Changing Careers from Architecture to Development, ft. Dolunay Dogahan

Changing Careers from Architecture to Development_ ft_ Dolunay Dogahan
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00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Hello. It's Friday. My goodness. If you thought about going to a developer or working as a project management expert, then this is for you. I know. Get that notepad down. And if you're in an architecture practice, I'm not going to tell your boss. Just hide your phone. Okay. We'll go live soon.

Hello everyone. It's Friday and welcome to this live stream special. Three or four years ago. on the original Architecture Social community. There was a few of [00:01:00] us knocking around in the pandemic, and at the time, I was lucky enough to do a podcast episode, three or four years ago, with a very smart, ambitious architectural assistant, called Dalinai Hien, however, Dalinai Hien, however, This Architectural Assistant has gone on to do great things and has changed careers.

Without further ado, I'm going to bring my guest on and we're going to talk a little bit more about that. But, Dhonai, how are you today? Are you okay?

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: I'm okay, Steve. How are you? It's lovely to be here again. It's been a while. I haven't, I was just checking this morning and I can't believe it's been four years, but Architecture Social has been growing, your podcast has been growing, and it's great to be here again.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: I'm more interested in all the cool stuff you've done, but I will take it from here. Absolutely. Now, while we know each other, and we have talked before, in case someone hasn't listened to that episode, or they're not up to date with yourself, can you first of all, tell us a [00:02:00] little bit about who you are, and then we can, I guess we can talk about where you work.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: Yes, of course. It's a very big question who I am, but I'll tell you in the in the summary version, so my journey started in 19, no, I'm joking. I came to UK to Cardiff to study architecture, and I'm originally from Cyprus, and so I studied my, both my part one and part two architecture in Cardiff University and I worked, so you're familiar with the Cardiff structure, so masters the first year of us as you do.

a year in you're full time working and you're doing your master's and then after that I've gone, I'd done one year in London, gone back to Cardiff, then came back to London to go back into architecture.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: And I worked in it for a further three years after master's until I reached a point I decided to switch careers.

And of course, This sort [00:03:00] of change have been on my mind, and so I switched to project management. I'm working at Core Central London commercial real estate developers. And so I do project management, but we're developing And we can touch on kind of the differences between that a little bit later.

I'm very well rehearsed, I explain it to my parents every week what I do. You don't get it, but we will endeavour to get into it. So that's been my journey really. And yeah,

Ask us what you are curious about.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah, I know I can imagine you do. That's the one thing because you've made that transition. I'm sure people are all the time going, let's grab a drink. Tell me all about it. How do I do the switch? But first of all, maybe what would be cool? So, You had that feeling, you wanted to explore that when you were an architectural assistant.

When did that first come about? Were you looking into property and development and you thought, you know what, I want to apply something a [00:04:00] bit different. I want to go a different direction, because it's a brave thing to do. And some people want to do it, but you actually went out there and got and started doing it.

So when did that become serious for you?

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: Yes, so it's quite funny because, I speak to people, young people, who say, I'm not quite sure what I want to do, and some are worried about that. And I always say we all have different timelines, I was determined I wanted to be an architect from age, I don't know, 13, 14, before I chose my GCSEs.

Went into uni, did my part one, did my part two, I was about to do my part three. And it was very prescriptive. And in that journey, I didn't really take any time, like some did, to discover other paths, or, give myself a bit of a break from education. Because I thought this is what I want to do, might as well get on with it.

And it's quite funny, because I think the first [00:05:00] time I started questioning whether this was what I wanted to do was the first time I went into practice. And part of that is I think most people experience this in probably in anything you do. University and the work life is always different.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah. That's

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: And architecture especially turned out to be quite different in day to day life than what I thought it might be.

I still love architecture, I still love design, that hasn't changed. But I found the work a little bit different to what I imagined. For example, I found it a bit more office based a bit more specialised. And, my interactions were mostly with technical people, with architects.

And I like that, but, some of us are more better at like specialist work. It's been a little bit more of a Generalist, let's say, a bigger picture person. And I always liked more communicative side of things.

Architecture is actually quite technical once you get into the works of it.

Of [00:06:00] course there's social skills always involved in whatever you do, and architecture is no less, because you need to be able to explain an idea to different people, to different stakeholders. But yeah, so that was the first time I started questioning, and it's about the time when a few of my friends went started going into other things, chose other paths and that really did help.

So you're right, a lot of people reach out to me saying, can we have a conversation? And I always try to say yes, because that, that is what helped me as well to understand, A, that this is possible,

B, what the life is like but being honest, I didn't actually fully know what was waiting for me.

I I knew that. Architecture wasn't the way that I could utilize my skills the best way. But project management was a bit of an abstract concept. So I understand when people are like, so what do you exactly do? Cause I didn't know, I didn't know probably a year into the job. And then I was like, okay now I'm getting it.

Now it's making sense. I say this now, cause I've been at the core for three years. [00:07:00] But but it was this. Feeling that what's the worst that's going to happen? I know where I am at is Not where I feel 100%, not where I feel like I want to be in terms of what I do. And also looking forward, looking at people that have been in the industry for 10, 15 years, and thinking, okay, starting something is always difficult, but is this the direction I want to go?

