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Job Hunting in a Distant City
By Pat O'Donnell
© May 5, 2008, all rights reserved.
In the current housing market, most clients will avoid trying to move someone. I have worked with job-seekers who had an offer in a new city but then were told by realtors it would be 8-12 months before they could expect to sell their house in the previous location. Unless you are very senior, a new employer is unlikely to want to take on your transition housing costs. Add to that the possibility of having wife, kids, and husband in separate locations for the 8 months and you have a recipe for divorce.
But if you have a finance or family in the targeted city, and you rent, you have a better chance of successfully relocating.
- If you have friends or relatives in the new city, and you could stay with them for a short time, put two addresses on your resume. It makes it look like you are easier to move emotionally and physically. Show two phone numbers if possible also.
- An employer may not pay to fly you out there for an interview depending on your salary level and the ease of finding people like you. (Web Designers are easy to find, Marketing Managers with Fortune 100 consumer packaged goods experience are not.) So you may need to organize a lot of interviews around a few trips you pay for. Call recruiters and potential interviewers and tell them you will be there the third weekend of every month from Thursday to Tuesday and can they arrange interviews for you while you will be in town.
- Find recruiting firms that have offices in both cities. The references from the current location recruiter office will make you much more appealing to the remote office (because the local recruiter can verify the quality of your clients and work.) You can look up recruiters in both cities by using the printed Directory of Executive Recruiters published by Kennedy Publishing, Fitzwilliam, NH. You can buy a copy for $40 on www.amazon.com or find it a $300 version of it in a business oriented public library. If you are junior or your title is common in the job databases, you can use www.indeed.com to do the same thing.
- If you frequent a church or temple, go to the elders’ council of the sister church/temple in the new city and network.
- If you belong to a professional association that has chapters in both cities, join the chapter in the new city months before you want to be in the new city and attend some meetings or a regional conference. Network with the Board of Directors. Write an article. Give a speech.
- Look for opportunities to do part-time contract work in the targeted city before you move. Use that employer as a reference to other employers in the new city.
- Look for companies with a large percentage of telecommuters. They will be less threatened in the transition stage.
- Look for companies with hundreds of global offices. Many of my contacts at one employer travel 50-70% of the time anyway and as long as they live near a large airport, the parent company does not care where “home” is.
- Interview current employees of the firm to understand why the potential employer is willing to go to the hassle of importing someone. Sometimes you will uncover problems for the firm with its reputation in the local market.
Topics: Hidden Job Market, Interviews, Networking |
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