Staff the work without the gamble.
Scale a team for a deadline or hire the leader who'll define your studio for years. We pre-vet for skill, software, and fit — so the first interview is the right one. We invented this model in 1984, and we've refined it ever since.
Request talent
Tell us who you need — discipline, level, software, timeline — and we'll come back fast with people worth your time. Pressing deadline? Call (212) 532-4360 .
Why firms choose CFA
Design-native recruiters
Our team reads portfolios and speaks the language of the studio — not generalists chasing keywords.
Fast, vetted shortlists
An 85,000-strong, curated network means qualified candidates, often within days.
Software verified up front
Revit, AutoCAD, and more — proficiency assessed before you ever sit down.
No minimum commitment
Project Placement flexes with your workload. Convert to permanent only when it's right.
Recruiters who stay
Decades of tenure on our team means relationships and market memory the big firms can't match.
Professionally referenced
Every candidate we present comes professionally referenced — a track record real colleagues vouch for, not just a résumé.
What a permanent hire really costs
A project rate can look expensive by the hour — until you weigh it against the fully loaded cost of an employee. Drag the slider to a salary and watch the real number.
Illustrative. Benefit load from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (benefits ≈ 30% of total compensation, ≈ 43% of wages); replacement range per Gallup. Not financial advice.
Three ways to hire
Project / Contract →
A specialist or a whole team to carry a deadline — cost-effective, no permanent overhead.
Project-to-Perm →
Try the fit on a live project, then convert to a permanent hire with no friction.
Permanent / Direct-Hire →
Targeted searches for the architects and designers who'll stay and lead — including confidential retained searches for principals and studio leaders.
The right architect, before you even ask
TalentRadar™ is our in-house, AI-assisted talent engine — used by no other architecture staffing firm. It keeps a living, ranked shortlist of the strongest available candidates for every role, so your recruiter calls with the right few people, not a keyword pile.
Explore TalentRadar →Start with our network
Four decades of relationships and one of the deepest architecture-and-design talent pools in New York.
TalentRadar verifies & ranks
For every role, it checks each candidate against your requirements, confirms availability, and ranks by true fit — not keyword counts.
Your recruiter calls
A shortlist that's already vetted. No stale résumés, no guesswork — just the few people genuinely worth your time.
CAD & Revit assessment
Software ability shouldn't be a guess. We assess Revit, AutoCAD, and related tools through the CFAeX Knowledge Assessment — real, standards-based testing, and a direct extension of our heritage running an award-winning Autodesk training center and authoring certification exams. It works three ways:
For our candidates
Every CFA candidate can certify their skills at no cost — so the talent we send you arrives already verified.
Test your own team
Benchmark your entire CAD/BIM staff or screen new hires with our assessment — objective proof of exactly where your people stand.
Built to your standards
We'll build a test around your firm's own CAD standards, templates, and workflows — so you measure what actually matters in your studio.