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: What I want to be doing in 10 years, 15 years? And the answer for me was, Not exactly, not, was never very black and white. It never is these things, I think looking back on it, it feels like you were much more clear in your head.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: Yes, I just thought, you know what, take the plunge.

The reason why I thought project management was a good option was because I thought that they're integral to the whole operation.

One of the challenges, especially when you're an architecture assistant or when you're a student in architecture, is you don't quite know what's [00:08:00] out there. You don't know all the tools that are out there.

And I'm still, my day to day now involves talking with people with very different professions, but all play a role in development, construction, design. And there are a lot of them that come from architecture backgrounds, actually. But I didn't know that these roles existed until I switched to project management.

And so that was my plan. My plan was, switch to project management, see if it's for you. If it's not for you, that's fine. You you already know architecture's not for you. But at least you'll know what else is out there.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: Skills, because every skill you gain, you can build on that. It's never wasted.

My architectural education hasn't been wasted. My, my experience in that gives me a different outlook than some of my other colleagues that have a different background and it's all complementary. But you got to know what to take from something. And sometimes that also involves negative experiences.

I never. I think if you go into [00:09:00] something and it doesn't work for you, you still learn a lot about yourself and you still learn a lot about working with others and you meet people and, that's part of my job is now understanding people and knowing how to Translate things between,

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah. It is really fascinating. And so I'd just love to expand upon that a little bit because you set the scene and I think it's the great psychology behind it. Now, if we go back in time, you imagine I'd love to go to that time period where you're getting ready and you've made your mind up now and like you said there's little resources there so you went into the big wide world you're getting ready for that I imagine you sent your applications out a few things and then you got that interview how different is that experience done compared to a traditional architecture Interview everything you used to before going in development.

Was it completely different? Was there some synergies? What was your experience like?

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: well, [00:10:00] actually I think, and you're going to laugh at this because I know you're a recruiter full time, your day job. But I think the most difficult bit was to convince the recruiters. To even believe in me first, put my application forward, and it is a little difficult because like different to architecture, because most architecture practices I found don't necessarily use recruiters as widely.

Whereas Or maybe it's because, I knew I was familiar with architecture practice. I think the first challenge was to know what project management firms were out there. I was very much, shooting in the dark. I didn't know project management firms. I didn't know the difference between consultancy and client side as well.

And and my friends who have gone on to project management, their advice to me was, Oh, you know that there's these recruiters have a chat with them and then they can guide you. Which is great, but, and I did have a chat with them after my part one work experience, but they were, their [00:11:00] advice to me was stay a bit more in architecture, get your part free, have a bit more experience delivering projects on site experience and then try.

Which I can categorically say is not a good advice

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Okay, wow.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: to anyone that's out there. I think, anything is possible. And there are of course ways, I don't, my experience is only, my experience.

And with these things, there's always luck involved. But I think if you know that you want to do something else. There's no point waiting. I think there's no point waiting.

And I thought, and there's always an element from of starting from the beginning, no matter how advanced you are in your career, you're always going to start from the beginning, to some extent, because it's a new, it's a new role. And it's easier to do that if you are earlier in your career. And, you're more open to, Learning [00:12:00] more things, and in a way, you don't have to unlearn as much things, because sometimes that can be something that pulls us back a little bit.

One of the challenges, and I always I always, maybe it's because I've been on the other side, but I always know that architects feel slightly not sure about a project manager with an architecture background, in the sense that Are they going to try to live their architectural dreams through us?

And are they going to, and I think that's quite important. You need to trust the people you work with. And if you're working with them, you need to trust their expertise. I'm not an architect. I don't call myself an architect. I have the background, they have the experience and that's why we're working with them.

But it's things like that, that you I think you can control your, urges easier if you haven't gone on to carrying that role for more time. So anyway, coming back to my journey. So I think that was the advice I got and I went back to do my part two and then I was going to do my part [00:13:00] three and that's when I questioned that advice.

Cause I thought there's time involved and there's money involved into getting this accreditation. I think, either way, like if I got the accreditation, I don't think that would have been. detrimental. And you can, the thing that's good about part three accreditation is you can convert it to a RICS accreditation.

It's RICS,

um, it's one of the degrees that is counted, whereas architecture isn't. So there's different routes to RICS accreditation or there's other equivalent types of accreditations you can get in surveying and project management. So if I did that, that would have. let me to carry that route.

You can also get it through experience and practice as well. You don't need to necessarily have a reciprocal degree. But but I thought, instead of using that time and money for that, why don't I use it to retrain if I need to do the thing, [00:14:00] whatever that might be that I, I realized that I want to do.

So I didn't do that. And it's quite funny because when I joined core at first, I had this. question, do I need to, do I need to train? Do I need to get a certain accreditation? And I think, again, every practice and every person has different ideas about this, but they tell me you've been in education nonstop, take a breath, get some experience, and that's more valuable for us than, Accreditation and it's a mix in, in, in our office as well, who has the, the accreditation, who doesn't.

