Career Advice: Job Seeking in a New City
Being an online, remote bootcamp school, Bloc students access and complete our programs all over the US (and in some cases, around the world!) to dive into their new careers as developers or designers. While some end up job seeking for opportunities local to them — as we all know, if you don’t live in the “top 20 cities that are hiring” according to whatever news source covers it next, your options tend to be a bit more limited on the job search.
Because of that — many of our students/graduates actually focus in their job search in new cities, to access more opportunities and career growth.
Any other readers here who have been in a similar situation, or are currently in a similar situation? If so, you’re definitely not alone in this.
If you are anything like our students, you’ve already got one or two cities in mind — but then, after that, you’re thinking:
Now what?
As a Career Developer at Bloc, I wanted to share my top 5 tips for folks who are experiencing the challenges of job seeking in a new city, according to what has worked well for our graduates in the past:
1. Research Trending Technologies/Industries
Something that you have to keep in mind is this:
Almost every city has its own trends and preferences when it comes to technologies, industries and tools.
Even if Ruby on Rails (if you’re a developer) seems to be applicable to the state that you’re in — you never know if another state that you want to relocate to only runs their development teams with Javascript! This is the same case for industries too. Each state and city is unique in their own way, so before you start preparing for the big move — make sure that you are also preparing your skills to match what that city asks for and needs. You can do this simply by browsing through job boards in that city of your choice, and evaluating job descriptions of roles that you would want to go for as you hit the job search. Ideally, you put in this research ahead of time as you are gaining your new skills — that way, you can thoroughly prepare your skillset to be geared towards that new city. Don’t let yourself get caught off guard later on as you launch the job search!
2. Set up Informational Interviews for Yourself
One of the biggest questions that our Careers Team gets is this: How do I network with industry professionals in my city of choice, when I’m not there in person? The answer to this is simple:
Use the power of LinkedIn and online outreach to network anyway.
Why do you have to wait for that perfect trip out to Austin (if that’s your city of choice), where you may or may not meet the people that you want to? Instead, why not target outreach to folks via LinkedIn or Twitter or email, to set up a Google Hangout/Zoom Call or simple phone chat to get to know each other? Yes, some people won’t respond to cold outreach — but for the ones that do, they will become invaluable resources to you in getting to know your industry in the new city that you’re trying to get to. The value from these “informational interviews” are twofold:
- You gain insight on how to “break into the industry” in that city
- You build your network of connections, who might help you gain even more connections.
3. Setup High Goals for Yourself, with a Timeline
As a job seeker who is targeting a new city for relocation, there is a reality that you should face, which is: It’s going to be more challenging than any job search you’ve done to this point. Yes, you have a lot that you can do online — but there are limitations to the efforts that you put in, purely because you’re not local to the company that you want to hire you. For that reason, it is extremely important to:
Hold yourself to a higher standard for job search, and go above and beyond in your efforts to reach your goal, ASAP.
This means be extra disciplined, extra fast, extra proactive in outreach — and prove yourself to your dream companies that hiring you from another city is 100% worth it. Be an exceptional candidate, through and through — and plan to commit 2x more time and effort that you would commit in a regular job search.
4. Address the Elephant in the Room
A big question that folks have, when job seeking in a new city, is this: How do I communicate to the employer, that I’m willing (actually, preferring!) to relocate to their city? The answer here, is pretty simple:
Address the fact that you can easily relocate for the job (or, already have plans to relocate anyway) by mentioning specifically it in your resume and cover letter.
If you communicate this to the employer, early and often, then they will immediately answer their own questions of:
- Will this candidate be difficult to relocate?
- Is this candidate going to be cooperative and easy to access for interview stages?
In your resume, you can simply call this out either or both of your location (i.e. “Current City, State (Seeking to Relocate to Austin)”) or in your Summary section. In your cover letter, you can specifically highlight a paragraph mentioning how eager you are to move for your next job, and how easy it would be to do so. Relieve any doubt in the employers’ mind that you would be more difficult to hire than a local candidate, by “addressing the elephant in the room” in this way!
5. Make Remote Interviews Work
Once you are acing points 1~4 and start to get responses from companies, you’re going to start bumping into the tension of interviewing remotely for round 1, 2 and possibly for round 3, they’ll fly you in. As a remote candidate, you want it to be as easy as possible for them to consider you for the job — so make yourself very accessible, adaptable and hireable through every step of the interview process. The key here is:
Be as communicative, easy to schedule, easy to review (with plenty of examples of work) and quick to respond as possible; let there be no barriers between the company considering you for the next stage of the interview process.
Make yourself just as hirable as the local candidates that you’re up against by proving yourself on all of these levels; with the power of the internet, email, and video chat tools, you have all the platforms to need to do this well.
While you’re going to be in the job search for the long haul, with extra efforts along the way — I hope this quick read helped you realize that job seeking in a new city is more attainable, achievable than you might realize it to be.
I mean hey, check out advice from Bloc graduates who did this successfully:
Based on my 2–3 months job hunting experience, I realized that I have much greater opportunity finding job elsewhere for a medium/ large size company. I think larger companies have more money to spend more to help with relocation and smaller companies have preferential treatment for local candidates because they won’t have to spend extra for relocation.
— Igor, relocated from California to Texas
My advice to job-seekers who intend to relocate is to make PERSONAL contact with recruiters. Submitting an online application is not enough. Also, our portfolios that we create in Bloc are much better than most resumes. Whenever possible, I advise to advertise and really show off students’ portfolio sites.
— Andrew, relocated from Louisiana to Texas
Now, with these tips in mind, go forth and conquer that job search! Good luck!
Cheers,
Kara | Career Developer @Bloc
