Considering moving to San Francisco. Job Search? (rent, student loans)

[s.seth]

Hi, so I am a recent grad (graduated a year ago) and currently have an actuary job in Austin, Texas. I am considering moving to San Francisco since my SO lives there and I am kind of fed up with the driving and slow pace life in Austin. I grew up in Miami so I used to city life and high costs and fell in love with San Francisco.

I wanted to know how bad of an idea it is to move out there without a job and how hard the job market is. I would not be paying rent until I had a job and then would be splitting the cost of my SO's room based on proportion of income (SO currently lives alone and works at facebook so he can afford the current rent which includes utilities).

So I currently do not have a new job lined up but wanted to know how hard the job market is and if its a good idea to just move out there. Some background:

- Looking for data or business analyst jobs but if there is an actuary job I would love to be able to stay in that industry. Have been working at my current job a year plus 2 internships.
- Stats and econ double major and decent GPA at a public ivy so good enough for jobs but nothing that would guarantee me a job.
- Have about a 4 months salary saved to live on. Again will not be paying rent, utilities, car costs or student loans so thinking i could stretch this out for a year.

So, is this a good idea to make the move?

[Chuck5000]

Mixed answer. If you want to be with your SO, sure. Ivy is unfortunately more valuable here; can you tap their alumni network? Is it strong in the Bay Area?

Otherwise, you might struggle. 4 months is not that long of a time. Then again, risks to a single young person with resources are not high.
Would you have financial backup if you ran out of time at 4 months and didn't have work? It's very easy for young people of means to take "risks" like this. And when you're young, nobody is depending on you. So this is the time of life to take risks.

While there is no apparent tech recession yet, the beginnings of a slowdown are real. There are plenty of young people who are quite smart, maybe who have even had a local job or two already, and are unemployed or underemployed.

Non-technical, non-product roles like the ones you are targeting are in very short supply; this work tends to go to the founders in small startups, or their B-school and other school friends. For bigger companies, very hard for a NCG to get in if they weren't recruited on campus. Generally they want domain experience, as they are more specialized.

If you're looking to break into tech, without a network, or an in-demand tech skill, it's actually very hard. It's a fairly closed-up culture that pretends to be open. I would advise against this move for most people, but you have one possible ace: your SO. I would lean on him/her to tap their network to help you. FB employees and friends. See if they know people in a YC company. There are a lot of them, they like to hire ivies. I'm not particularly a fan of the culture they promote, nor of that "scene," but maybe you'd like it since you're young.

For any new grads thinking of moving to the Bay right now because it seems like there's a lot of opportunity - I think this was much more true 3 or 4 years ago. The window is no longer wide open, startups are starting to run out of runway. Window not truly closing yet, but.......

[eureka1]

REAL bad.

[Mordin]

Originally Posted by s.seth

I wanted to know how bad of an idea it is to move out there without a job and how hard the job market is.

So I currently do not have a new job lined up but wanted to know how hard the job market is and if its a good idea to just move out there.[/quote]

Originally Posted by eureka1

REAL bad.

This.