doi:10.4236/ce.2012.326153

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Creative Education

2012. Vol.3, Special Issue, 1016-102 3

Published Online October 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ce) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2012.326153

1016

“I Wish for More Than I Ever Get”: Employers’ Perspectives on

Employability Attributes of Architecture Graduates

Susan J. Shannon

School of Architecture, L a n ds c ap e Ar c h it e ct u re and Urban Design, The University of Adelaide,

Adelaide, Australia

Email: [email protected]

Received August 30th, 2012; revised September 2 8th, 2012; accepted Octo ber 12th, 2012

This research considers graduate recruitment for architecture graduates. Employers in small, medium and

large Australian firms, from the private and public sector were surveyed about their graduate hiring prac-

tices. Through distilling the discipline specific Graduate Attributes for all Australian Architecture

Schools’ Architecture Programs and generic Graduate Attributes for their Universities, the researcher

compiled a questionnaire which was administered to prospective employers of architecture graduates. The

results reveal that the possession of technical knowledge is more highly rated as a Graduate Attribute in

recruitment than the possession of design knowledge/skills, and that the possession of Computer Aided

Design (CAD) representation skills is more important to graduate recruiters of all firm sizes than either

technical or design knowledge and skills. The research further revealed that the presentation of a portfolio

is a key recruitment tool for employers, and that the demonstration of team work is a highly valued ge-

neric attribute for employers.

Keywords: Architecture Graduates; Employability; Graduate Attributes; Portfolio; Team Work

Introduction

This study of architecture graduate employers’ expectations

is nested within a broader exploration of the transition of Built

Environment and Design graduates from University to the

workplace from the perspective of graduates, employers and

academics (Savage, Davis, & Miller, 2009). This research study

narrows that broader study to a consideration of graduate re-

cruitment for Australian architecture graduates. In particular, it

seeks to understand architecture graduate (public and private

sector) employers’ behavior and criteria in hiring graduates. It

evaluates their beliefs in hiring graduates against a simplified

summary of the published Graduate Attributes elicited from the

seventeen 2010 Schools of Architecture in Australia, as well as

the list of employability characteristics developed by the Com-

monwealth of Australia Government (Australian Government,

2010).

As a result it explores whether a focus on current Graduate

Attributes is educating architecture graduates to productive

engagement with industry at the point of graduation, and whethe r

scarce resources are sufficiently devoted during architectural

education towards the attributes currently sought by employers.

In particular it focuses on the value employers place on posses-

sion of technology and technical skills in the graduate recruit-

ment process, both as a measure of future proofing, in the sense

of technical skills possibly enabling a more complete under-

standing of sustainability and familiarity with technology pro-

viding for more effective work practices (Australian Govern-

ment, 2010), and as a key discipline-specific graduate attribute

along with design skills and computer-aided design (CAD)

representation skills. The key terms “employability skills”, and

“graduate attributes” are defined within the broader, and then

Australian context to better understand these key curriculum

drivers in any architectural education.

Graduate Attributes

Many universities are addressing the importance of employ-

ability skills through their graduate attributes (Nair, Patil, &

Mertova, 2009: p. 132) which the Australian government had

said “provided a framework of generic attributes that ideally

every graduate should have” and that “analysis of graduate

attributes from a significant number of universities shows that

employability skills, as outlined in the Employability Skills

Framework may reasonably be seen as a subset of graduate

attributes” (Precision Consultancy, 2007: p. 2). The Australian

Technology Network (ATN) universities agreed that graduate

attributes are “the qualities, skills and understanding a univer-

sity community agrees its students should develop during their

time with the institution and consequently, shape the contribu-

tion they are able to make to their profession and as a citizen”

(Bowden, Hart, King, Trigwell, & Watts, 2002).

Employability—General

Why is employability so important to Universities? Hesketh

(2000: p. 46) relates that UK employers’ perceptions that gra-

duate education and training exists to prepare students for the

world of work and that government, industry and students sup-

port this proposition. Hesketh says that employers are dissatis-

fied with the attributes of the individuals they recruit from uni-

versities. In the Australian context “employability skills are the

skills required to not only to gain employment but also to pro-

gress within an enterprise so as to achieve one’s potential and

contribute successfully to enterprise strategic directions… Sys-

tems currently in place hold universities accountable for their

S. J. SHANNON

graduates’ success in gaining employment” (DEEWR, 2002 in

Franz, 2008: p. 2)

At the broadest Australian level, the Graduate Employability

Skills Report, presented the findings of a research consultancy

which investigated how Universities develop and integrate

employability skills into their programs of study; how Univer-

sities teach and assess employability skills, and how graduate

employability skills might be assessed and reported on (Preci-

sion Consultancy, 2007 prepared for the Business, Industry and

Higher Education Council).