But again, it's a bit different. I feel with consultancy and development. So anyway, going back I managed to convince Christine Scott of Madison Beckley, and I want to mention her because it's always special when you know, you get that first person to believe in you.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: And yeah, so she said, no, it's good that you caught me [00:15:00] now, that you're at perfect point in your career for this.

And she did say, it's a little bit more challenging now that, it's a bit more straightforward placing someone that ticks the boxes, comes from project management, education background. But she said, we can work with this. And I don't know what she saw in me But she was very encouraging and I think in a way the interviews was, the interview process then, I had two interviews and they were fine, they weren't as, as maybe challenging as I thought it would be where, because you think I don't know what they're going to ask.

I don't know the role. I don't have the background. I don't, it's like why project management? I don't know, I have the reasons, but are they the right reasons that you're looking for? All these things that you can get in your head. But and the good thing with interviews is that I had, so one was at Core, and the other one was at a consultancy firm, [00:16:00] and in a way, there were the two different routes I could have taken, but at that time, I didn't fully know the difference.

It was all the same role for me. So the consultancy firm was bigger and they had a bit more of a, they were more used to hiring junior staff, training them up had that processes in place. And, Christine was saying, a lot of people, it's a good foundation to start off from.

You learn a lot. The basics in a sort of a bit more rigorous way but then the development side of things is maybe where most people from consultancy might like to go to switching to client side. And to me it came down to, because of my design background, I, It was still important for me that I went, I worked in a place where it valued and understood the value of good design.

Because different developers, as we know, have, maybe have different [00:17:00] priorities in their list of how they value things and how they stack up their own investment. But core I think both of them struck as a place where they, they're working with great architects and the projects that they, they're very selective with their projects as well.

So that really spoke to me. And so I made that, it was a sort of instinctive decision. I think both would have worked out really well.

As a firm we're still in touch with the person that interviewed me and it was great to have that conversation and in a way a bit of validation that actually this is possible and you can do it.

Until you take that step I think you're always going to have questions and there's no better way to answer it to then just take the plunge.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah. No, I think that makes complete sense. And thank you for going through that journey, because I think anyone that's thinking about it, having that level of detail of insight is incredibly useful. Congratulations, you got the job and you've been there for a [00:18:00] while. Now, what would be awesome to expand upon is, it's very different, I would imagine, than an architecture practice.

And you touched upon what is a design manager, what is a project manager, compared to what you've done as a part one, a part two, and so on. So what is a typical day to day Kind of thing in your job so that people can visualize what you actually do in the role of prime real estate development.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: All right so I think I should probably explain briefly a little bit about the different titles you touched on. So Core, like I said, is a development management firm which is similar to a developer except we act on behalf of, investors, asset managers. Those are our clients. Or they might be developers but maybe not based in the UK, not experienced in the London market.

So we take the role of the client and we act on behalf of them and advise them from the beginning of the journey where, they might be [00:19:00] looking to purchase a site or, get into a project purchase or they have an asset that they're looking to purchase. Invest in and increase the value of.

So we do the initial feasibility, business appraisal with them. And then we put together the brief and then we put together the team. The design team, which consists of the, of course, architect, engineers. And with the sort of project we work with, I think there's about 40 consultants, architects.

And engineers and so on involved in making such a thing work. And that's where the project managers come into place. You can imagine, 40 consultancy firms. Someone needs to make sure that everyone has what they need to get on with it and to communicate and for the process to run smoothly.

So we're very much the facilitators, we as project managers, but then, so there's that bit of the design and then you get into the construction side of things, which is, the tendering. So we manage the tender [00:20:00] process and the monitoring of the of the construction on site and also the leasing side of things.

So most of our buildings actually that we are developing. Our prelet because we work in the sort of super prime commercial real estate market and what that means is that we have blue chip operators tech companies, banks legal firms who You might be looking for space, anything from 250, 000 square feet to half a million square feet, and you can imagine it's a significant chunk of space, and they need to look ahead, usually, five years in advance or more.

of them thinking of moving. And that's where kind of the pre letting comes into place where we present to them, they come to us, and it usually happens in a stage where the design is still in progress. So that's, we can work with them to perhaps tailor the design. [00:21:00] And yeah, so most of them, even before it goes on site we have some pre led agreements.

Sometimes it, it depends on the space that might happen after the build after the projects are finalized as well. But so that's like the full life cycle. And of course, during that you have very important, planning. It's a big chunk of working in London is understanding the planning process.

And then you have all legal, matters that are very specific to UK. There's all these sort of understanding of titles and freeholds and these sorts of deeds and and third party agreements, liaising with stakeholders around the area. So that's the full package of what we do.

And. Where the development manager and the project manager perhaps divide their roles is that project manager runs the day to day running of a project, so they would be the main kind of contact with the design team. With the contractors, with the tendering, so [00:22:00] it's the construction, design chunk of things that are the big part of what we do.

