But if you have a finance or family in the targeted city, and you rent, you have a better chance of successfully relocating.

• If you have friends or relatives in the new city, and you could stay with them for a short time, put two addresses on your resume. It makes it look like you are easier to move emotionally and physically. Show two phone numbers if possible also.
• An employer may not pay to fly you out there for an interview depending on your salary level and the ease of finding people like you. (Web Designers are easy to find, Marketing Managers with Fortune 100 consumer packaged goods experience are not.) So you may need to organize a lot of interviews around a few trips you pay for. Call recruiters and potential interviewers and tell them you will be there the third weekend of every month from Thursday to Tuesday and can they arrange interviews for you while you will be in town.
• Find recruiting firms that have offices in both cities. The references from the current location recruiter office will make you much more appealing to the remote office (because the local recruiter can verify the quality of your clients and work.) You can look up recruiters in both cities by using the printed Directory of Executive Recruiters published by Kennedy Publishing, Fitzwilliam, NH. You can buy a copy for $40 on www.amazon.com or find it a $300 version of it in a business oriented public library. If you are junior or your title is common in the job databases, you can use www.indeed.com to do the same thing.
• If you frequent a church or temple, go to the elders’ council of the sister church/temple in the new city and network.
• If you belong to a professional association that has chapters in both cities, join the chapter in the new city months before you want to be in the new city and attend some meetings or a regional conference. Network with the Board of Directors. Write an article. Give a speech.
• Look for opportunities to do part-time contract work in the targeted city before you move. Use that employer as a reference to other employers in the new city.
• Look for companies with a large percentage of telecommuters. They will be less threatened in the transition stage.
• Look for companies with hundreds of global offices. Many of my contacts at one employer travel 50-70% of the time anyway and as long as they live near a large airport, the parent company does not care where “home” is.
• Interview current employees of the firm to understand why the potential employer is willing to go to the hassle of importing someone. Sometimes you will uncover problems for the firm with its reputation in the local market.

Selling Yourself to Management

As I said in my last post, as a recruiter, I am not actually seeing any evidence of a Recession outside of the financial industry. However, many of the strategies that protect you in a bad market also improve your status with in a good market.

• Network to keep your value, your brand, visible at all times with your present management and clients. Networking builds bridges to get things accomplished on an every day basis. You should be networking at 2 or 3 title levels above you as insurance if your boss leaves the company. Network with other departments. Network with people junior to you as they may have very different philosophies towards work.
• Look for opportunities to demonstrate how you made (or can make) the company money, saved the company money or made it more efficient. Praise co-workers frequently and tell their bosses. Increase visibility and momentum for your entire team.
• Improve the quality of your written and oral presentation to be a more effective advocate of your ideas. Dress and act more professionally.
• Volunteer to be on committees or projects where you can showcase your thought leadership across the company. Mentor co-workers, help your boss on his/her pet project.
• If you are telecommuter make extra effort to remind teammates you are mission-critical. Be in the office often to build the interpersonal bonds.
• Create opportunities to solicit written feedback on your performance. Send status reports. Ask for signoff on future project methodology. On projects just completed ask your boss if he/she would add anything the next time. The paper trail can be used at review time to remind your boss of the great work you did and, not incidentally, that he/she signed off on your methodology. If you ever lose your job in a large RIF, you have a collection of emails at home you may be able to use to get a job in another department or at least use to find another job. You can use the same method with stakeholders in other departments.
• In a slow or negative economy, especially at a public company, bonuses are easier to negotiate than raises (because bonuses affect the stock price less.) Raises are more likely indexed to company performance and merit bonuses are less wide spread amongst employees. This is not the time to demand a raise or you will leave. This not the best time to be the most expensive person at your band/grade level. This is the time to be more flexible with your employer to give him more room to maneuver and keep you if cuts do happen.