I Moved Cross-Country for My Job — Here’s What I Learned
Ever since I joined my high school paper (go Falcons!), I’ve always known I wanted to become a writer. As I was maneuvering through the fallen bits and pieces of the journalism industry post-college (thank you, recession) hopping from a street-reporter gig for a local newspaper to a relatively cushy job as a digital beauty editor, there was a gnawing voice in the back of my head that whispered that my time was coming; my time to go to New York and find out if I was good enough to make it in the toughest city in the world. All great writers, from Joan Didion to Kerouac, have cut their teeth in the city that never sleeps, and I knew that if I really wanted to commit to this writer thing, my path would inevitably force me to face the test and find out if I’m really up to snuff.
As a born-and-raised Californian, I’m risk-averse, conditioned to be complacent, and I desire the most comfortable route (air-conditioned cars and sunshine 24/7, 365 days a year will do that to you). Why I then decided to subject myself to negative-20-degree weather, commuting in blizzards, and trading in my car for the urine-drenched subway shows just how committed I was to making it in New York. I knew that establishing my career in the city was the only thing that would satisfy me, and I would die regretful if I never tried. So this is my story of how I got the job of my dreams and moved 4000 miles over a weekend for that New Yorker life. Whether you want to move to New York yourself or you’re looking to move to any new city for a job, here are the hustler tips that’ll get you there.
First things first: Start thinking of yourself as a product you want to sell. With any product, you would analyze its strengths, its competition in the marketplace, and assess its differentiating trait that sets it apart. So ask yourself: What’s your defining trait? What sets you apart from the mass? As a young writer, I wanted to differentiate myself from others in my league, and identified the skills that were additive, such as copyediting or on-camera experience.
Then, just like any successful product, you need great branding. Ask a budding graphic designer friend to help concept a logo for your name that you can use on your résumé, website, and even business cards you can print out with services like Moo.com. Concepting a visually appealing font and color for your name can help differentiate your résumé from the thousands of other applicants. I asked a best friend to design my résumé, and I still use the same font and color schemata to this day.
And finally, it’s a given that you would update your LinkedIn, but what else can you do to make your online profile more robust? Add a video reel if that’s applicable to your skill-set or a portfolio. What’s the service you can provide in a sentence? That’s your tagline. Now get it out there.
If you want a job in a new city, it behooves you to physically be there. The tip that I hold onto steadfastly is spending the money to book a trip to your desired city so that you have a deadline to work toward. Plus, you’ve just invested your money toward the cause, so you’ll make damn sure that that trip is productive. I bought a round-trip flight to NYC and gave myself two weeks there to find a job. Ambitious, I know. That gave me one month to fill up every hour of my stay.
So, remember that jazzy resume? If the competition is fierce, you need to make sure you don’t give the employer a reason to pass on you. While I would never condone lying about skills that you don’t have (don’t say you know how to use Photoshop if the closest you got was using InDesign five years ago), but one area that you should absolutely fib on is your address.
If the job application requests an address, borrow a friend’s in the desired city. While this may sound like an outdated practice, if you’re hungry enough, I think it’s worth it. Making sure your location doesn’t get in the way of your employer’s decision-making is just one of the many minor details that can put your résumé at the bottom of the pile. You don’t want the employer to pass you over because they don’t want to pay for moving costs or have to wait for you to make the move. In this case, a little white lie never hurt anyone. I borrowed my good friend’s address not just for my résumé but as a place to crash during my two weeks in New York.
Keep reading the rest of Sharon’s tips for moving across country to pursue a career at MyDomaine.com. Have you changed your life for your dream job? Tell us about your experience in the comments below!
Originally published at www.mydomaine.com on August 25, 2016.
