I love Seattle. Love, Love, Love it! I can’t imagine why someone wouldn’t jump on an opportunity to have someone else pay them to move here, to a great city, to be working for a great company.
Oh, wait…you and your wife just had twins and you live remarkably close to your in-laws who are
getting “up there” in age and you would hate to take their only grandchildren away from them.
Ummm…what if I throw in a sign-on bonus?
Working for a large corporation, I am constantly recruiting people from all over the country, and even all over the world. Our relo package is amazing. I rarely have a hard time convincing people that we can make their relo as easy as possible. Good salary, good benefits, and you don’t really have to worry about your move…we’ll take care of it.
The challenge doesn’t come there. It comes when we try to convince the family. A family that has roots in its current location. Perhaps grandparents nearby, familiar schools, and a sense of comfort.
In these circumstances, as much time as you spend talking about the company, you have to take just as much time, if not more, talking about the locale. What is there to do? Arts? Sports? Even if you have a losing baseball team that is way worse than its payroll implies, you can still talk about the awesome ballpark. And, also…particularly important for families with kids…schools. You need to package everything together so that the opportunity itself, combined with a great new physical location, is a product that can convince the entire family that the change is good for everyone.
Really show the candidate how serious you are about signing him by offering to bring the entire family out for a few days to take in the town themselves. Send them on a tour of the city, of the schools. Have a real estate agent show them some houses on the market.
What about a job for the spouse? Relocation for one job can be stressful, enough. But, if a two income family needs to become a one income family, it’s in the best interest of all involved to find a new, local job for the spouse, as well. Work that network, recruiters! Reach out to your colleagues. What does that spouse do? A qualified person that doesn’t require the company to pay relocation (we’re already paying for it) should be appealing to any recruiter.
It’s not going to be easy. There are a lot of factors that candidates need to take into consideration just on their own. We spend so much time focusing on what appeals to them. How often are candidates lost because their family doesn’t want to make the move?
That happens all the time. Don’t forget to market to the spouse and family if you expect to close the deal.
Nice Milwaukee shout out with Hernia movers!
Jason – You’re very correct: market to the family to seal the deal. Unfortunately, being a “home town girl” myself, I feel candidate’s pain a little too much.
Sure, Portland is AWESOME. But I know I would rather live near family than move to a super cool city. I have the luxury of getting along very well with my family. I would give up living in Hawaii for Death Valley if it meant I could be close to them. You don’t have family members forever. Moving? You can do that any old time.
i took a new staff person on a tour of his neighborhood the other day. he moved to DC to work for our firm and had chosen a spot in DC close to my own digs… made sure he knew where the best grocery store was, the closest wine and beer shop, some good eats based on his fave cuisines… and it got me thinking about people who relo – what do you do post relo to make sure they are settled in? lots of support to get them to their new location for the new job, but after the fact, how are we, the collective we, making sure people are well settled? if you have any best practices to share, please do. just something on my mind.
JLee…Great question. That could be a blog posting all itself.
We just had this problem, we offered a position to person and after careful consideration he declined the position. He declined the position not because of the pay, (it paid 30% more than he currently made), but because his wife thought the job was not a significant enough career step nor had enough room to career growth. In addition to pay, recruiters should consider the long term price of relocation as most families don’t like to move annually nor the instability it causes, and balance it against the long term benefits of moving.
Some specialists claim that credit loans aid people to live their own way, because they are able to feel free to buy needed things. Furthermore, different banks present short term loan for all people.
Oh- I am in this situation right now. Spouse took a great job. Granted they sold us on some things that in our mind were deal breakers- and low & behold, it has taken 2.5 years and we are still fighting to make those things actually part of the job. But the bigger thing is that we underestimated the culture of the town we would have to live in. We enjoy living in a small town. We had briefly moved from a relatively safe small town to a very large city. Became unhappy in the city and found this job he has now. We THOUGHT the small town life would resume. Unfortunately it’s too close to the big city and the big city problems overflow into what should be a quiet place.
Making a choice to uproot the entire family is a difficult one- and can not be made by just the candidate. If they have a family- they should also be included in the interview process.