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i'm a 25 year old female, single, no kids, one cat, looking to move out West. i've taken a particular interest in Idaho, specifically Boise. have i been there, no. but, i've travelled around the MT, WY, CO, and UT area and loved everything i saw...so naturally i'd imagine i would love ID.
anyway, back on topic.
i'm looking for honest info on what my odds would be at finding a job that i could actually live comfortably on. remember, i'm single and have a cat...that's it. i've worked extensively in office/customer service management and am currently the fleet manager at Miller. fun stuff! anyway...i would be looking for something similar...office manager, admin coordinator, etc. i know that i would be taking a slight cut in pay...since the cost of living in Milwaukee differs than Boise, however i have already budgeted for that. no debt, except a car payment. but are the odds of finding a job that pays at least $14-16 an hour the same as trying to buy ocean front property in Arizona?
are companies less inclined to bother with someone who has recently relocated over someone born and bred in the area?
just looking for opinions, examples, testimonials, etc.
also, would moving into the area in Jan or Feb be ridiculous? is it hard to find places to rent during that time?
Hmmm... I'll start this off by warning you that I really wanted to return to Boise, where I grew up, after graduating from the University of Idaho in Moscow with a Business-IT and Psych. Bachelors.
I lived with a friend for an entire summer, but the job market for inexperienced yet overqualified college grads REALLY stunk. I continually got turned down or ignored on the basis of inexperience or overqualification. Once my dad called me to say that I could find a job in New Mexico that pays 3x what the same job pays in Boise (thanks to govt. contracting pay scales), I was forced to conclude that my geographic proximity to friends was indeed for sale.
All the same, if you are looking for admin. work and have formidable experience (i.e., > 3 years), I have a 31-year-old friend who works at a vet supply co. doing admin. work and makes $14/hr. With the cost of living in Boise, she makes out QUITE nicely as a single woman with 2 cats and a 2-bed apt. on that wage. She has always been able to match my spending at bars a couple times a week. She even recently bought a new Mazda, and it's the first time I've ever heard her even suggest the need to budget. I have another 28-yr-old friend who does office management at a St. Luke's subsidiary clinic, and I don't know her pay, but she raises a currently 5-yr-old daughter (and undependably employed husband) and lives in a 2-bed house, still managing to eat out 2x every weekend and pay for gas to go to McCall regularly in summer and winter weekends.
If I were you, I'd start with the HR offices for the major area hospitals, which include their subsidiaries. St. Luke's for East side and St. Alphonsus for West side. I worked at St. Luke's for a summer, and their pay was great. I also heard the benefits were great, too, although I was temporary. From there, the city is chalk full of small and subsidiary businesses, and then there's also Albertson's HQ on Park Center Blvd. in the East side. I'd avoid Micron, as they have a shoddy history of mistreating employees.
Just an aside: Idaho is a right to work state, so another warning you'd want to heed is that most service businesses that potentially collect tips are allowed to pay less than minimum wage. Just an FYI aside, 'cause you did explicitly state that you want office managment/admin. work. Also on that note, remember to tip properly in Idaho. That's part of their living wage.
Best hopes. The city of Boise and surrounding region are wonderful to anyone who loves the Great Northwest. If you enjoyed Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado, you'll love Idaho as a whole. Boise, due to its "metro area" of sorts, is actually a lot bigger than people would imagine. Lots of great night life downtown, too, albeit somewhat hindered by a very conservative city council. Also VERY safe. The best parts of town to live are:
1. "North End" up north of the Fort and Hayes parallel streets and all around Hill Rd and Harrison Blvd if you don't mind older but nice houses/apts,
2. East-Southeast side around Broadway, Apple, and Boise Ave if you like newer houses,
2a. All side streets off Warm Springs on the East side will be GREAT houses/apts,
2b. Vista as you go off on Cassia and Rose Hill have nice houses/apts,
3. Northwest north of State St and around Hill Rd is much the same demographic as Southeast.
4. There's also a nice area right along Mountain View (along "The Bench") or Ustick on the West side, but the surrounding areas get "seedy" pretty quick. Garden City is the only part of town that could be described as "dangerous", and that's not too bad compared to the worst Milwaukee probably has to offer.
5. Also stay away from a good portion of Fairview, though that area is cheap and has some "gems" buried in it housing-wise, especially as you go toward the aforementioned "Bench".
6. Meridian and Eagle are the up-and-coming (really already matured) suburbs and have many good small businesses in those areas as well.
Last edited by stingraynm; 07-31-2008 at 05:24 PM..
Glad to help. To answer your question, I was raised as long as I can remember in Boise, so I do know it like the back of my hand. A lot of businesses have sprung up over the years, and the sprawl in Eagle and Meridian is non-stop, so that's two areas where I lost track after moving away.
Another nice area I forgot to mention with great downtown access is after the American Pkwy-Franklin & Emerald intersection, "after" if you're coming from downtown. Lots of nice houses, condos, and apts with great tree cover and yards.
Really, you'll find that most of Boise is a great demographic most everywhere and every residential area has some commercial zoning nearby. The infrastructure also handles traffic quite well and 20 min. is a pretty standard commute even across town (maybe 30 min. in rush hour). The connector (I-184) from Front and Myrtle pretty much ensures a quick shot across town either direction.
