June 29, 2022

3 Reasons You Need to Be Willing to Relocate for a Job - Ep. 51

3 Reasons You Need to Be Willing to Relocate for a Job Before You Even Hit That Apply Button

Why You Should Go To Where The Work Is

Today, we're going to talk about why you should be willing to relocate for a job even before you hit that apply button!

In this episode, we talk about:

- The importance of going to where the work is and how it can open your world up!
- Why being willing to relocate can get you considered more seriously for a role and how it can make you stand out.
- The things you'll learn from moving to a different place that'll help you further your personal growth and career.

Enjoy the episode!

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Links and Notes from the Episode

Episode Transcript
Please enjoy this transcript or our episode!

Please note the transcript may have a few errors. We're human. It can be hard to catch all the errors from a full length conversation. Enjoy!

Ryan: Aloha folks and welcome back to Degree Free. We are your hosts, Ryan and Hannah Maruyama on this podcast, we share fundamentals we've discovered and the mistakes we've made while self educating, getting work, building businesses and making money. We'll tell you how to make it happen. No degree needed.

Hannah: Welcome back everybody. We are happy to have you on the podcast this week. And if You would like to get one email a week from us, and I promise you wanna get this one, you are gonna wanna go over to degreefree.co/newsletter so that you can get our weekly newsletter that has job resources, ideas. Cool stuff that Ryan and I have found and then Degree Free news, like companies that are no longer requiring college degrees and new developments in the wave of new caller work.

So go on over there and grab it! 

Ryan: Right on. And let's get into today's episode today. We are gonna be talking about the three reasons you need to be willing to relocate for a job 

Hannah: Controversial in the age of remote work. 

Ryan: Yeah. And so we're not talking today about how to answer the interview question.

Are you willing to relocate for a job? There are hundreds of ways to answer that. And , it basically boils down to three answers. Yes, no. Or maybe 

Hannah: Those are the only ones I'm aware of. 

Ryan: And so what we're talking about today is more about why it should be yes, before you even hit the apply button.

Hannah: Yeah. So our first reason is gonna be, you have to be willing to go where the work is. 

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. And I told this story a few weeks back about dishwasher when I was still busing tables early in my career earlier in my career. And how this dishwasher sat on the bus for hours a day, just to go where the work was. 

He lived in a far away place, at least for Oahu for Hawaii and the traffic is terrible and he didn't have a car. So he sat on the bus for hours just to wash dishes, cuz he had to go where the work was, and I think that it's key that we have that same mentality. 

Hannah: This is especially true when you are trying to get into a job or industry that you don't have that you want, you have to be able to say yes to a lot of things in order to get your foot in the door.

Especially if you're coming from a place of applying without a lot of relevant experience or you're reaching, like you're trying to make a big jump. So you might have to say yes to in person work, not where you are, if you wanna get in. 

Ryan: So getting your foot in the door in the industry or the role that you want to be in is huge.

 Early in your career, as Hannah was saying, you gotta say yes, but just by being willing to move and obviously excelling in the roles that they've got, but we've seen people go from making $30,000 a year to over a hundred thousand dollars within the same year because they were willing to move 

Hannah: And eventually you can move from the place that you move to.

If you're making a strategic move to get in somewhere that you're trying to get. But if you're from a small town or small city where there's not a lot of work or there's not that type of work that you wanna do, you might have to go to a big city. In order to go where the work is or vice versa. If a company moves to a place that's maybe not as big and flashy as you'd like, or you're from a big city and now the company moves to a small town or rural area, you might need to go there in order to be where the work is.

 So imagine like a manufacturing plant that moves to, rural North Carolina or rural Texas, and they have good jobs there, but it's far from any place that you'd like to live. Your goal in the short term is to get a specific job. So you might have to go there for a while. 

Ryan: Yeah. So eventually you can move, as you said, right?

, but we gotta get our foot in the door and being willing to move is, could be a major factor in you getting a job. The reason, as you said, , there are, it goes both ways going from, going into a big city, there's a lot more opportunity, right? There's a lot more companies, there's a lot more people.

There's a lot more jobs that being said, companies also go where there's favorable tax incentives and the land and energy is cheap. Depending on the industry that you wanna be in. If you wanna be, I don't know, in logistics or something like that. And you need to wear work in a warehouse first.

You're probably not working in a warehouse in New York city. Probably not. You're probably working somewhere really rural. And you have to be willing to do that. And 

Hannah: I think too, that this is not to make this sound like an easy thing to do either, but moving is just one lever that's available to you to pull.

Basically, it's one more thing that you can do. So what's interesting is a lot of people in their college age, there's almost like this built-in mobility, which I think is funny, cuz it's almost like part of the college marketing, right? You're willing to move for college. . People are willing to move for college.

