Change of Location
I have spoken many times in these blogs and newsletters about my training as a Career and Job Search Strategy coach with the Five O’Clock Club (now known as GetFive). The GetFive methodology is a 5-step process to job search. The 3rd step of the process, after assessing what it is you may want to do, and researching how and where you may be able to do it, is targeting companies for which you may be able to work. Targeting is based on the concept that you not only look to find openings at companies, but more importantly identify companies that are possible organizations for your talents, whether or not they appear to have published openings.
A job target in the GetFive methodology is made up of 3 components. One is the type of industry in which the company offers their products or services. The second component is the job function one might perform at that company. And, the third component is the location of that company. When I first learned the GetFive methodology of job search in 2011, the location component absolutely dealt with physical location of the company. Was it in your geographic area of the country? Would you relocate to work for that firm? If it was in your geographic location, how far of a daily commute (both in distance and time), would it take for you to get to the place of work? And, while the location dynamic was starting to change gradually from 2011 to 2020, as more people were given the opportunity to work remotely for their jobs, in the last 2 years, that component of the job search has exploded exponentially.
When I work with clients now, I would be remiss if I did not ask them their thoughts about working remotely. For some clients it is a desirable option. Others indicate they have no interest in the concept, as they want to work at a company in person. And, while indeed it is a personal choice, it is one that is not only being impacted now by the job seeker, but by hiring companies themselves.
During the last 22 months of the worldwide pandemic, companies that were not in favor of remote working options for their staff learned a few lessons. One was, even with many staff members working remotely, work was getting completed. A second lesson was in the need to look at expenses more closely, companies began to realize just how expensive the office space they either owned or rented was costing them to maintain. To add to that expense was the need to clean and sanitize the office spaces far more than they had before. On the other hand, to have staff members work at home did require some expense for possible equipment the staff needed or virtual connection technologies, but those expenses did not come close to the real estate expenses.
Many organizations have multiple locations either nationally or internationally. In an order to streamline their operations it was becoming more common for individuals in a company to report to a superior that may be in an entirely different location than them, often several hundreds of miles away. If that was a way of life when individuals were working in specific location office buildings, why wouldn’t it on a virtual working model allow companies to hire the best talent they had for a position, no matter where the candidates lived? As such, more than ever before, many more opportunities being posted by companies, will indicate they are open to a remote working situation for a particular job posting. Add that to the various job search sites that were already dedicated to remote opportunities, (think Flexjobs, UpWork, etc.), and a whole new dynamic has become a reality in the targeting dimension.
As I indicated earlier, not all those looking to work find working virtually, (usually from their home) attractive. And, that is OK, and their choice to make. However, it is important to be aware of not only the growth in this trend in the world of work, but realize as technology continues to improve, that it is highly unlikely that location will exclusively go back to “an everyday in person” model.
