Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In today's market, employers clearly have a preference for local candidates. They also have a preference for people who are currently employed. So which do you think puts you at a greater disadvantage when looking for a job? Being unemployed or being an out-of-state candidate? Assume that things haven't even reached the point where a potential employer would ask if you need relo assistance.
Being an out-of-state candidate is a bigger disadvantage. Many companies will not consider non-local candidates for several reasons:
1) having to pay for flying the candidate in for an interview
2) candidate does not have local ties and may not want to move
3) relocation assistance
The candidate can try to work with the employer on these issues. However, it seems to be an unwanted nuisance for many employers because many qualified, local candidates are available in this economy.
It is funny that there may be a preference for currently employed people because those candidates are in a better negotiating position than the unemployed. A person who is working needs a strong reason to leave like higher salary, better city, different position, or different work. If I were hiring, I would not have a preference for candidates who are currently employed.
I can tell you this, this whole thing about out-of-state vs local resident is something that's been around on Hawaii for decades. Employers on hawaii have seen more than their share of wasting time dealing with out of state residents who after being offered a job, decide not to move. They also have seen more than their share of people who just moved to Hawaii are offered a job and a few months later they are moving away because the reality collided with their fantasy.
I have seen major companies have two final candidates and they hire the one who is physically living in the area over someone who may be a bit more qualified if their butt is still somewhere else. Since Hawaii has such experience with out of towners and they know by experience why hiring out of towners may not be in the company’s best interest, I would look at what they see as important. Unemployed but living on Hawaii, we’ll give you a chance since you made the commitment to be here; out of town but have experience, give us a call when you make a commitment to be where your looking for work.
So for decades, where you live was much more important than if you’re currently employed. With today economy, I dont think they expect employed people to be job hunting. I don’t think they see unemployment as anything against the person and maybe more against the former employer. So my money is on where you live as having a greater negative on getting a job versus if currently employed or not.
It is funny that there may be a preference for currently employed people because those candidates are in a better negotiating position than the unemployed. A person who is working needs a strong reason to leave like higher salary, better city, different position, or different work. If I were hiring, I would not have a preference for candidates who are currently employed.
If I were an employer and I had two equally qualified candidates who were identical in every way except one was unemployed, I would pick the one who was employed. Why?
1. I'd be worried that the unemployed guy's skills are rusty. Whenever you hire someone, you can't expect them to be their most productive from day one. Every new hire needs time to learn the business and how things work at the company. If the new hire hasn't been working for a while, he might need extra time to get back up to speed with his skillset.
2. I'd worry that he'd only accept an offer cause he needed the work. Maybe the only reason he's applying to my company is cause he's running out of money or his family needs health insurance. My company and the job opening I have isn't really what he wants. But he'll take it cause it pays the bills. But what happens when the job he was really looking for finally comes along? If someone has a job and is willing to quit that job to take the one I have open, that tells me that I'm offering the better job, which makes me feel more confident that he'll stick around for a while and not quit on me too soon.
3. I'd wonder why he's unemployed. Was he fired and if so why? Maybe he was on a team of people who had the same job and his company decided to let him go instead of someone else. Why did they pick him? Was he not as skilled? Not as productive? Difficult to work with? Who knows? I could ask or hope that he explained why in his cover letter. But most employers won't even bother asking. They know that there are plenty of other similarly qualified people out there, ones where you don't have to figure out why they were let go or waste time reading between the lines to guess what the truth is.
2. I'd worry that he'd only accept an offer cause he needed the work. Maybe the only reason he's applying to my company is cause he's running out of money or his family needs health insurance. My company and the job opening I have isn't really what he wants. But he'll take it cause it pays the bills. But what happens when the job he was really looking for finally comes along? If someone has a job and is willing to quit that job to take the one I have open, that tells me that I'm offering the better job, which makes me feel more confident that he'll stick around for a while and not quit on me too soon.
You can limit this problem by matching qualifications and experience to the job. You don't hire overqualified people who want a job just for a stopgap, i.e. the college graduate for a cashier job. I think that people who are unemployed tend to be more enthusiastic about learning and performing on the job than those who have never lacked a job.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DennyCrane
3. I'd wonder why he's unemployed. Was he fired and if so why? Maybe he was on a team of people who had the same job and his company decided to let him go instead of someone else. Why did they pick him? Was he not as skilled? Not as productive? Difficult to work with? Who knows? I could ask or hope that he explained why in his cover letter. But most employers won't even bother asking. They know that there are plenty of other similarly qualified people out there, ones where you don't have to figure out why they were let go or waste time reading between the lines to guess what the truth is.
Many top performers have been laid off. Their positions are then filled by cheaper workers, outsourced to people overseas, or eliminated. You don't have to read between the lines. Work history from a resume can tell you if the applicant has hopped from job to job or has had long periods of employment. If the applicant has made it past initial screening and interviews, simply ask about the circumstances of his unemployment and check with references.
I can tell you this, this whole thing about out-of-state vs local resident is something that's been around on Hawaii for decades. Employers on hawaii have seen more than their share of wasting time dealing with out of state residents who after being offered a job, decide not to move. They also have seen more than their share of people who just moved to Hawaii are offered a job and a few months later they are moving away because the reality collided with their fantasy.
I have seen major companies have two final candidates and they hire the one who is physically living in the area over someone who may be a bit more qualified if their butt is still somewhere else. Since Hawaii has such experience with out of towners and they know by experience why hiring out of towners may not be in the company’s best interest, I would look at what they see as important. Unemployed but living on Hawaii, we’ll give you a chance since you made the commitment to be here; out of town but have experience, give us a call when you make a commitment to be where your looking for work.
