topic Re: What do you call yourself? in AutoCAD Forum

What do you call yourself?

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 16:19:38 GMT

I have recently finished my Lynda training and am completing an intensive course in London next week.

I'm going to start doing freelance tracing for a couple of local architects. What should my job title be?

Freelance AutoCAD Technician?

Freelance AutoCAD Professional?

What do you call yourself? Or, more importantly. What do you think a prospective employer would search for when looking for freelance work?

Re: What do you call yourself?

TheCADnoob — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 16:25:56 GMT

Freelance Drafter

Using AutoCAD as you have implies certification. If you have that certification go with AutoCAD certified Professional.

Re: What do you call yourself?

JDMather — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 17:13:51 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

...
Freelance AutoCAD Professional??

I did a search here https://www.certiport.com/Portal/pages/ACPSearch.aspx

and did not see your name listed.

Re: What do you call yourself?

jackshield — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 18:19:57 GMT

i dont see the need to use the term "freelance"

we're often referred to as contractors here in the states

i would also use "technician" over "professional"

something about stating "professional" seems unprofessional

Re: What do you call yourself?

pendean — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 19:03:17 GMT

"professional" implies a college degree.
"technician" seems more appropriate here.

Re: What do you call yourself?

RobDraw — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 23:39:53 GMT

When I got out of trade school for AutoCAD/Drafting, I was hired as a Drafter.

After nearly 20 years in the field, my official title is CAD Tech.

Re: What do you call yourself?

steven-g — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 05:57:52 GMT

I call myself Steve thats all I've ever used.

Re: What do you call yourself?

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 08:28:35 GMT

My country call Designer (Such as Architecture Designer, Mechanical Designer, etc..)

All I have experience, There is no CAD manager who works for only managing drawing in my homeland.

In my area, freelance means the part-time job.

So I call part time designer.

I think that it will be a different calling job title by country.

Re: What do you call yourself?

CAD_Craig — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 11:28:16 GMT

If you want to be old timey about it you could call yourself a Certified Draughtsman.

Re: What do you call yourself?

RobDraw — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 11:32:20 GMT

@CAD_Craig wrote:

If you want to be old timey about it you could call yourself a Certified Draughtsman.

Uhm..., I think you need an actual certification for that.

Re: What do you call yourself?

CAD_Craig — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 11:37:48 GMT

@RobDraw wrote:
@CAD_Craig wrote:
If you want to be old timey about it you could call yourself a Certified Draughtsman.
Uhm..., I think you need an actual certification for that.

I was thinking he got a certificate from the online training he did, but if not then simply Draughtsman would do. Or Unaffiliated Draughtsman, perhaps.

Re: What do you call yourself?

gotphish001 — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 13:57:40 GMT

Not that I give 2 cares as to what my title is, but I've actually been thinking about this recently. My firm is just 3 people, myself(cad monkey), an architect that doesn't have his stamp yet(he does things to help me as well as things to help the boss so he's kind of like both) , and the boss which is a very well versed architect that was before a partner in a really big firm. The boss does zero cad and has no idea how I do what I do. We are getting new business cards. The old cards don't have a title on them besides the bosses because originally the bossman said he wasn't big on titles because they are just made up, so I left my title blank.

My issue is that if I give my card to someone they automatically think I'm an architect. As it's almost implied by our company name. Now I don't fell bad that I'm a cad monkey and not a full architect, but it's annoying to have to tell everyone that I give my card to that I'm not an architect because they ask like 99% of the time. Plus I don't want to misrepresent myself if they don't ask. If I put a title I'd like it to be something more important sounding than CAD Tech. Not that that is bad to be, but since I have a choice why not make it sound cooler! So I was thinking of a few. Someone suggested cad op/field engineer since I sometimes go into the field to do site measurements. There has been some things I read that suggest that might also misrepresent myself since I'm not actually an engineer even though field engineer really isn't an engineering sub division. I set up our blocks and libraries, pretty much our standards. There are only two of us but I try and drive that part of our work as the other guy that does cad is self admitting he isn't good at being organized in cad. Plus I'm a research freak so I'm always the one to figure out a way to fix something or how to do something we want to learn as can probably be seen by how much I post on the forums only a year into my career. So I guess technically I could call myself the cad manager. I'm only a year out of school, but still pretty good at what I do and if I called myself that I'm really only managing the cad standards of one other person. Would I be misrepresenting myself by giving myself the title cad manager in your guys opinion? I doubt I'll be getting a new job anytime soon as my situation is amazing, so it's not like I'd be putting cad manager on my resume and applying to some giant firm where a cad manager probably does much more than I do. Also the owner said I can put my title on my card to say anything I want. I could probably say I wanted to put cad monkey and he might agree. Well, probably not haha but he's open to most things I think.

