If you are stuck in a college town located in the middle of nowhere with low local employment prospects, then I urge you to consider moving to another city after graduating. Applying for a job in another state would be extremely difficult (read http://askamanager.blogspot.com/2009/01/applying-for-job-in-another-state.html for explanation. The comments left by others on this blog are useful too).
Like many other disoriented fresh grads, I had my reserves about leaving the familiarity of the place I called home for four years. It took me an entire summer of working part-time as a research assistant while looking for the real deal before I finally faced reality: The economic climate in Michigan was getting worse and the chances of finding meaningful full time employment were slim to none. And there it was...It was time to kiss those blissfully free college days good-bye and pack up.
Now that I’ve decided to leave, where should I go?
Forget about friends and family for now while you consider your next move. You will make new friends and you can always visit your family over the holidays. Allow yourself to picture the places you’ve always wanted to visit or live. You are young, and you are mobile. You aren’t married, and you don’t have kids. This is the time you can live wherever and however you want so SEIZE IT!
OK, so living out on the beach in Hawaii might sound very appealing at the moment, but let’s also consider why you are moving away in the first place: career opportunities.
When I finally decided to leave Michigan, I instinctively knew that I wanted to move to California. The dilemma then was: LA or SF? I was leaning towards San Francisco/Silicon Valley because of the large number of high-tech businesses in the area and its vibrant, growing electronics industry.
A good exercise would be visiting craigslist.com or any other job board and running a search on jobs in the cities that you are interested in. So let’s do a trial run…
I looked through the entire marketing/PR jobs section on Craigslist in the week of November 9th to November 13th, and there were a total of 8 junior level jobs that I would be interested in applying to in the San Francisco bay area as opposed to 5 jobs in Los Angeles and 0 jobs in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The winner is obvious.
Try this with several cities/ job boards and then weigh in other factors before making your decision.
Planning
- $$$?
To be on the safe side, be prepared to live 3 months without a paycheck! This means saving enough money to cover rent, utilities, food, necessities, cell phone bill, health insurance, car insurance, gas, etc for 3 months at your new location.
- Where to stay?
Best case scenario: with a relative, family friends, or other friends until you land a job. If not…then it’s back to craigslist! If you do end up renting a place, a month-to-month lease is always desirable in case you end up landing a job requires you to relocate.
- What to bring?
Pack LIGHT! Remember that you can always have your stuff shipped to you later on, but right now you need to be mobile so don’t even think about bringing your action figure collection or your box of old photos. Do bring your laptop, your printer if you have one (for printing resumes and cover letters), your portfolio, at least one pair of nice shoes and one set of business clothing for interviews, and everything else that is essential for your survival for the first couple of weeks in your new city.
Now get moving!