Precision reflects that the Employability Skills Framework

“communication, team work, problem solving, self manage-

ment, planning and organizing, technology, lifelong learning,

and [creative] initiative and enterprise” are seen as highly rele-

vant to the needs of industry. “Broadly speaking industry rep-

resentatives are satisfied with the technical or discipline-spe-

cific skills of graduates, but for some there is a perception that

employability skills are underdeveloped. Some employers be-

lieve that universities are providing students with a strong

knowledge base but without the ability to intelligently apply

that knowledge in the work setting” (Precision, 2007: p. 2).

Some evidence exists about the extent to which Australian

Universities are meeting employers’ broad needs. The longi-

tudinal survey of Australian youth (LSAY) (ACER, 2005) com-

prises 1995 and 1998 Yr 9 (15 years old) school cohorts sur-

veyed in 2006 (when respectively 25 and 22 years old) about

their employability skills (eligibility for this part of the survey

hinged on whether they had completed a degree or honors de-

gree in the previous 12 months).

“The proportion of respondents saying that the university

course prepared them well or very well for employability skills

was lower than the proportion saying that these skills were

important/very important for all employability skills. The aver-

age gap was just under seven percentage points for the younger

cohort but over 11 percentage points for the older cohort. For

the 1995 cohort, the gap was largest for teamwork, communica-

tion and planning/organization. For the 1998 cohort, the dispar-

ity was greatest for communication, initiative and creativity and

technology skills” (Precision Consultancy, 2007: p. 35). The

data indicates that employability skills are seen by graduates as

highly relevant to their roles and that on the whole they believe

that universities provided them with the skills they needed al-

though slightly less so for the older cohort (Precision Consul-

tancy, 2007: p. 36). Precision conclude that Universities and

industry, working together, can improve graduates’ employ-

ability through a wide range of strategies, including improving

and increasing access to Work Integrated Learning (WIL); en-

hancing the teaching and assessment of employability skills;

and encouraging businesses to provide structured cadetships.

They conclude further that through “increasing opportunities

for business and higher education to work together to identify,

promote, teach, assess and report employability skills” better

outcomes would be experienced for all (Precision Consultancy,

2007: p. 5).

The Contribution of Graduate Attributes to Shaping

Graduates’ Employability

The most needed skills in the Australian labor market are the

abilities to communicate, analyze and solve problems, work as

a team member, tackle unfamiliar problems, and plan one’s

work (GCCA, 1999 in Levin & Tempone, 2002: p. 253). Kele-

her, Toft & Howard (2006: p. 1) reported that engineering stu-

dents returning from work placements favored an integrated

curriculum that developed hard skills and soft [generic or em-

ployability] skills concurrently, and that this reflected the real-

ity of what engineers actually do in the workplace. Nair and

Patil (2008) and Nair, Patil, & Mertova (2009) reported on a

survey of 109 employers who recruited at least one engineering

graduate in the previous 3 years. They found “a significant gap

in many attributes between the expectations of industry to what

graduates bring to the workforce…The three highest differ-

ences were observed for “oral communication skills”, “inter-

personal skills with colleagues and clients” and “written com-

munication skills”. On the other hand, “broad background gen-

eral knowledge” and “general business knowledge” showed the

smallest gap between importance and satisfaction” (Nair &

Patil, 2008: pp. 77-78).

Freudenberg, Brimble & Cameron (2008: p. 159) offered a

Professional Development Program (PDP) orientation to work-

integrated-learning (work placements) which was “integrated

into the degree program and is designed to systematically de-

velop students’ learning, employment and generic skills and

supplements the theoretical studies”. Crebert (2002) reported

that graduates who had experienced some form of work inte-

grated learning, were asked to rank the top five contributions

firstly the University, secondly their work placement and

thirdly their current world of work contributed to their acquisi-

tion of graduate attributes (where the graduate attributes for

their ranking were a pre-provided list).

1) University: written communication; oral communication;

teamwork; analysis; and critical evaluation.

2) Work placement: oral communication; knowledge; written

communication; practical and technical experience; and inter-

personal skills.

3) Employment: oral communication; written communication;

teamwork; assuming responsibility and making decisions; and

practical and technical experience/interpersonal skills (tied).

(Crebert, 2002: p. 139)

In summary, Universities ideally prepare graduates for em-

ployment in concert with business, as the complementary pre-

parations provide both discipline skills and employability as-

pects of the broad sweep of graduate attributes. Where work

integrated learning (WIL) or internships are not a feature of the

curriculum, Universities alone may not be in a position to pro-

vide the ideal preparation, possibly leaving graduates with a

shortfall of valuable employability attributes or “soft skills” to

take into the work force and to provide as evidence of capacity

to potential employers during recruitment, much as academic

results and a portfolio provide evidence for the graduate attrib-

utes or “hard skills” for architecture graduates.

