Question:

I’m relocating about two hours from where I live now, but I can’t seem to get anyone to respond to my resume. Am I missing something?

-Signed,

Moving within state

Even in normal times, employers are going to always look at local job candidates first, as it’s just a natural first step. Remember, resumes are usually sorted into three stacks as they arrive, with the first stack being the local, most likely-to-be-a-fit candidates that will get looked at first (and those resumes are quite possibly the only ones really looked at, as new resumes are arriving all the time these days).

Job Candidates often ’say’ they will or want to relocate, but really have no intention to do so, unless they get a job in the new location. So, you can hardly blame a potential employer for screening-out those resumes from out-of-town.

If you truly are going to relocate, no matter what, then you need to ‘be’ a local candidate. Change your address location now. This information is still accurate, if you are actually looking for housing, but are still in transition during your move to the new location.

Do you have your new address yet? Then update your resume to reflect your address, at the new location. Don’t have your new address yet, but have a friend in the area? Ask your friend if it’s okay to use their address, temporarily, until you do have your own local address in the new area. And, if you do not have a friend in the area, just truncate your new address and only show the city/state/zip where you will be settling, without the street portion showing. That’s not too unusual these days with privacy issues over the Internet, etc.

Don’t worry too much about your phone number change (unless you have your new one already). But, for the time being, you should remove any home number in the ‘old’ location, as it sends the wrong message, and just use your cell phone number on your resume - and be sure to clearly identify it as your cell phone number. These days, people are much more accustomed to seeing cell phone numbers with the prefix portion showing a number from outside of the local area, as more people are opting to keep their cell numbers, rather than change them. Many people travel quite a bit anyway and it can be more of a hassle to notify all of your contacts of a new cell phone number when making that kind of change.

Now, you are a ‘local’ candidate, and if you have also performed a Resume Renovation to increase your resume’s value (from my Self-Recruiter® Changing the Rules: How to Be Your Own Recruiter & Ride the Economic Crisis to Your Next Career Challenge book), you should make it into stack ‘number one’ when they are sorting, and that is certainly a step in the right direction, and a location where you would like to be.

Copyright © 2009 by John Crant