Just disregard the Garden City area of Chinden and directly South of downtown along Front St. The Front St. area isn't all that bad and has great park/river access, but that's where the homeless shelters and community housing are located. Mostly good people in tough times, but as with that demographic anywhere, it's a gamble, especially for women at night. I'd estimate there was about 1-2 brutally unprovoked assaults per year as I grew up, usually in that area. It always made the front page of the newspaper, if that says anything. If you like bike/walking trails that provide a great deal of city access, you'll come to love the Greenbelt along the Boise River, which really upgraded that whole area. On that stretch, daytime is absolutely safe and group travel at night is also quite safe.
WORTH NOTING IF YOU BIKE OR WALK A LOT: The Greenbelt stretches all the way from far West side State St and Chinden to BSU, and then onward out by Warm Springs to Lucky Peak Reservoir. It has lots of short offshoots as well. Live near that (by the Boise River is a guarantee for it) if you like to bike around and get places quickly, as the streets aren't very bike friendly. Since it's mostly flat, the Greenbelt can take you across and far out of town with minimal exertion as long as you have the time to go for miles upon miles. I can't believe I forgot to mention the Greenbelt.
If you don't mind (and may be partial to) a little extra art, hippie, and youth culture, the North end right around Boise High, North Jr. High, and Camel's Back/Hyde Park is interesting, cheap, and an easy walk to downtown. Naturally, the local Co-Op is in that area by Fort and 6th.
what worries me the most is the whole job situation. i mean, i'll take anything to have money coming in...but i don't want to be working "anything" for 2 years. in a perfect world i'd have a job to come "home" to. but most companies, in my experience, really don't look twice at a resume when they see the applicant is currently out of state.
either way, i appreciate all your info. it goes alot farther than just reading random websites that give you nothing but positive feedback.
I hear that. Getting your foot in the door is definitely the worst part, and without profound credentials or nepotism, it's pretty much impossible to even get word of the good openings. I was doing custodial and pizza delivery with a double Bachelors in Boise. IT is an easy field to be mobile since it applies just about anywhere, but the market is WAY over-saturated with applicants, many who come from better technology schools than I attended.
My dad introduced me to my first employer down here and that job was just a pittance to get me settled for the exact reason you mention, so I could be in-state. I came "home" to a converted barracks from the Manhattan Project. My kitchen and bathroom were literally holes in the wall.
Since then, every subsequent employer has been a subcontractor or client that I met through the prior employer. With fluctuations in govt. funding, I've actually had four jobs in the four years I've been here, and the first two jobs were one month each (first was temporary and the second Hurricane Katrina took all the funding for the project I was hired to support).
At this point, I shudder at the thought of having to aggressively get my foot in the door in a new industry, even though I'm eager to pad my resume enough to return to the Great Northwest and get a well-to-do position in a more stable field.
Altogether, that's one of the reasons I recommended the hospitals and tried so hard with them myself. Way back when, when I asked my friend at the OB-GYN subsidiary if she could recommend me for IT in some department, she mentioned that entry level hospital positions are actually some of the fairest and most open hiring practices out there. For that reason, I was better off just looking at openings and applying like everyone else. The HR office is so independent that it literally looks at every applicant without any nepotistic bias. She said that they probably still have some issues with that, but it would have to come from WAY up at the top and STILL be quite discrete. Due to that strict regulation, even the best openings show up for any applicant to see, and merit is theoretically a more influential factor than in most other cases.
Last edited by stingraynm; 08-01-2008 at 11:52 AM..
Boise has an array of really good professional jobs, but there is a lot of competition because so many people move here and apply and many people want to move here and apply for employment while they are still living out of state. The competition can be fierce.
Microsoft is expanding in Boise and adding office space to a new highrise downtown, but I am not sure how many jobs are being added, but there have been rumors that Boise is being considered as a hub for them.
There are some people who move here and struggle finding that perfect job because 100 other people are applying for the same job, but then many find the perfect job and live comfortably. Boise is the kind of city and place that people will do what they can to get by because they want to live here so badly.
There is a lot of change going on in this valley and we keep growing even in a bad national economy.
The access we have to the outdoors is unmatched among other inland cities.
Here is some interesting news from a local news source today.
Idaho and Boise have always been a hotbed for entrepreneurs.
Boise is a great place but the job market is not as rosy as some portray...
Idaho has seen the largest percentage of lost jobs in U.S. since 2001 | Business | Idaho Statesman (broken link)
The job market is not as bad as some imply either...
That story is very subjective and takes in to account the whole state and not just the Boise area. Idaho has had a lot of manufacturing jobs, ag jobs lost to overseas markets.
But one thing this article and study did not mention is all of the new jobs that have been added in various industries through out the state and the Treasure Valley--it focused on job losses without tying job gains into the same article/study.
So, coming from somebody as myself who lives in Boise and experiences it on a daily basis I would say that it isn't as bad as that article implied. The Statesman is strange, one day it talks about job losses and then the next day it glows about job gains. You have to read the paper here with an open mind.
But the job market here is struggling currently but it will get better, Boise always seems to pull through, Boise and a few other mountain west cities usually hold pretty steady during national recessions.
I saw in the news that jobless claims around the state and nation are skyrocketing and I fear that our nation is in a huge mess and it is going to take some time to get better. I have friends in California who cannot find a job even with a college degree. A girlfriend up in Seattle has been layed off and she said that the market is so tight that finding a job is nealy impossible in that area.
But, for know Idaho still has one of the stronger state economies even though there has been job losses.
Last edited by Syringaloid; 08-01-2008 at 02:32 PM..
Although I know several via my family that have left Boise or are facing the reality they'll have to leave because they can't find employment.
In any case it really isn't about arguing it is more the point people should never move anywhere without employment.
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