Employability—Architecture Graduates

There is a modest literature concerning architecture gradu-

ates’ employability, with the benefits of work integrated learn-

ing (WIL) being uppermost in author’s minds. Franz (2008)

posits that WIL provides an opportunity to marry hard and soft

skills—graduate attributes and employability attributes. Savage

(2005) defends the role of WIL in developing graduate attrib-

utes, saying that the origins of institutionalized learning, as

opposed to learning-on-the-job derived from the “belief emerg-

ing in the 19th century that universities taught the knowledge

(the theory) that was later applied in practice… in the process

S. J. SHANNON

denying, or at the very least, devaluing the role of practice as a

learning environment” (Savage, 2005 in Franz, 2008: p. 166).

Moreover Savage (2005: p. 4) contends that “practice knowl-

edge is situated” and advocates “critical engagement with prac-

tice… will add to the store of knowledge that a novice can ac-

quire prior to graduation”. Savage, Davis & Miller (2009: p. 3)

found that “graduates and employers generally agree on the

importance of a set of general skills” and that of these skills 16

of the 21 were directly attributed as University developed

characteristics. Of critical importance is the belief of respon-

dents that whilst “most of the capabilities should be developed

at University (76%) versus the Workplace (14%) and Self de-

veloped (10%)… University plays a crucial role in ensuring

graduates develop lifelong learning skills and attributes that can

carry them onto a long a fruitful career, however, professionals

and students [surveyed] feel universities are not doing enough

to ensure this development occurs” (Savage, Davis, & Miller

2009: pp. 13-14). Drake, Williams & Kingsland (2003) argue

that Cowdroy (1990) found in his commissioned research into

architecture graduates’ aptitude for practice, that “higher and

more consistent skills at entry are required in Architectural

Practice”, and that there was “no consensus between graduates,

practitioners or employers and the Schools of Architecture as to

the skills required of a recent graduate” (Drake, Williams, &

Kingsland, 2003: p. 1). In their view, nothing had changed in

the intervening 13 years, with schools unable to state what

skills their architecture graduates possess, and employers dis-

satisfied with the graduates they employ. Williamson (2008: p.

608) concurs that practitioners give preference to students and

graduates who already possess practical skills, but that aca-

demics continued to prepare students by developing graduate

capabilities and life-long learning skills to equip them to sur-

vive and adapt.

Johnson (1997: p. 11) posited the same thesis 10 years prior

to Williamson—that architectural education focuses on a very

singular view of what an architect is—“a design architect, pref-

erably working in her/his own architectural practice, designing

buildings with ‘poetics’”. Whitman, in Wallis, Whitman and

Savage (2005: p. 34) stated that “the cooperative education

model necessitates a closer relationship between the academy

and practice. The authors cited believe that this failure to bring

practice and the academy together contributes to the gap be-

tween the expectations of practice, and the reality of outcomes

from university architectural education”.

Government View of Graduate Attributes

An Australian Government perspective concerning the quali-

ties of architects is presented in the Australian Government’s

Job Outlook and Job Guides which are written for an audience

of Year 10 students (about to enter their final two years of high

schooling) (Australian Government, 2011a, 2011b). The “Per-

sonal Requirements” for the occupation “Architects” are those

who “enjoy design, [possess] creative flair, [are] able to analyze

problems logically, [possess] good communication skills”. The

Australian Government Skills Information website (Australian

Government, 2010) suggests personal attributes are also impor-

tant. They state that two facets to employability skills are val-

ued: ‘personal’ attributes (for example, loyalty, enthusiasm,

motivation and sense of humor) and “generic” skills of commu-

nication, teamwork, problem-solving, initiative/enterprise, plan-

ing and organization, self-management, learning, and technol-

ogy.

This generic skills list is was developed by the Cutler Re-

view of Innovation created for the Department of Education,

Science and Technology in 2002, and it continued to be valid in

2007 (Precision Consulting, 2007: p. 2). However, recognition

of the valid teaching or learning of these employability skills is

not unproblematic in the field of architectural education, with

Forsyth (2007: p. 3) stating that “graduates have difficulty in

recognizing these life skills [analysis, communication, prob-

lem-solving, team work] in their fine arts and design tertiary

education”. Johnston (1997: p. 2) concurred, noting that in the

first 3 years of Course Evaluation Questionnaires [standardized

post-graduation surveys of all Australian graduates], architec-

ture graduates recorded the lowest satisfaction rating with their

course experience “of all graduates in all discipline areas…this

seems to be saying that all is not well in architectural education

and that there may be a fundamental mismatch between the

objectives of architecture schools and the objectives and aspira-

tions of architecture students”.