On a side note I do some of the IT stuff too since we are a small office of 3. Like set up some outlook stuff and install softwares. Find new software we might need. I have 3/4 of a computer programming degree also, before I decided I didn't want to do that for the next 30 years. I also have an associates in science focused on architectural cad. Do you think I'd be reaching calling myself Cad Manager?

Re: What do you call yourself?

dgorsman — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 14:18:57 GMT

@steven-g wrote:

I call myself Steve thats all I've ever used.

Not the only one - others have used my name as a job title. Sometimes it's easier than trying to explain everything.

Re: What do you call yourself?

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 14:21:28 GMT

This has been interesting to me. It seems that different countries look at titles differently.

I'm mainly interested in what to call myself for SEO purposes. Having taken everything into account here and having asked a couple of Architects what they would search for if they were looking for somebody to help out with tracing and the consensus is:

"Freelance Draughtsman" or "Freelance CAD Draughtsman"

That is anglicised as that is my territory. Drafter appears to be more American, so Im sticking with that. I'll add the certified bit in a tag line as and when that comes along (should be next week).

As for your question, GotFish, I don't think you will be misrepresenting yourself with that title.

What does everybody else think?

Re: What do you call yourself?

gotphish001 — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 14:41:04 GMT

Looks good. I don't know if I'd use that email address. Even though it seems easy to remember as hello, I'd just make the beginning kheath or kevinheath. I can see the reason for using hello but people you talk with are more likely to remember your name as they are to a random word if they want to contact you.

Re: What do you call yourself?

steven-g — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 16:03:07 GMT

I should expand on my earlier answer, I think titles are deceiving and vastly overrated, usually by the people that use them, it's decades ago that we had a whole slew of people coming up with super job titles in England.

"What is your job"?I

"I'm a registered sanitation Engineer"

"Really that sounds interesting what do you do"?

"Clean the toilets"

Personally, I have no problem being called a cleaner or I would do something else, the important part is what you do, and do you try to do it the best you can. I went to college to learn Autocad, I've also been taught Microsoft Office, plus a whole host of other things. I spent 25 years working on building sites, and yes I've even been a "sanitation Engineer" and wheeled bodies around a dark basement as a hospital porter, plus many other things less pleasant than that. When I decided to learn Autocad and get back into drawing office work. I was hired halfway through the first interview I went on, not because I was called an "Architectural technician", or a "super duper drafting wizard", but because I could talk about how I had 20+ years of practical experience, and how I could translate that into Autocad drawings. One of my first jobs was working on a small project called "One Hyde Park" where one of the penthouse apartment's is still the most expensive apartment in the world, and my part in that - was designing the metal frame that held the marble finish from around the toilets. So it's still about keeping the toilets clean

My point is if I had just relied on a "title" then no one would know the whole wealth of other experience that life has brought my way.

So lets start by saying "Hello my name is Steve" I can use Autocad and a whole host of other programs.

Re: What do you call yourself?

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 16:07:00 GMT

Well Steve - I know somebody who is looking for CAD ops with joinery experience.

Would you like an intro?

Re: What do you call yourself?

steven-g — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 16:39:47 GMT

Hi Kevin, that would be great but the commute from Antwerpen every day would be horrible, at least I'd make a killing on the mileage allowance. Where are you based?

Re: What do you call yourself?

murray-clack — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 16:46:33 GMT

How about visiting various recruitment websites and do a search for "CAD", and then look at all the architect and engineering companies posting CAD related jobs and see what they are ASKING for?

You might get results like "CAD Operator", or "CAD Technician", or "AutoCAD Specialist", or my personal favourite: "CAD Monkey"

See what the most common term is being used and go with that

Re: What do you call yourself?

TheCADnoob — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 17:56:16 GMT

I was talking to a friend and he said i was all wrong.

He said a drafter or draughter is some one skilled in creating drawings and not necessarily some one who uses CAD. In other words if you did not go through an education of descriptive geometry and only learned to use AutoCAD you haven't bridged the draughter gap. So if all you learned was the program you are an operator or a technician.

@gotphish001 id say if you handle install, integration, licensing, maintenance, and standards you are well within the CAD manager arena.

I too find titles to be usually silly in the private sector. generally they should give you an idea of what some one does, but the way each business is set up this may change between business despite the day to day activities being the same. The last company i worked for my title changed every time they ordered business cards. In other words our title was about as meaningful as the secretaries understanding of what we did.