And of course, making sure that everything's on time and on budget. Development managers they bring really valuable input into understanding what brings value and actually, putting numbers to it as well. They work very closely with the leasing agents and they, they are the ones that can input into understanding what kind of kind of project would work in a certain space and what kind of tenants we'll be looking to.

Let it, and also manage the planning process. So the planning, third party matters, leasing matters are more development management side of things. But of course at Core we're 14 strong and, we I think that, like to say, that our process is seamless, and what that means is we all understand a bit about, project managers have knowledge of the development management side a little bit, and development managers have a bit of understanding of the project [00:23:00] management side.

And that's where, the value we bring comes in. It's not just about making sure. The project runs, but also about understanding how to deliver the right product to the market.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Okay. That's really useful. So that sets the scene. It's a lot of moving parts, isn't it?

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: A lot of moving parts, a

lot of spinning plates.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: yeah, because when you're the architect, you're part of that design team, but now you're talking about the whole shebang, which goes, further and wide. So one question I had then as well, so You've got, you've joined now CORE and it sounds like they've been really good in, employers and that's fantastic.

Good to know that CORE are a good bunch. When you first go into this new role though, is it, was it a bit, was it a complete change to what you're used to? Is it a bit of a shock to the system? Like you got to jump two feet first in, even with all the

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: That was your question, wasn't it? The difference between architecture and working in core, or like [00:24:00] in development management. Is it very different? And I suppose the pace of things are different, although I'm aware, when comparing no two architectural practices look the same either. And I've only worked at core as development managers and some of these might not apply to all development managers but yeah, so the pace is of course different and when you're in architecture, you're more in production mindset, so your week, weeks are divided You know, you have a deadline where you're delivering a presentation, and then two days before that, maybe you're like, checking the layouts, and you're in that kind of grind, you're going through that motions and it's very focused work in some ways to do that.

Of course, you have the coordination and working with engineers whereas as a project manager specifically, I think the first thing, my first challenge was to [00:25:00] handle the email load. It was, I'd never worked with such volume of emails. And of course, it's because when you're the project manager, you copied in on all the conversations. But when you're new, I think it's very, the challenge is to know how to prioritize and filter that. And that's what you get to do as a project manager, where it's very much the opposite from having one linear task. And having that build up working, but you need to, I think constantly in the long term program and certain things that needs to be in place at certain points in the project.

The short term, what everyone is doing and making sure that everyone is on top of, is communicating, delivering it and everyone's happy with what's been produced. And knowing. I think the key things to help out on and things that, it's that kind of, it's a different type of workload [00:26:00] where you have the whole operation in your mind constantly running, and you need to keep tabs on where everything is going.

Because sometimes they can, they all come into place in your head, but they're different work streams.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Okay. Yeah.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: that kind of change, but also the other changes, of course, with any job is understanding terms. So I think my first goal when I joined CORE and I had this sort of, I had this notebook and at the back of it I would note down every word in the meetings that I didn't understand.

And at the beginning that was quite a lot of words because, everyone uses abbreviations or shortened ways. So the first challenge is to just understand what people are talking about, I think. Once you get through it, once, once you understand 60 percent of that, I think you're fine.

You're on your way, you're on your way there. But they've been very supportive as well, and they have always valued my background and understood that, that brings something different, and in a way. When I had the chat with them initially and said, [00:27:00] should I do any training?

Do I need this and that? What should I read? remember they, them, they said to me, it's the most important thing for us is the soft skills. Because that is what you can't do. teach in a way.

That's most of our job. The rest of the rest of the things you will learn, we don't really have any worry that, about that, you will learn about how to read a contract and how to, I need to turn the return or whatever it is but it's the people skills.

Coming back to the beginning of our conversation, that's what I wanted. I wanted to work with people, and that's what we do. We deal with a variety of stakeholders. And in a way, I think we're sort of translators. You need to be able to translate between everyone's priorities and drivers, but also make sure that everyone gets And, because we set the ambition, in a way and the team follows that.

And of course, we all [00:28:00] inspire each other. I think they got to believe in their client that, This client has an ambition and values and sees, innovation and understands what we're presenting and understands that it's not just about area and, cost and all that, but there's more to what we're trying to create here.

Yeah, the language changes, now it's a language of trust and inspiration and all that. So that's how I look at it,

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: very cool and very insightful. We'll do a quick mini interlude here because we've had lots of things come in while we were talking,

but Tom says, Oh, hi. So

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: Oh, hi Tom.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah, Tom. Hello. Any questions for us? Probably don't want to ask me a question, but fire them across. We had an anonymous person saying, is it possible to watch this interview later?

Absolutely. Maybe.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: you've got to stay online. No, you can watch it later.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: yeah, you can watch it later, but if you want to ask a question now's the time.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: Possible to send it later.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: that's right, [00:29:00] exactly. We had another hello,

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: That's my uncle. Hi, uncle.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Is that your uncle? Really? Ah, there you go.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: Bringing you all the audience,

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: wow. The peak viewership is spiking. We had a few other interesting hellos, and there was a mention of the empirical metric studio metric system.

