How You Hire The Best UK Architectural Professionals
When an architecture practice needs to recruit talented Architects or entice ambitious Architectural Assistants to apply, advertising architecture jobs can be a daunting task. While access to online resources has made it easier to advertise specific roles, it can be difficult to compose a job advert that attracts the best, whether your need is for architects, designers, planners, etc.
In addition, it’s likely to become even more difficult to find the talented employees your practice needs to reach its full potential and achieve its financial and client goals.
Here we lay outline six recruitment strategies you can use to connect with the best architects and excite them with the prospect of working for your practice.
1. Employ Social Media
Social media can be an excellent source of potential candidates, especially LinkedIn. Your practice can share its open positions with its network, and thus begin the two-way conversations that could lead to talent discovery.
Your connections who aren’t interested in the role you have open may share with their network, giving you a wider and deeper reach.
However, social media should not only be used for those times when you have a hiring need. By having a consistent and constant presence on social media, and sharing employee and client experiences, you provide potential candidates with the opportunity to learn more about your company and become excited about the prospects of working with you.
2. Encourage Referrals From Your Employees
Your existing employees could be one of the best sources of potential candidates available to you. They understand company culture, know the challenges, and can champion the benefits of working for your practice. They are also likely to know many people with similar attributes to those that make your current employees such an asset.
An employee referral programme could pay lucrative dividends, encouraging your best employees to introduce the best talent they know to you.
3. Check Out Online CVs
Many online jobsites host the CVs of jobseekers online. These can generally be searched easily, using keywords such as job titles and geography, and narrowing down using criteria that may include search terms covering experience, qualifications and skills. However, searching through what could be dozens of CVs online can be a taxing task.
4. Engage a Specialist Recruitment Consultancy as a Hiring Partner
You may outsource the recruitment process to a specialist recruitment agency. Putting recruitment into the hands of professionals with specific and in-depth market knowledge is a strategy used by most companies in the industry.
Specialist recruiters provide far-reaching benefits to their client, such as:
- Knowledge of available talent in your field
- Industry salary and remuneration packages
- A reach to talent that you are unlikely to possess, including potential candidates that may not currently be ‘active’ in their job search
- You don’t have to deal with unvetted and unsuitable applicants – the reputation of specialist recruiters relies on their ability to identify and source suitable candidates
Specialist architecture recruiters can also help architecture practices and employers with their employer branding, providing potential candidates with valuable insight into your company that could make the difference in securing a candidate’s signature to an architect job offer.
5. Attend Design Events
Attendance at industry events, lectures, meetups and panels – or even hosting them – provides the opportunity to increase your network of architectural professionals, build your market authority, and uncover potential candidates. Professional networking is a proven strategy for those seeking a job to improve their chances of learning of unadvertised positions, architect jobs that are advertised but they are unaware of and to discover that you are hiring.
6. Revisit Past Applicants
It’s often the case that it proved difficult to choose between two or three exceptional candidates when making a previous hire. There may have been the smallest factor that led you to the selection you eventually made. If you are recruiting for a similar role, it may be worth considering these previously unsuccessful candidates. Remember, too, that their experience and skill set is likely to have improved since you last spoke with them.
Finally, some quick advice on interviewing architects
When interviewing for a new architect, including existing employees and other partners in the interview process can be rewarding. Not only are you engaging them more fully in another side of the business, and helping them to up-skill, but they will also be in a unique position to help you in the recruitment process. As colleagues, they already understand how your company operates, and what type of architect is likely to stand out in the role and in your team. They will also be able to answer questions about day-to-day life in the team, and their involvement in the interview will help architects to see the open and welcoming culture of your practice.
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