Doing a Job Search in a Different Market

Q: I am 10-year human resources professional who lives in Michigan (in the Metro Detroit area). I moved myself to Chicago in 2005 after being offered an HR director position. However, due to a layoff from that position, I had to move back to Metro Detroit in early 2007. After being with my current employer for a little over one year, my interest in moving back to Chicago has been growing. Although a paid relocation would be great, I have no problems with relocating myself. What are your suggestions for the best ways to market myself to out-of-state employers?

A: Recently I was talking with a manager of a recruiting firm I had done some training for. He asked me about hiring new people and why they had such a high failure rate. I will not go into details, but my response was along the lines of ''How would you do a search for a client? Why aren't you doing the same for yourself?''

Too many times when it comes to a job search, our mind goes blank and we forget that, no matter what profession we are in, there are skills and talents we were either born with or learned that can be used in a job search. I would assume that as an HR director some of the internal recruiting functions fell to you in the past. So the first thing you should do is look at how you have recruited others and reverse the process.



The HR profession also has a very powerful organization in SHRM. This kind of organization exists in a number of other fields as well. Most professionals pay dues to these organizations and then forget all the tools available to them through the given organization. My bet is that SHRM can be of great assistance in helping you identify opportunities in the Chicago area. If you haven't kept your Chicago membership alive, reactivate it.

The real question you ask has to do with how to market yourself to an out-of-state employer. I would say that the process is very similar to doing so with an in-state employer. The only two differences are relocation, which I will talk about in a little while, and interviewing. Obviously, the interviewing can't be quite as ''spontaneous'' as it would be if you lived in the market. That can be easily overcome, though - and as you well know, companies do it all the time.

I have beat to death networking and research, but those are the two key components of anyone's job search. You have to identify companies that are of interest to you, their cultures, style, management, etc. That all comes through research. Then you use networking to get to those hiring managers. Again, SHRM is one of your more valuable networking, as well as research, tools.

Many jobs are skill-specific, and some are industry knowledge-specific as well. With maybe the only exception being sales, location and market should not be a big hurdle unless you make them so. Generally, companies do like to hire locally because there is no relocation required, which is not only a money issue but a time issue as well. I am guessing from your comments, though, that you are not a homeowner, nor do you have two moving vans worth of stuff. Therefore, the time consideration should be minimized. Beyond that, you have already stated that moving expense is not an issue, so don't make it one.

That being said, don't go in and tell them upfront that you don't require relocation assistance. That will weaken your bargaining position. As an HR person, you have probably been on the other side of the equation, so you know how to handle the issue. Keep putting it off like you would the question about your current compensation level.

For anyone looking to make a move to a different market, I would tell them to set themselves apart from their ''competition.'' If they think you are better than the other candidates, then some of these other issues quickly disappear. I recently placed for a client a salesperson who was not in the area they wanted him to cover, but he had sold extensively in that area and travel was not an issue. Plus, this gentleman was one of the best in the field. Guess how quickly some of those roadblocks came down?

I also like to tell the story of an old friend I worked with at MCI. He was a sales executive later on for the old Ameritech, and I hired a number of salespeople for him. Every time we would have to play this game where he would want to renegotiate the fees because mine were higher than anyone else's. I would simply reduce it down to dollars and cents. How much more revenue would my candidates typically generate and how much was he losing in revenue for every day he tried to negotiate?

This is not a ''pat Bill on the back'' exercise but rather an attempt to show you what to emphasize. If you get hung up on the relocation, or if anyone out there gets hung up on some relatively small issue, then the company will as well. How many executives today do we see who do not live full-time in the market where a company's headquarters are? It is all based on how bad they want you. So make them want you.

Finally, once they want you, then you have a little more negotiating power if you haven't talked any $$ with them. There are plenty of ways to do compensation structures. Use your HR experience for that. For the non-HR readers, they truly may not want to or be able (usually due to company guidelines) to pay relocation, but there are sign-on bonuses, short review times with raises, etc.

The bottom line to this is that a long-distance search is not a whole lot different than a local search.

Here's Wishing You Terrific Hunting,

Bill

About the Author

Bill Gaffney has 17 years of experience as an executive recruiter and career coach. He is also thinking about opening a relocation consulting business. Bill can be reached at 937-567-5267 or wmgaffney@prodigy.net. For questions to be considered for this column, please email askamaxa@yahoo.com.