So I have no idea.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: that's a question, but, oh, actually, yes. Imperial, Imperial System, that's true. That's another challenge when you switch from architecture to development, everything is in feet and square feet.

Well,

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: true.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: Not everything. Dimensions in terms of, depths and widths. It's still, we still use meters, but areas we use square feet.

I don't know. Don't ask me, it's a UK system, but rent, rents is because the rental market still operates on square feet.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: yeah very, that's a good point. I wouldn't have even thought about it. But it's true, isn't it? You look for a

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: I'm guessing that's the question. I don't know. That's[00:30:00]

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: So it says, so why aren't we going live? You are! We're live! We're alive! But thank you so much for the question.

I appreciate it.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: very good question, Steve.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah, I gotta be careful not to butcher this, my goodness. However Kyle, who looks ready to go. Kyle is fighting fit, gym fit. Kyle says, hey, any tips on altering a CV from an architecture focused one to You know that kind of maybe a certain as fair, perhaps, who knows?

They talking about different tools. Who knows? To a CV tailored to a dev to development. That's a great question. Do you have any thoughts about that?

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: It is. And I've been asked this before as well. And so the first thing. I would say is don't stress about it too much because if you are an assistant project manager applying for a junior role or whatever it is and you don't have an experience in project management that's [00:31:00] the way it is.

And they know it probably when they invited you. So they're not necessarily looking. for that specific experience. So where you have to, in a way, CVs are divided into experiences and skills, right? So you need to, I think, present your applicable skills. And the architecture experience, The advice I had was to divide it more into RIBA stages and to talk a little bit more about, what your involvement in the RIBA stages have been.

If anything, that also shows your understanding of the different stages and what that involves. Because that's what we all work with. And like I said, understanding of planning, understanding of design coordination, understanding of construction is important. Very relevant to project management and knowing how something is buildable, knowing the planning system in London or, if you work in London or UK it's quite valuable.

So display [00:32:00] what projects you worked on, what kind of projects they are, make sure you have the areas, make sure you have where it's based make sure you have what kind of use it is, and then explain your experiences in the different areas. stages. But also make sure you talk about the applicable skills you have gained from those.

And I think all CVs, interviews as you always useful to talk about lessons learned your individual impact, and also, Yeah what you've learned through that process, because no, no two projects are the same. And I work with I'm lucky to work with people that have been in the industry for 20 years, 25 years, 30 years delivered, and they've delivered some really significant projects in the city.

But every new project throws you a different challenge, that's the, so being resilient is a good skill to have being like agile and knowing how to. Handle situations is a very, I think, useful skill, but yeah, so I think that's what I would, that's what I would say, but also just another useful [00:33:00] thing for your interviews and generally when you're going for these roles and having conversations is to keep on top of the news.

I've always said this and when we were running the magazine as well, you need to be well rounded in your understanding of industry. Our industry exists in this perfect realm where You know, politics and economy and global economy and there are a lot of factors that feeds into it.

And if you're not aware of those things then you can't really, that's what development is. Development is all about understanding those different players and those things change. They change from quarter to quarter, year to year. Yeah, I think showing that you have that understanding is valuable.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Very cool. Thank you so much for doing that. I think that's really useful. Normally, it's me talking about CVs. It would be on my tombstone, but

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: How did I do?

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: You did brilliant. I'm going to point everyone your way now and you'll [00:34:00] be like, Oh, it's more emails in my inbox. I can't handle them. I'm

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: have a caveat. If this doesn't work, please do not come back to me.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Don't worry. I get it. It's it's the same. There's always. It's whatever way works. There's no one way. We're just

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: There's no one way. There's no one way. And it's all about, it's all about who you are. I think there was another question actually from someone. Sorry, I'm taking over

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: there's There's a few are you going to tell me which one to bring? Carl says thank you. Thank you though, Carl, as well for asking a cool question. I saw Rebecca's one. Can I bring that one up about the highs? The, so the, Rebecca says, hi, mind sharing any highs and lows of your journey so far?

Everything is a helpful lesson though. Thank so helpful to hear, smiley face. So what's the kind of, maybe, of course you've got NDAs and projects and there's those bumps and stuff, but maybe what would be cool to learn is the challenges. That maybe you came across in your [00:35:00] role that you overcame.

What was it like? What's it like being a project manager in this consulting scene?

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: mean, yeah, I'm scanning it through my mind and there's a lot of challenges. I wouldn't call them all lows, Um,

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah,

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: every job requires you to train different muscles in a way. And for example, I think I've touched on the emails bit, jokingly, but, architecture is a great profession where you you're thinking it's more about designing and you express yourself differently.

And When I switched to project management, suddenly I was in the world of, you need to be able to write minutes and reports and emails and send voicemails and which to this day, just stresses me out. But and you yeah, you get into sort of, and I had to, I think that was a challenge that I had having been [00:36:00] through architecture for so long, I forgot how to, how to write reports and how to communicate in that way and how to make sure that you capture everything.

