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Comment by dionidium | Hacker News Reader

I recently moved from St. Louis to New York City. The number of recruiting emails I receive has probably quadrupled (or more). In all things, it helps to be where the people you want to find you are looking.

Also: protip for people in the South or Midwest who are open to relocation: change your online profiles to say you're in the new location.

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As a data scientist living in the South, I have no problem relocating to San Francisco or San Jose, but how do I signal this without letting my existing employer know? Changing my LinkedIn location from <tiny city> to San Francisco would raise some uncomfortable questions.

Disable the notification when you change your profile. Noone is gonna notice that you changed.

Maybe it's ok to let your employer know? It's not as if the desire to relocate could be solved by your current company if all of their operations are local. I suppose it depends on your manager, but hopefully if you said "Boss, I want to move to San Francisco. The growth opportunity there is too great to ignore." they might be supportive. Obviously if you think that conversation could go very badly then you might have to be a bit more low-key. Maybe try to reach out to a recruiting firm in San Francisco instead of changing your LinkedIn.

Oh hey! I did the same move after undergrad.

I would second this advice, and be ready to "put up" when people ask you to fly out. Be prepared to have a plan to get to interviews if you plan on fibbing about your current location.

I wouldn't recommend lying (or imagine you'd ever have to). If anyone asks, just be honest about your current and preferred locations.

There's nothing weird about signalling that you'd prefer to live/work somewhere else. ("I'm currently still in St. Louis, but want to field offers in New York," seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation to me.)

> Also: protip for people in the South or Midwest who are open to relocation: change your online profiles to say you're in the new location.

That'll work at getting more calls, but won't the increase in calls just mean more offers for work without relocation packages?

Yes.

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