Autocad Freelance Jobs Australia

[Eliecer Brathwaite]

CADor computer-aided design, is the use of software to help you create needed designs, such as a floor plan for a residential building, a 3D concept drawing for a new product, or a drawing to show new buildings in an environmental impact report.

As beneficial as these other websites can be for finding work, a site all your own can help you find jobs without having to pay for the privilege. While some websites are free, others will take a percentage of the money you charge or ask for money in other ways. They are businesses also, after all.

Going out on your own as a freelancer is liberating, but it does come with its share of problems. However, these problems can be avoided with common sense. Here are a few common issues to look out for.

You can make yourself more desirable by getting as many certificates as possible, so clients can see you have diverse abilities. A well-trained but new CAD designer is worth taking a chance on, whereas a new designer with unknown skills might not be worth the risk.

Even though we just talked about not charging enough, you may want to start with competitive pricing until you get your first few clients. Lower rates may tempt someone to try you, and if you wow them with your skills they may become the reference you need to get more lucrative jobs.

So, I have about 2 years experience in using Autocad and 1 year with Revit. (despite being called 'experience' it's actually just the time since I started using those programs doing my school projects.)

It has been months since I've started looking for a job to help me financially, I'm pretty confident about my cad skills and can even do schedules in Revit. Yet no matter how much I search for those freelance jobs, I just can't find any of them...

Just the sad reality for young students. Kids with two years on a bachelor's degree work horrendously slow (from their lack of time management), and get paid really low (from their lack of experience and knowledge of industry). Out here in the Midwest US, average rate for a 2nd year student would be about 12/hr. Most of the kids I've had on my teams as a project manager take almost a week to do what should be done in two days, at least for the first six months or so.

what you said is reasonable enough. It's just that you need to calm down a little.. It's not like I'm trying to steal your job. I can't really blame you for talking like that tho, sounds like you had really tough time with that project manager.

No, I've been the project manager. The 2nd year (3rd, 4th, fresh out of grad, doesn't matter) students under me are the ones who are what I described above. I know you can't steal my job. Typically though, the young interns who think they already know how to freelance in this industry are the ones who are the least prepared to be productive in a firm setting.

I think your past experiences with young people made you form an extremely negative opinion about them, becoming biased against them. It's bad to generalize an entire group of people based on your interaction with few of them. Anyway, thanks for sharing your opinion!

It's not negative generalizing, it's just a statement of general fact. I don't expect students or recent grads to know how to efficiently put together demo and proposed drawings for permits, including all the proper notes and dimensions, because schools don't teach them that. So with two years of "CAD experience", can you efficiently and effectively go through SD and DD phases, then assembly a 20-sheet permit set for a 5k sqft greenfield home? Because that's the bare minimum of what you'd be expecting in freelance, not including bidding, contract negotiation, CA, and wading through lakes of bureaucracy with engineers & other consultants, contractors, their subs, suppliers, and the city.

What you've said is reasonable enough, just that you misunderstood something. I've mentioned the programs which I know and not which year I'm in school to emphasize on the fact I'm looking for something like drafting jobs. (like when I've mentioned the scheduling thing on Revit.)

^ Yes. Madj, if you're in the US, best bet is to brush up on AIA CAD layer standards (most firms use a modified version of it), and grab a copy of Arch. Graphic Standards so you can start drawing details and components for real if you're doing ACad. I can't advise much on Revit since the offices I've worked at have all been small private residential and didn't use Revit much.

You do not possess the knowledge and skills to work on your own as an independent design professional. (emphasized in bold to not the importance of professional capacity not sub-professional level) You are not licensed so you are going to be employed in that fashion by most of the architects out there. They just won't. Sorry. This is not that kind of occupation.

Bottom line is you answered why you won't be freelance: I'm not capable enough to do an actual architect job. If you can't do it even on exempt buildings like a house as a building designer then you sure the hell aren't getting hired freelance.