But that kind of becomes second nature keeping notes. Making sure that everything is recorded because otherwise you just go a bit insane trying to keep everything in your mind, or I would. But I think that's the beginning is a bit like it can be a little bit overwhelming because of the amount of things that are moving.

But it depends on the sort of person you are as well. So I I feed off on that sometimes. I very much feel energized that there's a lot of things moving and my job day to day looks differently and I might be talking about, public art or kind of like facade design. And then, I'm looking at, demolition or, like Talking about the market and what lawyers are looking for in an office.

Think that was like the initial challenge. I don't want to call it a low. I suppose the low is, [00:37:00] was before my career changed. It's in that limbo where

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Mmm.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: something doesn't feel right for you, but you don't know if you're going to find something that's right for you. I think that was and I think a lot of people can sympathize with that.

I, I have a lot of friends that are looking for career change, and that unknown in a way is always the worst feeling than something not working out, because something not working out is still you got your answer, so not having that answer, not feeling like you're quite ready, is the challenging bit.

I suppose the high was to prove to myself that it's possible that I can do it. And I think also having that moment where you go to a meeting or you go to, and you instinctively know What needs to be done, and then you realize how long, how far you have come along. Some things, these things you don't necessarily realize and it's a very small thing.

But when that moment happens and you get into that natural rhythm of [00:38:00] things, I think that's a very it's a very nice feeling. I think for me, that's, I value that more than the high and the low. That kind of, that consistency is a very good thing.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Oh I'm pleased. It's good to know you got that. And it's reassuring because a lot of people, even myself, before I switched roles per se, when I was a part two, it didn't feel right. It's not a nice feeling. So I'm really good to hear on that point. I have got one or two more quick questions if you're still happy to do them while you hear them.

So Yogesh is thinking about going from architecture development and said, what jobs websites do you go to? What job titles should I apply for if I'm moving from part two in development management, say, in residential real estate? So like, where do you begin on these kind of searches? You mentioned information is fragmented.

I know Christina, who you spoke to. She's great. I've got a little bit understanding of that space. It's uncharted [00:39:00] territory. I think, with few and far bits of information, no one way to go about it, but what do you think? Is that correct? Do you think there's a pool of wealth out there that I'm not aware of that would be useful for people?

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: Not that I've found, but, it's, we all like to, we all to, it would be great if there was one website, one, job board, and it's it's for people. Part two architects that are looking to switch into project management or development in London. Unfortunately that I didn't find one.

But I think I'll now with hindsight I think what would have been a great idea is because there are numerous project managers and developers out there, and I think what's a better idea is to look at developments. that you actually like. And as an architect, that's also easier for us to find, right?

If you go on AJ, if you go on other sort of construction property related or architecture related places. So if you look at [00:40:00] kind of residential real estate projects, developments that are being delivered and you'd like, and then find the developers behind them, I think That's a good way of going about it, and that's a good way of filtering things.

Having said that, I, no matter what you apply, this again is more your expertise, but my advice has always been don't filter out too much in terms don't be too specific, Development Manager, Project Manager, Developer, all these titles, I think, is a bit superfluous at the beginning of your career, and they are, because they are very applicable skills, I think, especially as a sort of client side PM I don't see my role that different to a DM.

Of course, it's different, but I don't see it as something that I wouldn't be able to go into if that's what I decided to go into. And I did have friends coming to me and saying, I want to be a development [00:41:00] manager, but I can't find any development management roles. There's few project management roles.

And I was like, it doesn't matter. And in my experience, and in the few experiences that I've seen, I think it's a little bit more of a, seen as a bit more of a natural transition, perhaps, to go from architecture to project management because it's. See, again project managers need a more technical side of things, whereas, development managers, you might have backgrounds in, surveyors or listing agents.

I don't necessarily think it holds you back, but it might, whatever helps to get that first step step onto, onto the, onto your ladder or whatever it, that's always valuable. Get your foot through the door and then you can steer the direction to wherever you want to go. I don't know if that was helpful, Yogesh,

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: that, that is. And don't worry, Yogesh, I'm trying to build up content as well in this sector, but it's a slow burner. That's why I was trying to get people who have done the journey on, such as Darlene Knight, who [00:42:00] can illustrate it. But

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: but Sorry, yeah, this was a great opportunity to tell you.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: we're

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: That

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: we're

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: look at Architectural Social

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: we're getting there. But I got beyond, I got to be honest, it's good. It will take time though, because there is not a a clear trajectory right now. But we all go in there one step at a time. I think part of it is sharing information and stuff and having these questions.

Also people being brave enough to put questions on is really cool. So yes, I guess there isn't one just yet, but I'm coming for it. We're going to do it right. That's what this is all about.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: all right. Tap into your network. That's another very important thing, look around for anyone that is remotely related to what you want to do and just have a conversation and you never know what you're going to learn from this.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: yeah, we touched upon this question a bit in the last one where, basically here, what we're talking about is what is the difference between project management, development manager, and these kind of things. One of the bits of advice that I had on that is not to be too precious about the job [00:43:00] title, is to look at the company, because sometimes the companies even have different variations of them as well.

