Nonlocal candidate: the impossible dream?

October 13, 2016 2:44 PM

Last time I was actively job searching (2010-2014, give or take), conventional wisdom had it that hiring managers/HR wouldn't even look at a resume with an address beyond reasonable commuting distance from the job.

Now that the economy is better (it is, right?) is this still a thing? I wanna go home, but never again will I move without having a job lined up. Thanks as always, wise Hive.

posted by scratch to Work & Money (13 answers total)

I mean... it depends? A lot? On what your industry is, what hiring is like, what your specific job is, what city you're looking at, etc.

But if you're talking about somewhere that you're willing to move and not be a remote employee, then just leave your address off of things, use a friend's local address when you need to use one, put "I will be moving to [CITY] on Jan 1 (who cares if it's an approximation, and keep moving it out a month", and discuss it if/when it comes time to do an interview.
posted by brainmouse at 2:49 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

It really depends. Someone hiring programmers in a fairly saturated market for a fairly non-specialized job would probably use something like local address as a filter to get the number of resumes down to a manageable stack. There's always going to be a few criteria for culling; it could be not addressing the hiring manager by name, or not adjusting your resume to fit their web form, or using a non-standard font they hate. Or living out of town. But if the job description is such that there are significant other criteria (specific degree, background, area of expertise, familiarity with a particular software, etc) then your current address is not likely to be a big deal, they've already done enough weeding by getting rid of the people with the wrong degree, wrong major, lack of experience, etc.

If it's a city you already have contacts in (family, good friends) then yes, it's not a "lying on your resume" type offense to use their mailing address in your contact info, so long as you've got a direct cell phone and email. Employers in this day and age don't actually mail anything anyway. If it were a brand new city to you, though, just getting a Mailboxes Etc address would be weird, don't do that. And it would be weird to have 5 different copies of your resume out there for your attempted moves to 5 different cities. If you're just targeting a move back home, that's a simpler case.
posted by aimedwander at 3:04 PM on October 13, 2016

It really depends. I hired 3 people this year. Two of the positions were very specialized, so I didn't care where the people lived as long as they were willing to relocate. For the third, I had a strong preference for local people (because the position was less specialized), but ended up hiring someone who was not local because first his resume blew me away and then he aced his interview (he had to pay for his own travel to the interview).
posted by OrangeDisk at 3:18 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

It depends a lot. In general, the richer/snobbier* the company and the more in-demand the skill set, the more they're going to be open to non-local candidates. I've recruited for roles where non-local candidates actually had an advantage -- the hiring managers were huge snobs who assumed that the local candidate pool was "picked over," and that their roles were such amazing opportunities that they deserved to see and hire the best candidates in the country! But these were exceptional cases.

In general, if you're looking for work that you can reasonably assume will have plenty of good local applicants, you ought to indicate in your cover letter/email that you have a specific plan to relocate to that area, and not just that you'll consider moving wherever.

*these aren't the same thing - where I live, for instance, there are plenty of young companies who think they're the next Google and want their hires to reflect that, despite not being anywhere near to profitable
posted by fingersandtoes at 3:34 PM on October 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I agree, it depends entirely on your field, and also the company. I work remotely now and was hired as a remote employee. At my last job, I worked there for a year and then was given permission to work remotely. My previous few jobs, I moved for. One was a cross-country move where they pursued me (I initially dismissed the idea of moving that far and wasn't interested).

I think yeah, hiring managers may be reluctant to interview someone with an out-of-state address, but I've never gotten a job by submitting an application and I honestly can't think of any my close friends/family ever getting a job that way either. In my experience, you get jobs by "activating your network" and getting referred by someone you know. You know someone who knows someone who is hiring. In that situation, where you live doesn't matter if they know you are willing to move. That's part of why companies rely on referrals so much -- there is inherent pre-vetting that the person fits enough criteria to be a good fit. No one likes surprises. So yes, if you are applying to jobs posted on the internet, it will probably hurt you that you live far away, but I also think that's the absolute wrong way to go about looking for a job. As a hiring manager, when we posted our opening, we got tons of crappy resumes flooding our inbox and it made it much less attractive to hire any of those blind applicants, not to mention much harder to even go through them. Referrals were preferred and had the leg-up, 100%.