There is a dime of dozen of home designers and building designers that these architects would hire freelance before they will hire you if they were to go outside their comfort zone and hire an non-licensed design professional. Why do I say that?

Many of them have proven themselves as being able to prepare building plans for various projects independently. They have a record of projects and clients that they may not necessarily have to have as such close direct supervision. Why? They have experience.

There are exceptions to the norm with the case mentioned by eeayeeayo. You might be lucky to find a firm like the one at his firm but it isn't exactly what we call normal. COVID-19 situation is an abnormal situation. It is still to be foreseen how long these abnormal situations like WFH / freelance work situation continues in the architecture profession after the COVID-19 situation is behind us.

Many firms had to modify their practices to comply with executive orders from their respective state governors to continue operating. How long will they continue these modified practice is hard to tell? I think it is possible but after COVID-19, it is likely that new hires without substantial experience or history of independent practice is not going to be initially working in such a freelance fashion. A hybrid WFH/office situation can work.

Well, guess I can call myself lucky for having few more years till graduation. It would really be such a bad luck to have a pandemic knocking on your door as soon as you graduate or want to start your career! Thanks for everyone for their opinions. I will try to focus on my studies and gathering as much experience as possible, let the money thing wait till I land on a great offer or I graduate and start hunting for a job lol.

firms that hire summer interns at that level are doing so to help train potential future workers. they are looking for students with the skills and attitude to become valuable as future employees. the value of the work a student can do after 2 years is very low, and takes much more management work than it's worth. no one needs this kind of work badly enough to hire freelance for it.

thinking about this more i realize you might not be looking for freelance architecture jobs, just jobs that use drafting skills. i actually did that during my third year, drafting cad drawings of the layout of equipment in a factory where my friends dad worked. great job, interesting, messy, dangerous, and well paid. not advertised though. most of these things just come up randomly from people you know. best bet would be talk to professors and classmates to let them know you're looking for work like this.

Yep that's exactly what I meant, I know it's easier and more efficient to find such jobs through connections irl. It's just that this whole pandemic thing made life and everything more difficult, and so I was hoping to find something online. Seems like I should just be more patient and wait for the whole covid-19 thing to be over.

I'm not in US currently, only a few countries in the world started to recover from the pandemic and regulate things.

Sadly, it looks like we still have to wait at least 2 years till we are done with this whole situation.

You're more likely to get some freelance through someone you know rather than finding a post. Most people looking for someone to do cad will reach out to the first person they know that can do it, rather than post anything. That being said, have you tried Aerotek? My previous employer often used them for bringing in temporary drafters

But going back to my previous point, I sometimes get freelance, but through people I know at work etc...You can get some leads by just making conversation and getting to know people. You won't win exciting projects this way, but there's always a coworker looking for someone to do drawings for a kitchen renovation and would rather just involve someone they know then reach out to strangers.

Our summer college intern is working remotely, as are almost all the rest of us. He applied in February though, and had already been coming in for a few hours once a week to sit in on the project meetings, get up to speed on the big projects, and learn the firm's standards and organizational systems, back before work from home started in late March.

January through April is when most larger firms around here interview and select summer interns. Under ordinary circumstances, if you wait until late spring or early summer to look then you're more likely to land in a small firm because they aren't as able to project workload as far in advance, so more of them may still be hiring for summer right up until summer,. But the strange circumstances this year have resulted in light workloads for a lot of smaller firms, enough so that they may not be able to afford an intern or have anything for one to do.

Also I don't know how you've been presenting your skills to firms, but your statement above that you can "even do schedules in Revit" kind of reinforces that you'd likely be minimally useful at first, since that's a very basic task that you're implying is your most advanced capability. If I were you I might look for something outside of this field for the remainder of this summer, just to get something on your resume and some cash in your pocket, but focus on developing your skills and developing a portfolio and good cover letter, and then getting an early jump this winter on applying for internships for next summer.

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