Advice/Tips on trying to relocate to a Tier 1 city

Hi guys,

I'm trying to relocate from Chicago to NYC or LA.

After doing some research:

I have my pitch down on why I want to relocate I can get new ph#s from Google and addresses that are specific to the areas that I will be applying to from friends and family. My question is how can I show that I’m a local candidate if my resume shows that I currently work in Chicago?

Any other advice do you have for people searching for out-of-state jobs?

31 Comments
 

Correct, I'm not a local candidate. I have no problem with being transparent; however, from my research I would be passed over because I am not a local candidate. Do you have experience of relocating to another state?

 

Honestly not being from the same region can hurt you when simply shooting over a resume online. If you network and have someone try to pull for you, even them just fowarding your stuff to the recruiters will probably eliminate this issue.

Dayman?
 

I find this post funny since I did the opposite and relocated from California to the Midwest. I would agree with the above posters in that I was pretty explicit on my resume that I was willing to relocate. In addition, I got rid of all the locations of my prior roles on my resume and removed my address (I would only bring up my current location in the first round interview). You would need a strong reason for the switch. My main goal was to move to a more-finance orientated city for markets.

 
Most Helpful

I lived and worked in front office finance in NYC for a handful of years. I currently live and work in front office finance in Chicago. While working in NYC can be helpful to build your network and street cred in finance, you're vastly underestimating Chicago and/or overestimating NYC, or perhaps you're making too much of the difference between them.

And how/where did you get it in your head that Los Angeles is a "Tier 1" finance city and Chicago isn't? That is just objectively wrong. Chicago has always been the #2 finance city in this country behind NYC. The city of Chicago launched entire elements of the financial world and remains the worldwide center for a few of them. It hosts two of the "M7" business schools in Kellogg and Booth. Chicago/Booth housed professors who were titans of academic finance and invented an entire school of economic thought respected worldwide. I believe commodities trading grew up in Chicago because of its proximity to Midwest farmers. There's a reason CNBC checks in with Rick Santelli every morning, and it's not just because he's a ballsy guy who's entertaining to listen to, it's because Chicago matters in finance. They don't check in with L.A. on a daily basis.

The third biggest "finance city" in this country would probably be Boston if I had to guess. I think they're ahead of L.A., maybe not. After that it gets murky. I'd say L.A. is in a tier with cities like Dallas (P.E. shops), Houston (energy banking hub), Charlotte, San Francisco, etc. I'm less sure about this tier and I'm not going to argue about it, but what I do know for sure is that Los Angeles is definitely not a bigger finance center than Chicago.

In terms of global finance, it's New York and then London. This was debatable before Brexit, but if Brexit goes down, New York edges London for global finance. In that global top tier with them are probably Hong Kong and Tokyo. Guys who've been overseas more than I have can chime in and correct here if I'm wrong.

Behind that mega-ultra-elite tier of maybe three or four cities, the very next tier down would include Chicago. If you get an offer you like in Chicago, take it. I left NYC for an offer in Chicago that suited me perfectly and I did it without blinking. Chicago is a fine place to launch a finance career.

"Now youse can't leave." -Sonny LoSpecchio
 

Luckily, I don’t give a shit how “impressive” any city I work in is to sell-side junior analysts.

I saw Ken Griffin speak at an investor conference here a few weeks ago. Should I have advised him to relocate Citadel from Chicago to a cramped office in Midtown so that kids from his alma mater would find the firm more “impressive?”

Btw, my NYC office was in Rockefeller Center. I hope that’s “impressive” enough for WSO. Chicago is a much cleaner city. I don’t miss walking by packs of sewer rats picking at bags of rotting trash on Midtown sidewalks as I made my way to and from my “impressive” Manhattan office.

"Now youse can't leave." -Sonny LoSpecchio
 
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