For the last couple of years, my husband has been interested in finding a new job. Between the two of us, we’ve developed a system that helps us decide if a job move is worthwhile. Ruling out a job listing in the beginning, before he even applies, saves us time if it isn’t a good fit.
Our Situation
We’re luckier than many couples in that I work from home, so I can move anywhere. If you would need to consider both you and your partner’s jobs and locale, your situation would be more complicated than ours.
How We Decide If a Move Is Worthwhile
We have a number of factors when deciding if my husband should apply for a job out of state.
First Step
We start with an initial dig into the area where the job is located.
What Is the Cost of Living?
Since we’re in a low cost of living area, our first item to research is the cost of living where the new job is located. If it’s too expensive, we wouldn’t be able to afford the area. My husband has found job listings in Oregon and Seattle, Washington. However, we ultimately decided not to apply for those because the locales were too expensive.
How Close Would We Be to Family?
We’ve spent the last eight years living over 2,000 miles away from family. However, now that my mom is getting older, as are all my aunts and uncles, we decided we’d like to be closer to home. Ideally, we didn’t want to be more than 700 miles away from where all of my relatives live. That narrowed his job search quite a bit, though there were still plenty of jobs to apply for.
What Is the Political Landscape?
Even a decade ago, we didn’t think much about the political landscape when determining where we would like to live. Now, unfortunately, neither of us can imagine moving into an area where most residents have polar opposite political views to ours. Because of this, we had several states that we had no interest in applying for, no matter how good the job.
Second Step
Once we’ve decided if the area is a good fit for us, my husband then researches the job.
Employer
He looks closely at the employer’s reputation. Since he works in a specialized field, he confirms if the position would allow him to do all aspects of his job. (Surprisingly, many jobs get weeded out at this point because they don’t have what he needs to do his research.)
Employees
If the company looks good, he digs into the online presence of the people he would potentially work with to see if they could collaborate on research.
Third Step
If I’ve done my research on the location, and he’s done his research on the company and employees, and we both agree it looks like a good fit, he applies for the job. Surprisingly, we decide a job is not worthwhile to apply for about seventy percent of the time. The other thirty percent of the time, he applies. This strategy has landed him interviews with eight different companies over the last 18 months.
Final Thoughts
If you’re part of a DINKs couple looking for an out-of-state job, having a system for researching the area and the job itself can help you agree on whether a job is worth pursuing. Over the last 18 months, we’ve perfected how we decide if a move is worthwhile, which saves us time by not applying for a job that isn’t the best fit.
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Melissa Batai
Melissa is a writer and virtual assistant. She earned her Master’s from Southern Illinois University, and her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Michigan. When she’s not working, you can find her reading a good book, cooking, or traveling. She resides in New York where she loves the natural beauty of the area.
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