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O P I N I O N
I ’ve had an opportunity to work in the design industry in each of the last three decades, and I’m amazed at all the changes that have taken place since the mid ‘90s. The gig economy From job to job and firm to firm, all with the push of a button on a mobile app. Is that the future for the design industry? There’s plenty out there who sure hope so.
Recruiting was a lot different back in the day. We spent a lot of time putting ads in newspapers and magazines, making calls to lists of people that we found either through the PE or AIA, or just calling into reputed firms. Then, electronic job boards and Google came along making searching for talent a little bit easier. Nowadays we have LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, Indeed, and more than just a little bit of information overload. Ironically, even with so much at hand, today’s recruiting requires very little – a smartphone, a great search parameter, and enough time to reach out to people via email, cell, or text message. The thing that amazes me is that there’s so much new technology out there changing the way we do all kinds of things, from hailing a cab to ordering fast food to finding vacation rentals. That type of technology is getting better every day, too. I believe sharing workers will be the next big opportunity in the design industry. I’m wondering what it will be like for firms to hire talent on an as-needed basis as opposed to having extra people
on staff hoping that the next big project comes in to keep everyone busy. As recruiters, oftentimes the firms we work with want to hire great talent but are concerned for the long-term. The balancing act of keeping the right amount of staff for the workload is stressful. How common is it that you propose your services on a project thinking, “If we get this job, we’ll have to hire some new people quickly.” Imagine your firm is making proposals on several projects that you helped to bring in. You think you have the internal capacity to get the job done, and the projects are entirely within your design wheelhouse. Your only concern is if all these projects happen at once, you might not have the manpower to do the work. It sounds like a great problem to have, but you don’t want to bite off more than you can chew and overload your current staff. This is where the potential of the gig economy in the design industry comes in.
Randy Wilburn
See RANDY WILBURN, page 10
THE ZWEIG LETTER October 17, 2016, ISSUE 1172
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