The development of the generic skills subset of employabil-

ity skills is an aspect of graduate attributes architecture educa-

tion providers are addressing throughout Australia, although

none have either expressed personal qualities as employability

skills on their University Graduate Attributes website listing,

nor professed to be able to develop, assess or warrant these

personal qualities in their graduates. Is that important for archi-

tecture graduates? It does seem that may be the case from em-

ployers’ perspectives. Cowdroy (1990: p. 23) reported that

personality problems are consistently referred to by graduates,

employers and personnel consultants as “the primary cause of

dissatisfaction with individual graduates. Graduates and stu-

dents often referred to personality problems as the primary

cause of dissatisfaction with the office”.

The Gap for This Research

The gap for this research study is thus identified as deter-

mining the contemporary recruitment behaviors of practices

which hire architecture graduates with respect to how they pri-

oritize the employability skills of graduates (“soft skills”) and

graduate attributes of the graduate (“discipline area” skills).

Method

The research design involved four aspects- the first two of

which were conducting literature reviews pertaining to em-

ployability attributes and architecture graduate hiring practices.

Both are reported in the Introduction. The third was evaluating

the published Graduate Attributes for Schools of Architecture

in Australia to ascertain what they aspire to produce in a Master

of Architecture (M Arch, formerly Bachelor of Architecture)

graduate. This is reported in the Results section. The fourth was

conducting structured interviews with the Human Resources

(HR) manager, or partner/associate responsible for recruitment

at 21 large, medium-sized and small architectural practices in

Australian cities (Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Darwin) and re-

gional centers in South Australia, and Tasmania. The public

service was included through the personnel department or pub-

lic servant responsible for selection of M Arch graduates during

graduate recruitment in the State public service in a mainland

state. The responses of all practices which responded to the

invitation for an interview, and who employed graduates, were

1018

S. J. SHANNON

included in the results. The interviews were all conducted by

telephone, by the researcher. Human Research Ethics Commit-

tee approval was obtained for this research.

The employment or recruitment factors to be explored in the

structured questionnaire (which was administered during the

telephone interview) were determined by the results of the lit-

erature reviews. The questionnaire employed a 5 point Likert

scale to ascertain the importance of each of the factors to the

interviewee. The open ended results were transcribed, coded,

themed a nd reported thematically. Anonymity was ma intained.

Results for Graduate Attributes

All Australian Schools of Architecture (Australian Institute

of Architects, 2011) were contacted by telephone and email up

to three times with an invitation to answer two questions “Do

you have published Masters of Architecture Graduate Attrib-

utes?” and “Do you have overall University Graduate Attrib-

utes?” when Graduate Attributes for their University and Mas-

ter of Architecture Program were not evident on their Univer-

sity and School or Department websites. Data for non-respon-

dents was inferred from their University and Faculty/School

websites.

Evaluation of the Graduate Attribute data for Schools and

Universities revealed a consistency across both domains, and

permitted a consolidated list of key employability skills for

graduates to be inferred from University Graduate Attributes,

and Government employability skills lists, and a list of key

Graduate Attributes for M Arch graduates to be inferred from

their Program attribute (Table 1).

Results and Discussion

Interviews with Practice HR Managers and Public

Service HR personnel

Interviews were conducted with either the HR manager or

the partner/associate in charge of recruitment at 21 Australian

employers of M Arch graduates ranging from large (>50 em-

ployees) national and international firms headquartered in Aus-

tralia, through medium sized (20 - 50 employees) Australian

firms (who may also accept international commissions whilst

this is not a major focus of their work), to small firms (<20

employees) who nevertheless employ graduates, to the Gov-

ernment State and Federal Public Service. The firms had offices

situated in Australian capitals and Darwin, as well as Tasma-

nian, and South Australian regional areas. Interviews ceased

when the data repeated and repeated, and no new information

Table 1.

Rating of Factors prioritized in recruitment of architecture graduates.

Question Response on Likert 5 point scale

Priorities in recruitment Mean score

Portfolio 4.2

On the job experience 3.8

Academic achievement 3.6

Curriculum university 2.9

Which institution of study 2.8

was being established, as the themes emerge from the data in

this grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1997).

Demographi c Da ta

Demographic data was collected from interviewees prior to

asking the key interview questions. “How many staff in your

firm?”; “Do you employ graduates” and “From which Univer-

sities’?

