Landing a Job Before you Move (out of state) (2013, applying, degrees)

[L0ve]

Anyone know if living out of state affects your chances of being hired. We want to move out of state and husband has a technical and highly skilled job with lots of good experience and 2 masters degrees. He has spoken to a few recruiters and sent out perhaps 10 resumes, and heard nothing so far. Some of the jobs were almost perfect matches for his experience and area of expertise.

I read somewhere that applying for jobs out-of-state can lessen your chances - that somehow, having a local address and number will influence the employer when it comes to getting a call back. Husband mentioned that maybe he should of gotten a cell phone in the other state, but he really cannot move there yet to get a local address, because he would have to quit his current job. A lot of the jobs he applies for do say that they will provide relocation and housing cash; this tells me that they expect to have out of state applicants.

Any advice here on applying to out-of-state jobs? Wondering if there is anything we can to to improve his chances.

[groar]

i've been doing this - it probably does help your chances if you have a local address you can use, but i don't and i've still gotten lots of interviews. no jobs, but lots of interviews! i think the most important thing is to state in the very beginning of your cover letter that you are relocating, a (very) short explanation of why, how quickly you can relocate, and that you don't require moving assistance (if you don't).

some places definitely will discriminate against non-local applicants and there's nothing you can really do about that beyond pretending to be local. and that has its pitfalls too, like if they call you to do an interview on short notice and you can't travel that fast. but i haven't personally found it to be too much of a barrier. the job market in general is terrible in most places and most fields these days, and he will definitely see a lower response rate than he might be used to getting.

it also doesn't hurt to look at his application materials in general. that might be the problem more than your location. you really need to have a stellar, well-organized, well written and convincing resume and cover letter to stand out these days. i've been working like crazy on this the last few months and i've definitely seen an increase in responses.

[L0ve]

Thanks groar. I will mention adding the move to the cover letter. Maybe something about being in the process of moving there, since technically we are.

[groar]

no problem! i think that's a great way to put it. another thing i thought of is he can put "moving to _____ in _________" just under the address on his resume. that way it's one of the first things they see no matter where they look. it can be "spring 2013" or whatever if you're waiting for him to secure a job before you go and don't know what month it will be.