Need Advice for Finding New Job Across Country

[Grayzero]

My wife and I have been planning to move from NC to CA for about a year now, but we won't do it until I can find a job there. I'm a geotechnical engineer with about 5.5 years of experience, licensed PE in NC, and will hopefully get news that I'm licensed in CA this December since I just took the seismic and survey exams. I have experience in construction inspections (CMT, Special Inspections), water resources (FEMA work, mostly), but the majority of my experience is in geotechnical. I am really looking for a new start with a less stressful job, preferably a municipality, but am willing to consider state or federal work as well, and even another geotechnical consulting position with the right company. For the last 6 months or so I've been managing a portion of a high profile infrastructure project that I hope would look very attractive on my resume, but I've not had any takers even with that snippet of information included.

I've had no success with online job applications, probably about 40 to 50 by now, and have only gotten responses from a few of them, some of which have been that I was close to the top of the candidate list, but not close enough to warrant an interview. I suspect that not being licensed in CA and being 2500 miles away makes me unappealing, but surely other folks have made these moves.

There is a lot of good advice on this board, does anyone have a suggestion as to how I might better my search?

Thanks very much, and also thanks to others on this board for the great reference recommendations for the CA seismic and survey exams.

 

[snickerd3]

I've had friends trying to so the cross country to CA move. They ended up moving out there without jobs and lived on their savings until they found jobs. Local candidates seem to be CA's thing.

 

[Ivory]

I've had friends trying to so the cross country to CA move. They ended up moving out there without jobs and lived on their savings until they found jobs. Local candidates seem to be CA's thing.

If you are young with no kids this method works. Twenty years ago my wife and I wanted to get back to CA, but had difficulty getting jobs living outside of CA. We saved up, quit our jobs and moved to CA. She found a job in two weeks as a teacher, but it took me 3 months to get an engineering job. This method works even during a recession which southern CA was going through during that time. I remember the Ryder truck that I rented was free because Ryder needed to get trucks back to CA in the early 90's because to many people were leaving the state and they needed trucks. I just had to pay for the fuel.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

Not having a local address will automatically get you removed from 75% or more application pools. There are simply too many good engineers out there looking for work for employers to start flying in "out of towners". You may be forced to just suck it up and move without both of you having jobs...

 

[blybrook PE]

Its tough to do the cross country move. Most firms want someone local so they don't have to pony up for relocation or licensure expenses (or will do so with extremely tight requirements). With the way companies are hiring now, it's kind of a slump market (consider the economy being in the tank). I can only recommend that you keep tabs on the companies you are interested in and put out any additional feelers you can. Sometimes a position may rear its head and be a verbal opportunity only.

Also, if you haven't already, get some alerts setup utilizing engineerjobs.com. I've been impressed with their service and listings, you may find something else there that you have yet to hear about.

Things will pick up eventually, but the jobs just aren't there at the immediate moment. Once you have your CA PE license, that'll help out considerably. Just remember to keep your primary one and don't let it lapse! There's plenty of threads here and elsewhere that will explain why that is in more detail.

Good luck on the hunt and the potential move.

 

[Peele1]

Just about any job is looking for local candidates. As mentioned above. Employers don't want to pay for your air/hotel/moving expenses.

You can state in your cover letter that you are planning to move to CA in the next month or so... That may help.

You can also state that you are going to be in the area on a certain day, and if you get an interview, then book yourself a flight.

You can get a local phone number and a mailbox (not PO box, but a mailbox) to have a local address. If you have family or friends in the area, use theirs.

Basically, pretend like you already live there, and you are more likely to get an interview and job.

Also, try recruiters/head-hunters.

 

[kpf]

I've been trying to get out of CA for over a year. Getting a job with a government entity could take quite a while. Federal in particular takes quite a while... and federal jobs these days are hard to come by with a second round a sequestration on the horizon.

 

[Grayzero]

Thanks all for the advice. I understand it will be difficult and am prepared for that. The local address idea is interesting, but even if I could get a mailbox there somehow it seems like they would see that all of my work experience has been on the east coast for the same company that om currently employed at. If I was single I would probably try to move out there without a job but I'm married to a wonderful woman with very high anxiety, so moving without a job is not an option for me.

I don't require travel expenses for an interview or moving expenses and always indicate this in my cover letter but I suspect the HR folks never get to reading that point in their review of my application. I feel like I could land many of the jobs I've applied for if I could put myself in front of the managing engineer or at least get them on the phone but I've not had any success with that yet.

Let me know if any one has any other thoughts or ideas.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Road Guy]

[SIZE=medium]It’s very tough, I can tell you because I recently did just that..[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]I moved from Atlanta to Denver last August. I started my official job search in January of last year by getting my Colorado PE.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]I was running an Engineering Division of a major local government (million people) in Atlanta and even having friends from Atlanta who managed offices make phone calls to their counterparts in Colorado, people would call me, some even interviewed, but in the end I was at the position where I had no Colorado contacts and couldn’t help the consulting firms win work. I feel most of them strung me along due to my position in Atlanta, but I can understand that.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]I struck out with the private world (& believe me local government you are very close to the fire so its not stress free) so I started targeting the other local governments and got a lot of traction, had them pay to fly me out and interview me. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]I ended up taking the only job I was offered with a County DOT, with the plan to make it their year and then start looking around, meeting people, etc. Took about a $4 grand pay cut in the process, not a huge deal..[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Some good people on this board helped me with a lot of information about the area and it was invaluable, but going solo, without leads it’s very tough.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]I would tailor every resume individually to the job description and sometimes you have to jump around the online system. If your sending online resume to say URS Corporation in Joe Blow City, CA. Try and find who the office manager or that department manager is and email them send them your resume the old fashioned way. Make sure your linked in profile looks good because people will google you if they are trying to narrow down candidates. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]When I was on the other side and hiring people in Atlanta it would take A LOT to get us to consider someone from outside the area let alone outside the state. One time a girl who wasn’t even on our radar screen to short list to interview called me out of the blue and told me why she was the best for the job, Very ballsy (& we did interview her). She was my choice to hire but politics got in the way and another person was hired, but it got her in the door.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]I have learned that the only reason I received this position is that I am doing a job that is very unpopular with the public and there was a lot of bad press about the program they hired me to run. So basically no one local wanted the job, I am basically running the equivalent of an obamcare program for a local dot. I should have done some more digging, cause I expected this job to be stress free compared to my previous life, but even though the people are nicer, the public is still the public, and rich public is always worse than regular folks. Anyways that’s my penance, we wanted to be outdoors, ski the K12, etc.. so were here..[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]This forum, if you become an active member, you can meet people from all over the globe, and make some great contacts, you can make a post that says your looking for a job with XX company in CA , but with only 2 posts not many people are going to be willing to jump out on a limb, but stick around a while, and you might be surprised who is on this board.. We even have a guy from the future..[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]I looked at NC when I wanted to depart GA, I love the Appalachian Mountains, and my new rocky mountain friends will disagree with me, but I find them prettier than the rocky mountains (so far, maybe I just miss trees and color). I know that NCDOT self performs a lot of work there and its not the best market for consultants. Im sure you know Texas and Florida are crazy busy for transportation at the moment, I have heard parts of CA are failry busy, I would research the firms doing the Design Build work and target them , they are churning through people like a sweat shop in some places[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Good Luck, I think you came to the right place..[/SIZE]