portfolio with the Young Architect audience. If you are concerned about sharing your info or your school/employment info, then we can use generic names.

I will pick five resumes and one portfolio to review next week. Get yours in ASAP to be considered. If you are interested send me a message and/or your materials at youngarchitectonline@gmail.com.

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Related posts:

1. Resume Workshop: Undergraduate Resume Critique
2. Resume Workshop: Here Are The Resumes!
3. Workshops To Continue…