Size of the Fi rms

In order to engage with a broad spectrum of graduate em-

ployers, practices interviewed in the private sector ranged in

size from 3 to 70 local (and 228 national) employees. Larger

practices employed Human Resource (HR) Managers or Per-

sonnel Managers. In the public sector, Departments were com-

bined with very large numbers—up to 1100—and employed

personnel staff with nominated graduate recruitment staff. In

small firms the principal was responsible for graduate recruit-

ment and selection. In larger firms, dedicated specialist HR

staff were employed.

Employement of Graduates

All architectural firms’ data reported herein either have in the

past, or currently employ graduates, as did public sector em-

ployment sections. Reasons given for not currently recruiting

graduates within the private sector were the general Global

Financial Crisis-led downturn, to, in the public sector, the

downsizing of the public sector and outsourcing. One large

national and international firm reported that they never see a

graduate for the first time, preferring to build a relationship

with senior students from whom they selected their graduate

intake, once they knew their potential, character and cultural fit.

Recruitment from Particular Universities

No clear sole theme emerged. The themes which emerged

from coding and analyzing all responses were that for some

employers local Universities were preferred and supported; that

the University of recruitment choice for some employers was

context dependent “It depends on why we’re recruiting—what

we’re looking for”; and that for some employers particular

University’s graduates were preferred due to the desirability of

a particular skill set: “I’ve always needed graduates who have

some research capability—capacity of graduates to have a phi-

losophical position—students developed research capacity dur-

ing Professor X’s time”; and for the same reason particular

University’s graduates were not employed due to them lacking

required skills “Uni Y is not addressing what employers are

looking for”.

Priorities in Recruitment

In this section of the interview respondents were asked to

rate the factors they prioritized in recruitment on a 5 point

Likert scale where

1 = not important at all;

2 = unimportant;

3 = neither important nor unimportant;

4 = important and

5 = critically important.

S. J. SHANNON

Results from the analysis of their data are shown in Table 1

below for Priorities in Recruitment Questions. Each factor was

rated independently of all others.

In summary the portfolio was considered most important as a

recruitment tool whilst the candidate’s on-the-job experience

and academic achievement were considered slightly important.

The curriculum of the institution and the institution of study

were less than important. The reasons given for these ratings

are explored thema tically.

Importance of the Graduate’s Portfolio

Four themes emerged from the portfolio’s highest ranking in

recruitment priorities. The portfolio shows skills as “a window

to their skills”, but there were wary employers wondering who

did the work. They believed the portfolio must be verified to

state the extent of a student’s participation. Graduates must be

able to present their work by making an adequate and relevant

presentation and they must possess the ability to talk about their

work. Employers wanted a range of skills revealed not just

CAD presentation renderings as they stated the content has to

be honest, their own work, not just CAD: “but the difficulty is

it’s all presentation, not the real world”.

Experience of the Graduate “On the Job”

Employers’ responses grouped into these themes: that

graduates [per se] were not employed—students develop a

relationship with firms prior to graduate recruitment “We do

not advertise for graduates. Students employed in our business

may become graduates employed in our business” through to

unconcern for on-the-job experience—we do not expect it—

“We can train, coach and mentor them so this is not that impor-

tant to us”. Their previous employment history provides a win-

dow to their employability for our practice “If it’s available it

would swing my decision towards employing them”/although

other employers felt that a substantial employment decision

needs to be linked with an internship rather than employment

history —“Interviews are OK as an initial indicator, but the

only way of really knowing them is through an internship—it’s

how I’ve recruited everyone in the past.”

Academic Achievement of Graduate

Several themes emerged when considering how important

academic achievement was in recruitment. Reputation/market

perceptions “we take Honors reasonably seriously. Conferral of

an Honors degree is seen as a good thing”; the relationship of

University academic transcript to future performance indica-

tion “because what we look for is evidence”; whilst other em-

ployers differed citing their belief was that there was a lack of

relationship between University grades and professional suc-

cess: “Quite often people who have scraped through succeed in

the profession”. Employers welcomed the insight into a candi-

date “to see their grades, what they’ve excelled at”. Regional

employers felt that they were already restricted in who I can

employ (regional) “Situation for recruitment is desperate” and

therefore disregarded academic achievement.

Curriculum of the Institution

Coding and analysis revealed four overarching themes:

Looking for evidence of Work- Integrated-Learning [WIL]: “Yes,

it is industry exposure. Knowing they’ve done a good stint in a

comparable practice” was valued in curricula which had WIL.

Important but hard to discover: “Not always easy to discover.

It’s important.” I don’t know how I’d know: “Unknown—I have

no idea about these things”. Employers recognize that there is a

gap between University curriculum and what we do in/need for

practice: “To be honest, Universities are a lot more theoretical,

we accept that”.

