My ife and myself have determined that if we want to have the kind of life we dream of we need to get the hell out of Southern California. Primarily this would require me to get a new job first. I have ten years experence in my industry (electric utility) and I am wondering if it makes sense to send resumes cold to recruiters in the regions we are considering. Is it better to call or email first? Can I just send a resume and cover letter via email or should I send it the conventional way? is there a better way to try and find a job elsewhere?
I’m in the process of looking for a new job and I hardly know what my resume looks like anymore.
I have my fancy formatted resume in MS Word, but then the company I was laid off from uses an outplacement service that has a job bank that I uploaded my resume to and it pretty much converted to a font similar to the 'dope font, without the bolding, underlines, size differences, and what not. I made some adjustments to the plain version so it makes sense and conveys my essence.
So now I have a fancy paper resume and a plain cyber-resume that gets shuttled around from the job bank to recruiters to companies, etc. I’ve never mailed my resume anywhere. I should have a .pdf handy as well but I’m always making little adjustments to it.
First contact from recruiters is always by phone, then the emails get sent if it’s to go any farther. I would do likewise if I was contacting them.
By recruiters do you mean people who work for the local utilities in question or recruiting agencies? Both would be possibilities. I would recommend trying to set up informational telephone interviews with HR/Staffing folks at the actual utilities you’d like to work for. Ask things like how often they have openings for people with your skills, how they are organized, how they advertise/publicize openings, what systems or tools they use. Then when you sense a fit, hopefully things will move forward in a productive direction.
I’d also suggest networking with whatever is the relevant professional association for what you do. Since you are somewhat broadly relocatable, that could be a good way to go.
Good luck!
We just relocated across country. When we made the decision to move, we knew the area (Oregon) we needed to go to for my wife’s job, but she didn’t yet have any serious prospects. We took a trip out here in January to job-hunt and house-hunt. Shortly before we left, my wife found a job posting on a web site, contacted the company, and said she’d be out here; could she meet with them? She did 2 interviews with them that visit (along with casual interviews at other companies) and is now working for the company.
In my experience (and YMMV) it pays to already be in the area where you are job-hunting. Companies are often wary about hiring people that aren’t local. I think the reality of us moving here (we were actually signing some initial papers for the house purchase when my wife had to duck out and do her 2nd interview … something that she told them and that impressed her seriousness upon them) helped cement the decision to hire my wife. Plus, being able to tell the person doing the hiring, “I’m only in town this week, looking to buy a house; can you make time to meet with me?” is a nice bit of psychological leverage to get someone to actually meet with you for an interview.
In this same vein, my Brother-in-Law was unable to get freelance programming jobs (which he could do from home) until he actually moved the 120 miles into the city. He ended up working for the same company he had been courting, doing almost all of the work from home. They had some weird psychological block about hiring someone who wasn’t in the city. Sometimes, you just have to be there.
I’ve tried cold-calling and e-mailing and I never did get lucky, but that’s not to say you won’t.
Look at craigslist.org for the area you’re moving to. If it’s a large enough city, there should be loads of listings.