Hooray for new starters!

Our new team members: (back to front row, l-r) Lisa Rogan, Judith Forster, talent manager Diane Charlton, Imran Zulfqar, Ed Cutler, David Owen and Andrew Wilson

_space group has doubled its graduate recruitment intake this year as it looks to supply the country with the next generation of architects.

The budding architects, who fought off stiff national competition for their placements, will work with us, across our offices in the North East, North West and Yorkshire.

Ed Cutler from Great Ayton, near Middlesbrough, has joined _space group after recently qualifying from the Manchester School of Architecture (MSA). He will now fulfil his part one qualification at _space group’s North West office.

He said: “I graduated from the MSA with a BA in July 2009, but was unable to find work, prompting a decision to take a Masters degree a couple of years earlier than planned. I am delighted to have been accepted onto _space group’s graduate recruitment programme, giving me the opportunity to further both my personal and professional development.

“Being part of a team working on exciting educational projects will really help me develop a range of skills that will hold me in good stead for the rest of my career. Not only am I looking forward to developing my experience in a working environment, but _space group has a great reputation for training its team members.”

The training will see the graduates work on live projects with senior architects, gaining a practical insight into architecture, alongside tailored seminars with _space group directors that expose the new starters to a wide variety of theoretical topics such as practice management and legislation.

The news comes as graduates are facing intense competition for jobs as the class of 2009 was rocked by the recession. According to gradplus.com, recruitment growth in the UK continued to slow in September this year.*

_space group talent manager Diane Charlton said: “Every year we look forward to welcoming the latest fresh young talent the UK has to offer and we have some excellent recruits this year.

“Training is something at the core of _space group’s principles – we are a company who want to provide as much opportunity to young talented individuals as possible, and our training programme is a great platform for them to shine. Our graduate programme also creates fantastic career opportunities. Some of our past training programme recruits have come back to work with us as qualified architects, and have become respected in the industry.”

A previous recruit onto _space group’s training programme was Carinna Gebhard. Carinna has now worked at the design, build and operate firm for a number of years, seeing her career expand into the education sector with a portfolio of high profile projects to her name.

The new recruits will complete the same in-house training as _space group chief executive Rob Charlton undertook 19 years ago when the organisation was known as Waring and Netts.

It almost goes without saying (but we're going to say it anyway) that we're thrilled to have been able to do this, and offer opportunities to the next decade's brilliant architectural minds! Watch this _space to see how they get on...

What's in a rebrand?

Rebranding can be a great exercise if done for the right reasons. If you know your company’s taken a shift change in another direction, or if you realise that your original message has been lost, a strategic reimagining of your company profile can pay dividends. It’s the business equivalent of buying a new suit and haircut, and reminding the world that you’re a force to be reckoned with.

Curiously, ASDA has decided to embark upon an exciting rebranding exercise of its own, where 3,500 of its own-brand products are going to be relaunched as the “Chosen By You” range. We’re told that each product was tested on a minimum of 50 (yes, that’s right, almost a standard school classroom-sized amount) people, and, at a cost of £100m, it’s the single largest own label re-launch in UK history.

But how much of an impact will this have at ground level, and what is it trying to achieve? Most consumers are pretty much fixed at one shop. If you’re an ASDA shopper, chances are that a Tesco rebrand won’t make you switch stores, and the same works in reverse. Combine force of habit with our very own age of austerity and it suggests that it won’t drive masses of customers towards ASDA. So it begs the question – was it a PR job?

For _space group, our rebranding journey has been quite different. After we blew out the candles at our 50^th birthday celebrations as Waring and Netts, a firm known primarily for architecture, we rebranded to _space group. In doing this, we weren’t looking to scribble out one name and replace it for another because both Waring and Netts have long since retired – the change was a conscious decision we took to remind clients both old and new that while we were originally an architectural firm, we’ve grown and diversified since 1957, and now we’re a design, build and operate organisation. Today, _space group works right across the built environment, not only as architects, but as landscape and urban designers, construction specialists, building surveyors, facilities managers, interior designers and specialist consultants.

A still from our internal rebranding campaign, showing the change from Waring and Netts to _space group

We can’t claim that the name was “Chosen By You”, but it was chosen by us, to represent what we bring to the marketplace. We bought our new suit not to show off, but to show our true colours as an inclusive business, and so far, it has paid dividends for us. We’ve grown our Yorkshire and Humberside office, and we’ve been able to open up a North West office which is gearing up to celebrate its first birthday in November. We’ve also been able to diversify even further with spacehus – our timber modular building business.

If ASDA’s rebrand is more than just a PR stunt (which they’ve been doing a lot of lately - http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3143922/Crispwich-hits-shelves.html ), then they should be lauded for trying to listen to their customers, as we believe we listen to ours. If not, then it’s another nail in the coffin of consumer trust.