Institution of Study

Three overarching themes were revealed. Recruit from

all/unimportant: “doesn’t matter”. Recruitment for particular

slant of curriculum: “[their graduates are] practically oriented”

and recruitment locally but would recruit more widely: “we’ve

had graduates from both [local] Universities, that’s who applies,

if we had grads from other Universities apply we’d consider

them”.

Employability Skills

In this section of the interview respondents were asked to

rate each capacity on the Commonwealth of Australia’s agreed

list of “employability skills” (Australian Government, 2011b).

These lists are also universally found in this form, or another

similar form, amongst all Universities’ graduate attributes.

All of these employability skills, (or attributes or capacities)

were rated as more important than neutral (Likert 3) and five of

them more than important (Likert 4). There is strong evidence

here of the Commonwealth’s oft repeated message that these

generic skills are very important in recruitment, indeed as im-

portant as discipline area skills (Table 2).

Team Work

Rated mean 4.4, between important and critically important,

this was the highest rating given to any of the employability

skills, and was generally rated 5, or 4 by respondents. Coding

and analysis of all responses revealed two overarching themes:

architecture is a team based production process “it’s collabora-

tive”/“Architecture is a team based process”; and that personal-

ity traits such as team work were hard to evaluate at an inter-

Table 2.

Rating of employability skills prioritised in recruitment of M Arch

graduates.

Question Response on Likert 5 point scale

Employability Skills Mean Score

Employability Skills 4.4

Self Management 4.2

Communication Skills 4.15

Creative Inititative and Enterprise4.13

Planning and Organisation 4.08

Problem Solv ing 4

Technology 3.9

Lifelong learning 3.8

1020

S. J. SHANNON

view “need referee’s reports”/“Hard thing to know from inter-

view—got to take a chance—but important”/“Important but

never really know what you’re getting”.

Self-Management

This attitude or personality trait was also rated highly by re-

spondents at mean 4.2 (more than important) although the ca-

veat for employers was “I know it’s important but how to as-

sess it in an interview—the referee’s report is important” and

from another that “You learn it in practice”. Coding and analy-

sis of all responses revealed that business-like time management

is highly valued but whilst employers know that it is important,

it is hard to evaluate in an interview and from other employers

that they are not expecting it to be taught at University “you

learn it in practice”.

Communication Skills

Communication skills were highly valued at 4.15 on the 5

point Likert scale, and employers did feel that through the in-

terview process oral communication skills were more easily

gauged, although in larger offices, it was not absolutely critical,

as “there’s a role for everyone”. The four overarching themes

which arose were that it was unusual to find good communica-

tion skills in a graduate; that all communication skills are im-

portant (oral, written and graphic); and that it is context de-

pendent on their role whether good [oral] communication skills

are important at graduation and finally that communication is a

two-way process with the office also needing to be a good

communicator back to the graduate, or assist graduates from

alternative language backgrounds.

Creative Initiative and Enterprise

Unsurprisingly in such a creative field as architecture, this

attribute was highly valued in graduates—more than important

at 4.13: “we target creative design and innovation” said one

large employer, although another medium-sized employer said

they rated it a 4, but recognized it was “important but impossi-

ble to pick”, and by government hirer “3 - 4”—“how to judge it

in the early stages?”

The five themes which emerged are targeting creativity; key

skill for professional advancement; cannot pick it (especially in

an interview); that at graduation it is early in creative career to

display creativity and “we rely on teamwork”—so not everyone

needs it “in employing a graduate it’s not critically important—

good organizational skills may be just as important in a team

work context”.

Planning and Organizi ng

Problem Solving

This aptitude was rated 4, almost as highly as creative initia-

tive and enterprise and planning and organizing with which it

has something in common. Theming revealed that problem

solving was hard to evaluate in an interview; that it is a skill of

the profession—“problem solving is critical as they have to

solve their own problems in projects they manage; [One of my]

principal complaints is that they come with a problem, not a

solution—go away [I say]” and by some that it is not initially

important and can be developed within the office.

Technology

This aspect of a graduate’s portfolio of skills was rated

slightly less than important at 3.9, once interviewees under-

stood it was not a question about representation and CAD skills

as much as a question about “attitude to technology” or the

“propensity to keep up with technology” which was how the

researcher explained it to interviewees—keeping abreast of new

technologies and being able to exploit appropriate technologies

in the service of their employers. Whether employers are in a

position to develop graduates’ technology skills through inter-

nal or external training affects how highly employers rated it as

a skill in their hiring. Three themes emerged : Attitude to tech-

nology—the propensity to keep up with technology; graphics

technology—highly valued, fast changing, the University needs

to do the training as it is hard to access external training; and

in-house training to synthesize knowledge of technology.

