In my previous post on relocating, I gave you just a few solutions to issues you may face when it is time to move. But, an even more fundamental question has to be answered first. That question is, “do you want to search for, and possibly accept a job in a different part of the country or even the world?” First, if you don’t want to relocate for the job, doing so anyway could make you miserable in the new job and location. However, if your employment opportunities and financial resources are running out, do you have a choice?
The situation my wife and I faced fell into this last group. Our resources were running out and the job market for my wife was flooded with qualified and even overqualified candidates. After being out of work for over a year, I knew that my opportunities, in that area, were few and very low paying, so I decided to change careers. (A possible future topic for this blog) We reached a point where relocation was a necessity.
If you are in this situation, then your choices are limited. If you have decided you do not want to move, then a survival job may be your only alternative. Survival jobs will possibly be a topic for a future post, so I will not cover them here, other than to say, you may be as miserable as you if you had relocated, against your desires. The only difference being the survival job hopefully will be short term, while relocating will likely be a longer-term situation.
However if you decide that relocation is an option, your next decision is “where?” There are so many variables affecting this choice, that I will only cover the most important. For each person the relative importance is different. Just to help get you started analyzing your choices, I’ll give you some variables I considered.
Since my children are grown and live on their own, I did not have to consider the schools in the target area. However, if you have children, this should be high on your list of priorities. Just as important, is the crime and drug abuse characteristics of the target area. One thing I have learned is not just inner-city schools have drug and violence problems. Suburban campuses can be just as bad, but affluence can hide some of the problem.
Other factors you may want to consider are cost of living, state and local taxes, and in the current economic situation, other things like fuel cost, rent or home ownership. Another factor might be climate, if temperature or environmental extremes create problems for you or family members. Susceptible to allergens? Look at environmental conditions in your target area.
In this day and age of political polarization, you may even want to consider the local political majority. Intolerance for divergent political and core beliefs and views, can make living in some areas uncomfortable. Sometimes it is just easier to move to a new area, where you will feel accepted. This is especially true if you have no friends or relatives anywhere near the area. This is unfortunate, but it is just an example of the questions you need to resolve in the decision process.
From this brief list, hopefully you get some idea of factors to consider if you are relocating. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list but only food for thought. And of course, each location will present unique challenges to your evaluation process.
For most relocation questions, the Internet can be a terrific information source. Use Google, Yahoo, and any other of your favorite search engines to locate information you need. For instance, to find out about crime in a certain city, enter “crime statistics” and the name and state of the city. You can use the quotes around the subject, as I did above, to filter out a lot of unrelated information. To broaden the search, remove the quotes.
Of course, relatives and friends can be a great source of all types of information, for your target area. Obviously having friends or family in another part of the country can also make the relocation decision easier. But lacking friends or family in your target area, you still have other sources for information.
For instance to locate crime statistics, you can also contact the public information officer of the local police department in your target area. Ask for overall crime statistics for the area, and more specific to the location you are considering for relocation. If they are unable or unwilling to assist you, search the online versions of the area newspapers.
Some newspapers also sell back issues, allowing you to learn much more about the area. I recommend getting at least four issues of their Sunday edition. Selecting some weekday and Saturday copies will also help fill in some gaps in your information. When you purchase papers from your selected areas, reviewing ads for apartments or housing should give you some idea of that expense. If store circulars are included, compare prices with those in your current area.
There are also COL (Cost of Living) or salary calculators on the Internet. This is just one of several I used from Realtor.com. These can be helpful but should not be your only source of information, on that subject. Contact the local Chamber of Commerce for your target area, if you have time for them to respond. Remember though, their focus is to present the best side of the community, so you’ll probably see little negative information.
When my wife had opportunities for interviews in areas requiring relocation, we also used another great method of determining cost of living. We were fortunate to have resources available to allow me to accompany her on some interviews. This allowed me, the grocery shopper, to do price comparisons of common grocery items. I was also able to get real estate and rent information, first hand. From this information, it was easy to determine the relative expense of the respective items in each area.
If your resources are more limited, when you get an interview in your target area, try to arrange for extra time to investigate. You may be able to arrange for the interviewing company to fly you in early enough to spend some time scouting the area, before going to the hotel for the evening. This also demonstrates your seriousness about relocating for the job. A company that is interested in hiring you may be willing to work with you on this, but you’ll never know unless you ask.
The final aspect to cover is the prevalent rate of compensation you can expect in your target area. Using the COL/salary calculators mentioned earlier, you can determine the difference in buying power between your current earnings, and the going rate in the target area. Some job listings will give you salary information, but most will not. However, many low skill jobs are posted with pay information. Comparing low skill jobs there and the comparable back home can also give you some indication of relative worth.
Hopefully, what I have given you here will jump-start your thought process in relocating for the job. If you have discovered other aspects to consider or other sources of information, please post them. There are other aspects to relocating that we may cover in future posts. In the interim, my web link is given below. There you’ll learn more about benefits of getting a new or revised resume.
© 2005 David Posival, All rights reserved.
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