USA

The RTPI briefing on finding work overseas gives general advice and suggests ways of finding information on the planning systems in countries which interest you.

Two institutes based at the same address perform between them the same functions as the RTPI: membership of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) is the recognised qualification for planners, while the American Planning Association (APA) promotes and defends planning.

American Planning Association

American Institute of Certified Planners

The jobs section of the APA website carries job advertising and gives planners a chance to upload a CV (résumé). Jobs are also advertised in the Planetizen Newswire while the Planetizen web-site is an excellent source of information on current planning topics in the US, and you can sign up to get a twice-weekly digest of news and vacancies.

The APA, the Irish Planning Institute and RTPI run an international exchange programme which has matched 100 pairs of planners over 15 years. Each person spends two weeks in the other's office, staying in the partners home. Once matched, participants may arrange the two two-week periods at any time in the year. The only requirement is to pay one's own airfare, receive the exchange partner as a guest in one's home, and write a full report on return. This is an attractive option for someone wishing to gain experience of US planning and build up contacts in the country. Invitations to apply for the scheme usually appear in Planning in the autumn of each year, but at present the scheme is suspended pending a review. Please contact the RTPI International Affairs Officer for an update.

Some words of caution

We warn Members wanting to work in the USA that British-qualified and trained planners have found it hard to get work there. We know of only a handful of planners who have achieved this, and they were either US nationals who trained here or British citizens who had strong family connections in the US already. In fact, we know of some who had strong family connections and still have not been able to get work.

Ease of access to information about vacancies should not mislead any UK-trained planner: it is generally difficult for non-US citizens to get professional jobs in the USA. There are obstacles associated with visas and other immigration formalities as well as the technical barrier created by the differences between the US planning administration system and the UK model. At present it would be unusual for a local authority to be able to argue that a British planner had skills which no native could offer.

Local comments

US employers lack familiarity with the way planners are educated elsewhere. In the UK, any prospective employer would know what knowledge and (crucially) experience a chartered town planner would have gained along the way. When the Institute enquired of a local authority in San Francisco "Would a planner with (say) 3 years of undergraduate planning or related education followed by post-graduate specialist planning training and a minimum of two years planning experience find it easy to apply for jobs such as the two you circulated?" the reply was I believe such a person would be qualified (in fact our former planning director did not even have these qualifications!). It would probably be helpful - and make the applicant more attractive - if they had taken some of their education in the US or Canada or had practiced in the US or Canada for a few years at least.' So despite the encouragement at the start of his reply, in the end it was clear that it is North American experience which counts, not education or training. US planning is based on a very different legal and administrative system, and it is hard to break into this without re-qualifying. This contrasts sharply with the situation in Australia and New Zealand, for example.

This is not encouraging, but we think it is important to give realistic advice based on experience over several years. That said, and as a counter to pessimism, we learn that the situation may be improving, at least in some places. In June 2006, we heard from a chartered town planner now working in Florida that We are experiencing tremendous growth here and everybody is looking for staff. I have a young planner working with me, but have been advertising now for 2 months for a senior planner. My ex-boss is also looking for 2 staff, the County is looking for staff and so are many other places in Florida! I dont know about other States. If you have a planning degree and some experience you can get an H1B visa which is valid for 3 years. For that you only really have to show that you are paying the going rate for the job. To progress to the green card (which I am currently doing) does require you to show that you have advertised the job, but with not many people applying, thats not too hard to do. It takes a long time to get the green card, but you get issued with temporary papers which you have to renew each year. With the amount of time and money that I have spent on advertising, I could have used that to pay for the visa! I don't know if many English planners apply for jobs that are advertised on APA and chapter [branch] web-sites.

Good news for Irish students and graduates

Full- and part-time Irish students and graduates (up to 12 months after receiving their degrees) have access to a special one-year work and travel visa. This has the huge advantage that you do not have to have secured a job before leaving for the USA, but simply start job-hunting when you arrive.  You must look for work in the subject of your degree (but the categories are fairly broad). More information from USIT and Go4Less

Exchanges

For the reasons set out above, there are no exchanges as conventionally understood between professional planners. The one-year, "total lifestyle" exchange of job/home/car etc is limited to exchanges with Australia and New Zealand. Even these have become harder lately, for reasons connected with differences in salaries and costs of living.

The RTPI set up the joint scheme with the APA mentioned in the general briefing precisely because it is hard for a British planner to find work there, or even that a US and a British planner could do each other's work for a year. We will gladly send further details on the RTPI-APA work-shadowing exchange programme if this is of interest. The scheme ran into difficulties in 2004-5 because the matching process is quite time-consuming and won't work at all without roughly equal numbers of applicants, and there has been a shortage of UK applicants. We are keen to make sure that this does not happen again.

Making contacts

All that said, if you are willing to commit a considerable amount of time, money and effort into the project, you could build up the contacts. For example, the annual conference of the American Planning Association is the single most important event in the US planning calendar - a very important meeting place and crucially, too, a job market. You could perhaps arrange a holiday-cum-contact-building trip around the APA meeting (the 2012 conference is in Los Angeles in April and the 2013 event is in Chicago) to get an idea of what US employers look for and expect.

The Florida planner mentioned above comments Your advice to go to planning conferences is good, but I would suggest going to the state ones. For example, the Florida chapter of the APA (FAPA) has a conference in September and there are usually people looking for staff. Its also a good opportunity to learn about local issues. The way they do things here are different than the UK, but its not hard to learn and in Florida we are definitely getting more new urbanism/smart growth orientated. Otherwise, the issues are fairly similar and the people are too still have the neighbours that dont like anything in their back yard!. You can find out more about APA Chapters here.

Updated June 2012