Life-Long Learning

Of the eight official Commonwealth Graduate Attributes, this

ranks the lowest, but is nevertheless slightly important at Likert

3.8: “all architects have got lifelong learning”. The reason for

this lowest ranking is that respondents universally stated that it

was almost impossible to evaluate—so therefore it cannot be

critical as a skill in ranking graduates for hiring. Emerging

themes were that it’s an attitude; the indicator for which is

graduates’ interest in the profession; that it is essential for our

profession “all architects have got LLL”; which then presents a

cost to the employer and that evaluation was difficult “How do

you check this out in a grad?”

Graduate Attributes—Discipline Area Skills

From the aggregated means, respondents believed that tech-

nical skills were marginally more important than design skills,

whereas the perceived wisdom in some Schools’ curriculum,

through literature (e.g. Johnson, 1997) and the amount of

coursework time devoted to them, is that Design and Represen-

tation skills are t he skills cr itical t o graduates a nd the profession.

This research found that employers, from a wide range of prac-

tices, and practice sizes, highly prioritise the demonstration of

sound technical skills in graduate recruitment, at least equally

with design skills (Table 3).

Rated more than im portant mean 4.08 in graduate recruitment,

planning and organising was seen by employers as a graduate’s

own business. Employers interviewed thought it was important,

but hard to gauge in an interview. Five themes emerged: from

some, that it was neither important nor unimportant due to

delegation “we delegate to gradua tes”; from o thers autonomy “If

they can’t organise themselves…”; and that planning and or-

ganising is an important d esign skill to allow enou gh time for the

scheme to be refined and finally that this attribute cannot be

evaluated in an interview which leads to probation “Never sure

until we see it. Often give probation”.

Respondents rated CAD Skills as at least equal to, or more

important than, technical or design skills in graduate employ-

ment. All firms rated CAD Skills as 4 or 5 saying they were

“vital”; “essential” or “you need CAD to get a start”. “It’s im-

portant for graduates to come into the office conversant in CAD

skills—not just creating working drawings—but 3-D—doing

shadow diagrams and streetscapes” (smaller employer). The

S. J. SHANNON

Table 3.

Rating of discipline area skills prioritised in recruitment of M Arch

graduates.

Question Response on Likert 5 point sca le

Discipline Area Skills Mean Score

CAD Computer Aided Design 4.4

Technical Skill s 4.0

Technical Skill s 3.9

most typical view w as expressed by a small firm “CAD skills is a

5. That’s the only way they’ll get in the door. When we gradu-

ated, we could draw. That’s the only way we were employed.

Now their CAD skills are the only way they’ll be employed”.

Another small employer said “Revit is compulsory”. Generally

Revit and Building Information Management (BIM) was not a

skill employers were looking for at this stage—although be-

lieving that BIM would eventually supplant CAD. Two of 21

employers already used Revit in lieu of AutoCAD.

Interviewees from the medium sized firms (20 - 50 staff) held

slightly different perspectives, with one employer equally

valuing CAD Skills along with Design and Technical skills,

whereas another was looking to develop technical skills within

the firm.

Smaller employers (less than 20 staff) n eed to recruit ca refully,

to suit their pr act ices ’ exa ct n eeds now and for the future as th e y

are often unable to share the work between a team of several

employees who have different strengths in design, technical or

representation skills: “they [employees] need to be good at a

whole lot of things”. Summarising the employer perspective of

small practices was the view that graduates needed to be

job-ready with the understanding of how to convert theoretical

design knowledge to technical outcomes.

Employers agreed about the importance of technical skills but

differed in whether they thought they should be acquired at

University or not: [graduates must be able to] “demonstrate how

buildings go together—[they] tend only to pick that up in the

first 5 years [in their education] or “[my expectation is] basic,

but I wouldn’t be expecting anything beyond what they’ve been

taught at University”. Another employer said that s/he rated

technical skills as a 4, as her/his expectation, and that is what

s/he wants, and is not getting, stating that in terms of technical

skills “I wish for more than I ever get”. A senior member of the

profession said in regards to technical skills, that “these days

[it’s] critical—the potential to be developed—as opposed to just

possessed by a graduate”. This then also links to propensity for

lifelong learning.

This implies is that as well as understanding how to design

and put a building together technically, graduates employed in

smaller practices must also be able to represent that building

themselves, whereas in larger practices possibly more special-

ized representation staff are employed.