They're willing to move for grad school. They're willing to move sometimes, even for internships. But then it's interesting that people aren't willing to apply that same mentality beforehand for work. and it's just not part of how we're taught to look at these things, but if you apply that college age mobility, before you are vying a college degree, it might open a lot more opportunities to you. 

Ryan: Yeah. And I think so that's gonna be like considering to move for jobs, apprenticeships, all of that. I think the thought experiment that's useful is would I have moved for college? Was I considering moving for college? . Yes, I was. Yes, I am. All right. Well, if you live on the east coast and you were considering moving to the west coast, 

if you were okay, why aren't you willing to do that for a job? It's the same thing. So that right there, that's your radius, right? Like you live on the east coast and you're willing to move to the west coast. So then you should be fine moving anywhere on the west coast.

 I guess I was thinking radius thinking like anywhere in between, which maybe not, but I think the point stands 

Hannah: The points there because it's and , that's exactly what we're talking about, though. People are willing to make this giant multi-thousand mile move for college.

But for some reason, when it comes to a job opportunity or paid apprenticeship or work opportunity, all of a sudden it's so far. Which is a really odd disconnect because why are we willing to move that far to pay, but we're not willing to move that far to get paid. It's interesting. 

Ryan: Yeah, exactly.

And so the second reason why you need to be willing to relocate for a job is obvious. You can get considered more seriously for the role. 

Hannah: Yeah. This one's hard to ignore, especially because as you and I found out, , we were even kind of shocked about this, but 60% of people looking for jobs right now are looking for remote work.

That means that people who are willing to physically go somewhere, have an outsized advantage over the other 60% of people looking for work, right? , this is a lever. This is a factor that you can pull in, if you're willing to go where this company wants you to be. You are already in a smaller pool of applicants, because a lot of people are not willing to do that, which is fine. 

It's neither here nor there. It's just something that if you're willing to do that, , it's just something else, you can use your advantage to try to get what you want. 

Ryan: Yeah. That's a lot of people. And the fact is there are still a lot of jobs that require people to be in a place at a location.

And if you have that willingness to do that, then you might be more considered for the role, never mind also that the people that are looking for remote work, some of them might be self eliminating from even applying. 

Hannah: I'm sure that's true. 

Ryan: If you're hitting the apply button, when others aren't hitting the apply button, say it, you have to live.

It probably happens more often where you have to move to a rural place than the cities, because a lot of people are in the cities, and so there's more competition for those jobs, but if you have to move to the middle of nowhere, For a job, there probably aren't as many people applying to those jobs.

Hannah: Absolutely. And that's a huge, that's a really overlooked thing too, and this is kind of an aside, but if you're willing to move to a small town, this is a good way to look at jobs too. You look in really small towns and you're talking, there's very low competition for those type of jobs.

There's very few applicants and that's what you want. If you're trying to get a specific thing. You want to be competing with very few other people because it just increases your likelihood of being chosen. 

Ryan: Yeah. Especially if you don't already live there, it can show the company that you are willing to do what it takes in order to get this job.

And it could right or wrong that could say something to the hiring managers or to the recruiters or to the managers that this person is willing to do something that other people are not willing to do. 

Hannah: Right. One more thing, one more, you know, one more strike in your column. 

Ryan: Right? Exactly.

And so, they can assess you on that and maybe extrapolate that out to how you would be a better employee for the company and therefore. It makes more sense to hire you? 

Hannah: Yeah, because , you're a better investment cuz you're willing to make this move. 

Ryan: Yeah. And so the last reason is gonna be to learn, right?

Learning is one of the most important things you can do to further your personal growth and your career, right? That's something that we always talk about. And that's what this whole podcast is really about. 

Hannah: It's learning. Yep. And then moving for a job too, is just gonna teach you a bunch of stuff.

 Especially if you're a little bit earlier in your career and you're now making this adjustment to a new place, a new people, a new environment. , you're just gonna learn. You're gonna adapt. You're gonna learn. You're gonna meet new people. It's gonna be a learning experience for sure.

Ryan: So obviously for your career, you'll learn from your new role, regardless of if you're making a lateral transfer, if you're getting promotion or a complete career transition, , you're going to be learning new things from different people. There are many ways to do the same task.

Depending on where you, depending on where you are. 

Hannah: And sometimes there's not, sometimes there's only one way

Ryan: exactly.

Hannah: But you'll learn.

Ryan: Yeah, definitely.

Hannah: And then, as someone too who moved around quite a bit, for different reasons, there's a lot that you can learn about yourself when you make a move.

Not only a lot that you can, but a lot you're gonna be forced to learn. You're gonna be forced to. Learn about your habits, how you are under different situations, meeting new people, and solving new problems, navigating a new environment, and then seeing how you fit in and seeing how you get along with people.

