Succeed At Long-Distance Job Search
You’re determined to change both your job and your location. A local job search is tough enough, but factor in geographic distance and the absence of a strong network and you’re looking at a process that can be maddening to navigate.
“For a long-distance job search, you do everything that you’d do for a local search, plus a lot more research,” says Marilyn Moats Kennedy, a career strategist in Wilmette, Ill.
Experts say that voluntary job hunting heats up in the fall, in anticipation of the accelerated hiring that many companies undertake in January.
Here are six strategies to help you launch an effective long-distance job search:
Do research. Subscribe to the daily newspaper and weekly business journal for at least three months before firing off resumes. Scout publications for names of emerging companies, where you’re likely to find more opportunities and less competition than at big-name corporations.
Network aggressively. Ask friends, neighbors and relatives for names of people they know in your destination city.
“For a large city, you’ll need 200 names of people you can call and say, ‘I’m Ellen’s sister-in-law. I’m looking for a job in San Francisco. Who should I be talking to?”’ Kennedy says.
Prepare your pitch. There are myriad reasons why people move - to get a fresh start after a divorce, to care for an elderly parent, to be with a transferred spouse. But it’s not in your best interest to share them during an interview. “If you say, ‘I’m tired of Chicago,’ the interviewer will think, ‘What if she gets tired of San Francisco?”’ Kennedy says.
“If you say, ‘I’m coming to Phoenix because I love the desert,’ they’ll think you’re a lifestyle junkie and cut the salary by 10 percent because you’re an easy hire.”
What are palatable reasons for relocating? You have relatives in Seattle. You want to live in an area with more opportunities in your industry, or you’re seeking a more family-friendly locale. If you want to disclose that your spouse has been transferred, be sure to convey that you intend to put down roots in your new location.
“It’s OK to say anything the chamber of commerce would want to hear,” says Clyde C. Lowstuter, co-author of “Network Your Way to Your Next Job … Fast” (McGraw Hill, $14.95) and president of Robertson Lowstuter, a career management firm in Deerfield, Ill. In cover letters and conversations with networking contacts, he also recommends saying, “I’m committed to relocating to X, or I’m relocating to X in Y months,” to create “a sense of urgency about your job hunt.”
Anticipate phone interviews. “You get one chance to impress the decision maker, so you must be ready to sell yourself whenever the phone rings,” Davidson says. She recommends keeping your resume by every phone in the house and using your name when you answer (“Hello, this is Susan Green”) to sound professional.
Schedule a visit. Be prepared to pay your own way for your first visit, and arrange as many interviews and networking meetings as possible before you arrive.
“Companies won’t pay your way to the interview if they don’t have an opening or if they believe they have enough talented individuals in their area,” Lowstuter says. “But if you get in front of the hiring manager, you stand a chance of becoming ‘an approved outsider’ and being considered for a future opening.”
Be patient. A long-distance search can take upwards of a year, experts say. That’s the experience of a human resource manager in her mid-30s who wanted to relocate to her hometown of Eugene, Ore.
“My client did a thorough search and had several companies invite her to Oregon for interviews,” says Linda Davidson, president of Crossroads, a career transition company in Dallas. “But it still took her 15 months to land the right position.”
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