The analysis of CAD skills coding revealed that possession

of sound CAD skills is considered a key graduating skill for

employment; that a familiarity with a variety of platforms is

necessary; and that a very few exceptional employers may look

beyond CAD skills in employing grads—but most prefer an all

rounder.

Over all practice sizes the five themes resulting from analysis

of technical skills were that as an essential understanding of

how buildings go together and that graduates need to be proac-

tive in learning technical skills; as a developing skill as opposed

to one already possessed, equal with design skills.

Analyzing design themes saw that design is a core profes-

sional skill: “Really important—ideas and an ability to commu-

nicate—it is what we do [as a profession]”; it is an in-demand

skill; that whilst important it is rare “it’s important but abso-

lutely rare—wouldn’t expect to find it in more than 1 in 3 or 1

in 4 graduates” and, although not everyone will be a design

architect “not everyone’s going to be a design architect but

need to have a sensitivity & interest” it is an integral part of

practice. Design skills need to be balanced with more pragmatic

skills: just draw it up/detail it “the principal architect produces

all the designs” and that design needs to be balanced with other

skills “because generally a graduate in our very small office is

an all rounder”.

In some ways possession of strong technical skills underpins

graduate employment opportunities as CAD skills are now the

industry standard and not all employers are looking for/ or in-

terested in employing designers—preferring graduates with

solid range of other skills, and a sensitivity to design. However,

having said that, some employers recruit foremost for gradu-

ates’ design skills, declaring that they can develop technical

skills, but rely on graduate’s possession of design skills.

Conclusion

Should Universities and Schools of Architecture be more re-

sponsive to national (Government) goals and industry focus

through developing curriculum to support the current desires of

employers? Or is it sufficient to understand employers’ current

priorities in recruitment but not necessarily proactively or reac-

tively respond to them? The solution may lie somewhere be-

tween. Without aspirational Graduate Attributes, Universities

and M Arch Programs cannot declare their role in developing

graduates responsive to future employers’ needs. But with the

statement of aspirational Graduate Attributes derives an obliga-

tion to pay more than lip service to them—to rationally and

explicitly show the ways, and the places in the curriculum

where those Attributes are developed, rehearsed and assessed

(Shannon & Swift, 2010) if the University intends to warrant

that its graduates possess those Attributes.

These interviews have revealed that employers consider

some of the so-called employability skills to be aptitudes or

personality characteristics, which no employer declared they

could instill or pre-judge in a graduate—just as no University

suggested it could teach them—or perhaps more accurately

warrant students have learned them in the sense of learning as

transformational. Indeed, employers spoke in conclusion about

those indefinable learning (in life) attitudes which are their key

recruitment factors—character, broader interests and attitude.

One stated:

“We do no not advertise for graduates; we have a planned

and orderly rate of 1 graduate per annum in our graduate re-

cruitment process. Students are employed in our business—and

they become the graduates who are employed in our business.

Our top three requirements are

1) character and cultural fit;

2) demonstration of employment history;

3) adequate and relevant portfolio (nationally profiled large

employer).

1022

S. J. SHANNON

Another employer of a different scale, with 12 employees,

said that “in looking at the raw recruit, I am critical of some of

the people who come out of University. They are not rounded,

or well educated—in all the sorts of areas to be interesting peo-

ple—people with a broader interest. University is there to teach

them the fundamentals, in practice we finish them off”. A larger

employer with 22 staff said that “[I] can’t teach attitudes—but I

am looking for openness, willing to learn, ready to learn. If

someone has the right attitude…We’ve got some great gradu-

ates—not from privileged backgrounds”.

An employer with 3 staff commented that “we find a lot of

people have additional tertiary qualifications—lifelong learning

and skills. They must have a personality fit with a small group

of people and not just the office—with our clients and in public

consultations.”

This was also the sentiment expressed by another small prac-

tice: “I appreciate a graduate who has had a well rounded edu-

cation—has an intellectual capacity. So often there is interest in

‘earning a living’ but what I am looking for is an interest in

architecture—philosophically or internationally—even if they

pursued other intellectual capacities, for example music. It is

exciting to find this intellectual pursuit in a young person.”

Practice agrees it has a role in the development of graduates:

“As an employer, we do have some responsibility in training

(we have two architecture graduates who should be registered

[licensed]) but we do value people who know how to put things

together as employees.”

As a final conclusion, this research has revealed that techni-

cal skills are highly valued by Australian employers of archi-

tecture graduates of all practice sizes. Current sound CAD rep-

resentation skills are the most highly valued discipline skills by

employers, as graduates invariably have much demand upon

these skills in their early graduate years. Employers look to

graduates’ portfolios in particular as a key presentation asset at

time of hiring. Any demonstration of evidence of team work is

also highly valued.

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