It's just gonna force you to grow as an individual, even if it ends up being somewhere that you're like, you know what? I don't like it here. I do wanna leave. And you make an exit plan. It's still going to be something that you learn from and that you grow from. And I think it's hard. To dismiss the value of that.

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. And I think one of the biggest things is how are you gonna know that you don't like it if you've never tried it before? Like the fact of the matter is you don't know. we can sit here and think about how, and we can list all the reasons of why you shouldn't do it, and then you can convince yourself to not do it, but you don't really know, until you go. 

Yep. That's just 

Hannah: how it is. 

Ryan: Exactly. And so I've seen it plenty in my personal life. I'll say on the personal side, especially since I grew up in such a remote location, comparative to most of the people that are listening to this podcast, I saw friends people that are now friends, move to Hawaii.

And they had never been a lot of these people had never been anywhere before. A lot of these people, Hawaii was their very first move. And far right far from anywhere. , I didn't even tell you where any of these friends that I'm thinking of are from, 

Hannah: but it's far, 

Ryan: but, it's far 

Hannah: because even if, even this from California, it's far,

Ryan: it's far. Exactly. And so some of the people, everybody had different reasons. Some people moved for work. Some people moved for personal. Some people moved because they've never been on a plane before. This is a real person that I'm thinking about. Never been on a plane before, and then they moved to Hawaii where you can only leave by plane 

Hannah: bold.

Ryan: Yeah. Crazy. 

Hannah: And you think, I'm sure that person learned a lot about themselves. 

Ryan: Exactly. 

And, but that person and all the other people, they couldn't have known unless they went right. And so some of 'em, they've always wanted, they visited with their families. When they were kids and they were like, Hawaii's so awesome.

Hawaii's great. And when they moved there, they're like, wait, it really sucks to live here. Like, I really, I grew up with a lot of land. I grew up with, , seeing really far or being able to, jump in the car and drive for three hours and they really miss it, even though they thought they would love Hawaii.

 And then there's other people that are like, man, I like, I don't wanna move there. Like, why would I move there? , you can't drive. You can't do all these things. And then they go there and they're like, I'm never moving anywhere else in my life. And so that's just a little aside on the learning thing.

 It's like, you can't knock it until you try it. And then, alright, you get the first one outta the way. And that doesn't mean, and you and okay. You get the first one outta the way and you hate it. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you're gonna hate every opportunity from there on out,

Hannah: Not at all,

Ryan: Just because you move for this job and maybe the location that you move there, you have to figure out why you don't like it. There. But that doesn't mean that you're well,

Hannah: Figure out what it is about yourself too. , that what it is that you don't like and why you don't like it, and then what you wanna, what you want going forward. 

Ryan: Yeah, exactly. And just figuring it out. You don't necessarily have to write off relocating being willing to relocate for every other job that comes up.

It just, it's just things to think about. And then I think, being willing to move if the company requires it is one of those like superpowers, it just enables you to be taken that much more seriously. You can learn a lot about yourself and then you have to go, , you gotta go where the work is 

Hannah: And we realize this is something that sounds like it's definitely easier said than done.

And if you have a family that's really hard and complicated and there's, that's a lot to consider too, cuz it's not just you individually that you're factoring into this decision, which makes it infinitely more complex. , Cuz if you're deciding to go one place versus another place you're missing out on certain things from the other place and you have to weigh those decisions.

And those are decisions are not easy things, but if you are able to do this and you think it's gonna help you, you think it's gonna help your family and it's worth it for you just know that this is something that can really, this can really unlock other options for you. 

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. It's something that

possibly could advance you in your career. And it's definitely harder with a family. Definitely. It's even harder if you're just dating somebody or long term or if you're married. And so there's definitely something we're not saying that it's easy, right? Like it's definitely not easy, but it's definitely something that you should consider in order to get yourself more seriously considered for roles, especially if you've been applying for a really long time and you're not getting a lot of traction, maybe being willing to move and relocate is one of those things. 

Hannah: Change the factors basically and see if it see if you get different results. 

Ryan: Yeah. And that's pretty much it for this week.

If you guys like the podcast, please, like, and subscribe. If you guys wanna support the podcast, the best thing that you guys could do is write us an honest review, wherever it is that you get your podcast 

Hannah: and folks again, if you wanna get our Degree Free newsletter, which I promise that you do, you wanna go over to degreefree.co/newsletter and sign up. Resources, job ideas.

 Even things that like Ryan and I have talked about trends, the way people are moving, the way remote work is changing and the way that down credentialing is currently happening in the job market. So stuff that you definitely wanna know don't wanna miss. So run on over there and sign up for the newsletter.

Ryan: All right. Until next time guys. Aloha.

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