So for decades, where you live was much more important than if you’re currently employed. With today economy, I dont think they expect employed people to be job hunting. I don’t think they see unemployment as anything against the person and maybe more against the former employer. So my money is on where you live as having a greater negative on getting a job versus if currently employed or not.
Do you think this is a Hawaii phenomenon or can it be generalized to CONUS? I wouldn't particularly think a guy from Oregon would refuse to move to Washington for example. Now someone from say Georgia, you might wonder if they would stay, although I intentionally moved from GA to the PNW area years ago. But we talked about that and I made it clear I wanted to move West anyway.
I do think this is an excellent point for "niche" locations though.
This has become a common item of talk with people. use to be you applied for a job and there wasn't that much thought about relocation. But now, you see it asked several times. There are post about what address to use , should use someone address who is local , how to answer the question about not being a local resident , and even questions about companies saying they give preference to local residents .
For Hawaii, this has been standard practices for decades.
Yeah it's probably a neccesity for places like Hawaii because of all the dreamers and they have the issue down to a scientific art. When they are investing time and energy dealing with candidates, hawaii employers know how to weigh value in an applicant who is physically in and commited to a location versus another (maybe more) qualified applicant who is 2,500 miles away and has no real idea what "Living" in the area is like.
You will see them place higher value in the person's willingness to do the job over if they are employed or not. Because so much of Hawii's jobs are seasonal and rise & fall with tourisim, being unemplyed carries no bad image if the job just isn't here for you to have. heck some of the people doing the hiring may have been unemployed them self when things were slow.
i think people place way to much concern over current emplyment, and if the company can't figure out that good hard working people are being unemplyed for no fault of their own, that company probably wont recognize your worth as well.
Do you think this is a Hawaii phenomenon or can it be generalized to CONUS? I wouldn't particularly think a guy from Oregon would refuse to move to Washington for example. Now someone from say Georgia, you might wonder if they would stay, although I intentionally moved from GA to the PNW area years ago. But we talked about that and I made it clear I wanted to move West anyway.
I do think this is an excellent point for "niche" locations though.
When I lived in Colorado I heard the "companies don't really hire out-of-staters" line too.
You can limit this problem by matching qualifications and experience to the job. You don't hire overqualified people who want a job just for a stopgap, i.e. the college graduate for a cashier job. I think that people who are unemployed tend to be more enthusiastic about learning and performing on the job than those who have never lacked a job.
Employers are pretty good at spotting applicants who are overqualified. But what I'm talking about is the person who's perfectly matched for the job, but still wants something else. Maybe you live out in the burbs and apply for a job in the city. You tell the manager you're OK with the commute, but what you don't tell him is that you'd much prefer to be closer to home and would even take less pay for such a job. Or maybe you're an IT worker who takes a job with a manufacturing company. On paper, your skills and experience are a perfect fit. But what you really want is to work in the financial services industry cause you know valuable that experience will be for your career. Of course you don't say this during the interview cause you don't want to blow your chances.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DolfanMIA
Many top performers have been laid off. Their positions are then filled by cheaper workers, outsourced to people overseas, or eliminated. You don't have to read between the lines. Work history from a resume can tell you if the applicant has hopped from job to job or has had long periods of employment. If the applicant has made it past initial screening and interviews, simply ask about the circumstances of his unemployment and check with references.
But what if you don't even get to the interview stage? What if the hiring manager has resumes from 10 people in front of him, all of whom who are equally qualified for the job, except 3 of the 10 people have been unemployed for over 6 months. Sure, it's wrong to make assumptions about people or infer things that aren't there. But given how little time someone has to review a resume, how exhausting it can to be interview people, and how much time it takes away from your other responsibilities, are you really going to take the time call this person up, ask them why they're out of work, meet them in person and figure out whether to believe them or not when you've got 7 other people where you don't have to bother with such issues? Try to put yourself in the shoes of a hiring manager. I'm not saying it's right that they do this. Quite often, I'm sure they miss out on some really great applicants. But given how flooded the market is with qualified people, I can certainly understand why a hiring manager would want a fast and dirty way of filtering the pool of applicants.
in my experience and even talking with a few recruiters at job fairs/hiring events BEFORE the recession and when times were wonderful lol..unless you're senior manager or a young college upstart they're more comfortable with a laid off person than someone traveling from out of state...don't shoot the messenger
1)There are perfectly good people in state to take the job
2) They would have to take into account the different costs of living...for example if a person is from DC would they truly be comfortable making a FL salary? If a person is from Alabama, do they understand how much they need to make to live comfortably in DC and if not are they going to complain and move right back home when costs seem 'too high"
3) potential relocation costs
4) Some HR people honestly just feel guilty about having a person fly/travel long distances for the interview process, some companies pay for you fly out but some don't...and they don't want to deal with it esp if it's not a sure thing...heck I was even asked if I was ok with a 1 hour commute one time for an interview so I could imagine what would be asked for someone who came from cali to DC, esp the questions in regards to how one is going to move smoothly and how soon they'd actually be available to start
5) Simple homesickness and the fact you're a "flight" risk-yeah this seems lame but if people have strong roots in one location, move to a different location just for a job (or how HR sees it) they might be more apt to move if things do get a bit rough versus someone whose been in the city for a longer time or actually moved already to the location and invested in staying in the location
However the way to defeat this thinking is make sure the employer knows you have ties to the region, for example you have family and friends there, support your interest in the region maybe by saying "as a yankees fan" if you want to move to NYC, and def read local publications related to your career, if DC has an local IT magazine reference an article or two, and if your school is out of state and might not be well known in their state let them know that maybe it was listed in princeton review with the best hospitality program or something related to your career
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
, should use someone address who is local 
, how to answer the question about not being a local resident 
, and even questions about companies saying they give preference to local residents 
. 
