I often speak with people who need to relocate. Sometimes, they are moving because they need to be closer to family; some need to accommodate a spouse whose career or academic pursuits require the entire family to move.
Whatever the reason may be, long distance job hunting tends to be far more difficult because firms don’t want to incur the expense or the logistical challenges. After all, for many of them, they believe there is an ample pool of talent near where they live so why should they bother? The result is, people who are not local seem to find the job search more challenging.
What can you do? There are a few choices.
In your e-mail that accompanies your resume, tell the would-be employers the reason you want to move to their area. If you are willing to pay your own interview and relocation expenses, mention that too.
A second choice comes from an e-mail I received from a former subscriber, Pete, now from Virginia who was living outside of the United States and kept finding that he was finishing second on his interviews. He switched his address to one in Miami where he had family. Once he did that, his interviews started to increase and he was hired to work for a firm in Virginia.
If you are moving to where you have family, use your family’s address on your resume and provide your cell phone. More firms will call you and give you a chance despite the only thing changing being the address on your resume.
© The Big Game Hunter, Inc. Asheville, NC 2008, 2016
Do you really think employers are trying to help you? You already know you can’t trust recruiters—they tell as they think you need to know to take the job they after representing so they collect their payday.
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter has been a career coach and recruiter for what seems like one hundred years.
JobSearchCoachingHQ.com is there to change that with great advice for job hunters—videos, my books and guides to job hunting, podcasts, articles, PLUS a community for you to ask questions of PLUS the ability to ask me questions where I function as your ally with no conflict of interest answering your questions.