And lastly, I don't think putting your address on the resume is a thing anymore. This isn't 1980 where the only way you could reach me is by calling me on the phone or sending me stuff in the mail. I've dropped the home address on my resume entirely in favor of my phone number and email address. Some people may disagree, but I think it's totally unnecessary to include.
posted by AppleTurnover at 3:40 PM on October 13, 2016

addresses on resumes are still sort of a thing but dying - i dont think anyone is offended when they are included but id be really truly shocked if someone did a double take at an address being left off a resume. with the portability of cell phone numbers there is no real way to tell where someone is from (i still have my 10 year old number from college, two area-codes ago).

the bigger question i would have is how quickly you can get on site for interviews - youre going to have to explain the need to travel/schedule sooner than later, no?
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 3:43 PM on October 13, 2016

Best answer: The last two people I've hired have been from out of state. We do a first round of phone interviews (even for local candidates), then in-person or Skype interviews. Our field is somewhat specialized; we'd rather take the time for a good candidate to relocate than hire someone local who isn't what we wanted.
posted by mogget at 3:50 PM on October 13, 2016

During the recession I learned luck favours the bold. Be the out of town candidate who persistently seeks the opportunity of informal and formal interviews, even when no job is publicly available. Out of town candidates have to show they can learn to accept the local area as a habit of the job, and also show how they will reconcile what they are leaving behind worth what they want. You may choose to have no regrets.
posted by parmanparman at 4:55 PM on October 13, 2016

I've never heard of such a thing. If you are applying, it is presumed that you will move there and it's normal to say something like "I am excited to move to xyz city for all its opportunities" and "I am seeking a good fit for my career, whereever that may be" and "I am looking for an adventure." You address moving in the cover letter and interview. I have hesitated to even put my address on a resume in order to save a line's worth of space. They're going to call or email, not show up.

I'm 32, a librarian, and most of my coworkers are from somewhere else and literally nobody I know my age expects to work in a job more than two to five years or retire in the same place. Anecdote is not data, but still.
posted by blnkfrnk at 5:36 PM on October 13, 2016

I'm not sure how you would address a local address on a resume showing you are working at a company in another city (depends on how well-known your company is or if it has local branch offices).
posted by saucysault at 6:08 PM on October 13, 2016

I have no problem with non-local candidates, but I've also had a non-trivial number of folks who are not local decide that they'd only be willing to do the job if they could work remotely (we don't offer that option and never advertised that we do) or get cold feet about relocation and drop out of the interview process, or relocate and then realize that they hate this location and decide to move back to their hometown, so I could very much understand why hiring managers would be unenthusiastic about non-local candidates.

An objective statement on your resume along the lines of "Looking to relocate to and obtain a challenging role in the field of " would likely be useful in that it would address these concerns as well as the "why are you leaving your current role" question.
posted by phoenixy at 6:54 PM on October 13, 2016

Get a Google Voice number in the area code you want to move back to. I know that non-local phone numbers are normal now, but I swear it gave me an extra boost. It removes that millisecond question of “I wonder where that number is from?” when anyone looks at it on your resume. And it can be dialed from their office landline without extra thought, especially if local numbers where you’re moving to are still seven-digit-dialing.
posted by quarterinmyshoe at 7:35 PM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I did this earlier this year! I moved from Seattle to Ohio. If you look in my question history I have a couple of questions on the green about some tips and tricks.

Anyway, I got some bites on my resume after I tweaked my cover letter. I included a short paragraph at the very end that send "I am currently living in Seattle, but I want to move back to Ohio to be closer to my family." That's WAY more personal information About My Life than I would ever normally divulge in a resume, but it definitely came up with the recruiters I ended up talking to. It let them know that I was 1) serious about coming back 2) not going to try and escape in just a couple of months.

Aside from that, you don't have to call attention to the fact that you're coming from a way's away but I certainly wouldn't try and hide it either.

Good luck, and feel free to MeMail if you have any other questions!
posted by Tevin at 10:28 AM on October 14, 2016