I That's correct. Yeah whether it's a Technical Coordinator at Berkeley Arms, Design Coordinator, Design Manager, it's more about the company and some, a bit of advice I got was actually look at the job description because that will really flesh out what the role entails more so than the title. Do you think that's true advice?

Is that right or

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: That is true, exactly. I think what you're also saying applies to what I touched on before that it makes a difference more if you're client side or if you're consultancy side, had no idea what the difference was and in a way, it's, I still probably can't fully explain it, but in a way, the consultancy side, if we explain it in terms of how the operation works is, if your client side, what that means is you can.

You act on behalf of the client, so you get involved in things like setting the ambition for the project, setting the brief for the project. But also that's the value we as CORE [00:44:00] bring is that understanding of the client. The right product. Whereas the consultant side, it might be that you are already working with someone that is giving that advice, and it might be more focused on delivering.

It might be more focused on, keeping the minutes, keeping the reports making, Checking things and reporting on it rather than necessarily leading as such as much. But I think every project and every client works differently as well. So every client would have different type of structuring.

But that's How I would describe it, and as a client side and as a core, we only do project management on our jobs, whereas in the consultancy side, you might be, you would be working for different

You'd be hired externally to help out.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Makes complete sense. That is so useful that Yogesh is actually looking at developers and projects as he speaks and will be doing [00:45:00] applications. But good for you, Yogesh. And yeah, thank you for sharing that advice. Now I think it's time for you to wind down. Because you've, I think we've unpacked a lot of the topic.

I do want to, I do want to lead people where, they can find more about you and Core. But just before we do that, I normally like to throw the baton the other way, and you can ask me a question or two if you want, which could be really interesting, could be quite spicy, because we know each other.

I know we've had a laugh, but we've had podcast one, podcast two. Do you have any questions you'd like to ask me?

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: Question of the highs and lows was quite interesting. It made me reflect, had this film role of the last years in front of my eyes. So I suppose, what were your highs and lows since, especially since we last saw each other? Because that was a good milestone and we were Touching on this a bit earlier, how, four years later, we perhaps find ourselves in a different different place.

We were talking during the pandemic. So how has your sort of last

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: How's it

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: four years been? Yeah.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: I'll give the [00:46:00] short but real unfiltered answer. So it was good. Back then the social was more of a forum. I was on furlough at the time. I was lucky it popped up today actually, that the social's been four years, which is pretty mental. But the business has period a lot and a bit like development as well.

I've always loved them. The important bit of the social, which I thought is the kind of the cool community or giving away information, which is really valuable to people for free. But then I've had to bolt on the revenue to keep it alive. And that's been a really interesting learning curve. So it's like making the profit to survive and doing the cool stuff and navigating that relationship has been complicated because you have to it.

Financially get it working to do the cool stuff and then getting things financially working has been quite a learning curve. And also, I think doing that, the architecture industry has been struggling because it's not been busy for people at the moment, so it's been quite difficult. It was quite terrible in the furlough, but we all survived that.

Then the market sentiment was [00:47:00] picking up a bit, and there's been quite a lot of pressure, especially in like London, in the real estate industry, waiting for the interest to drop, certain projects going on it's quite interesting. Usually the commercial sector, so that could be a fascinating talk for another time, but people starting to return to works, interest in residential, taking an absolute pummeling due to legislation.

So it has been really interesting. A lot of our clients have actually been international projects. Big hotels in the Red Sea and all this stuff. And data centers has been really busy. We've been working with a lot of companies doing that. So it's actually been quite an interesting time, but it feels like it's all about to start picking up, not right, right now, but going in the right way.

The sentiment in London is getting quite busy and commercial resident, that'd be great for you and everything. And cause we're all part of it. I always joke that you see the cranes pop up and actually it's a good sign that things are kicking off. It's a good sign that it means we're all quite busy.

So it's good. So [00:48:00] yeah, I'm excited for what's happening. I tell you what my next goal is, right? So now it's been four years or maybe three since our last podcast. So in the next three, the next goal now is, because I think we've done a few difficult things in the social, there was the cool, Forum back then, the next step for the social, and let's see if I get there or not, how far it goes, is to get somewhat in person.

I would like to start doing social stuff in person.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: In

person.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: yeah, a little bit, or there could be certain events, there could be I have this mad idea of it being like a studio where people can come print their student work, there's a bit of an office, I don't know, there's some beers going on at events, I'd like to do that.

Not there just yet, but maybe that's the next step.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: I think, I've done a bit of radio before, like we were talking about it and it's always very exciting to see the person in front of you and, you

know, even creates like a bigger dynamic. I just love that we, it's we go full circle in this world, [00:49:00] like digital.

And then now like in person is the cool thing because we're also, looking at. It exhausts at looking at screens, but that's amazing. I actually have one more question for

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah, go on. Yeah, please.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: So you've been working in recruitment for quite a while now,

and you've seen probably you, you've given advice to many people looking for jobs and you've placed many people.

Has there been any sort of. Common themes or common things that you see in a person or in a CV or in a career where you you know that it will work in placing them somewhere or it will work easier or, the natural tells that this is a strong candidate.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah. Good question. I think it's harder to feel that on the phone. What's interesting is there's two versions. Maybe we'll do the, we'll split it down to two things. So more architectural and more development or client side making the move. So architectural, [00:50:00] of it is the soft skills. It's always having that beautiful CV portfolio.

I, I generally think if someone can come across well in person, they speak honestly, it's a really good starting point. And I think practice makes perfect in in, in that front. There's a lot There's, I do think as well, the way you talk about looking at a company, I think that can be really important.

Sometimes speaking their language, having your own version, but I think understanding in a company, speaking their own language, even graphically, and not about lifting it. But if you can get into the feel of some company, and then you go for an interview and you're speaking their language, what you tend to find the way is, find is that the client actually goes, Oh my gosh, that's great.

Darlene was

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: We're made

for

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: She's part of us. She understands us and you're like, okay, cool. And I think there's something there. And I reckon there, there is a theme. It's normally a strong CV and portfolio, but the end of it was really make a break. You can have the best project in the world.

I had an interview with someone a month ago [00:51:00] at the best interview. Projects in the world, but culturally it wouldn't have been a fit because they came into the interview and perhaps didn't do as much research as they should, or maybe perhaps was a bit arrogant. Who knows? I got to keep it ultra anonymous, but where I'm going is it didn't fit.

There wasn't the rapport was equally. What I found is sometimes that people, maybe they don't have the ideal projects. Maybe they have some of the skills. But they go in there, they have the attitude and they're keen and hungry and ready to go. And I think that really works that if we put the question more on to the development client side, because I used to work alongside Christina McDonald and the company, and she's great.

And we used to, we, when we would put up a role, they would say, For client side or development, we would have architects or architectural assistants tripping over each other, trying to get that role. So it's high in demand. And what what I learned is that first of all, you've got to really want it, which you did, and you've got to pursue it.

And now [00:52:00] there's two kinds of people that apply from architecture and development. Those are really want to do it. And are ready to do it at all costs, and they're ready to jump in, ready to learn, ready to accept a fair salary, but not a huge salary. That's another myth, isn't it? Oh, I'm going to be, go over to development and big bucks.

Or there's those people that had a bad day in architecture, think about it, but also want to do, continue in architecture, or maybe they've had that bad time. And I think that, know, In development, the architects or architectural assistants like yourself that I've seen made the jump really just rigorously go for it with or without the recruitment.

It's on the, like what you said, they're trying to convince the person, they're ready to do what it takes, whether it's being on site five days a week, it doesn't matter. I want that experience. And I think it's that attitude. is what gets those people across the line and being open minded on salaries.

Usually it's either a similar salary, maybe a slight increase, but you have to remember that the [00:53:00] developers, the real estate, consultants, whatever they are, they got a lot of skills they got to teach you. And it's a little bit of a gamble on their front because you haven't done the job yet.

So that's the thing I noticed. It is about that. And also, yeah it it would be more about the. The CV, the experience, less about the portfolio and going into the interviews and the people that did really well could talk quite quickly about what they did, who, what, where, when, why, like who are they, what have they done, where was the project, how big was it, was they, were RIBA stages they'd done, so very literal and could quickly paint the picture without even going for the portfolio to the interviewee.

Bizarrely, I'm echoing what you said, it's soft skills. Had you said that to me, though, before, I wouldn't, I don't know if I would have said that straight away, but it really is about the personality, in my opinion, and I think that the people who get there in the end, whether it's [00:54:00] they're quick or it takes them a year or two, are the ones that keep going for it and plug into their network, but aggressively pursue it because they want to do it.

It's not all glamorous working in development. It's definitely not a case of get out of architecture. Jerk cards. It's a lot of, it's a lot of hard work, but equally very rewarding for the right person. Does that make sense? Is that useful? a

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: it's a great answer. I think I agree with all of it. And at the end of the day, I think you should do it for yourself. You

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: You.

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: cheesy as that sounds, we spend a great deal of our lives at work. And you want to feel, whatever you do, you want to feel good about what you're doing. And the type of people you're working and your day to day.

And I think people can see that. People can see it when you want something because It's you, and you want it because it makes sense for you, or you want something because you like the idea of it.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Yeah. I couldn't agree more on that. No, I think we're going to wind it up now. I [00:55:00] don't want to get you in trouble, even though core are quite cool. I don't want to get you in trouble. However, if people want to get in touch with you, find out more about Core, where can they begin that search, get in touch with you on Core?

00;00;00_Dolunay Dogahan: They can always get in touch with myself on LinkedIn and Court, you are, you're sharing our website on there, and the link, and yeah, that's a good place to start, but we're also on all the social media, on LinkedIn, on Instagram, Twitter as well, I believe there's abundance of ways to get in touch.

00;00;00_Stephen Drew: Excellent. Thank you so much. On that note, I'm going to end the live stream, but for you in the audience, thank you so much. Have a great weekend. Hope this has been useful. I'm going to end the live stream right now. Take care, everyone. Bye bye. Take care.