Ideas To Prepare the Family for Relocation

Relocation is huge. It's inevitable for many in a career search. It can be the best change in your life, or it can be the worst. Many of the candidates I talk to are facing a new challenge with relocation -- a family with children who are old enough to be directly impacted. It's not just the candidate and spouse and maybe a little one or two that haven't started school yet. The picture has changed.

You, my candidates, have had great ideas about how to handle this. I jot down great ideas or interesting tidbits as I talk with you, and here are a few of the best ideas I've heard in involving a family in a relocation process, and laying the groundwork down at the beginning of your search.

1. If you have school age children, involve them in the relocation process as soon as possible. Assign fun research projects to each child, having them learn more about the cities or regions you are targeting. Challenge them to find out specific details, like how many people live in the city, how many schools there are, what professional sports the city hosts, etc. For younger children, keep it simple, like finding pictures on Web sites (parents will have to steer them to chamber of commerce sites, etc.), learning what state's flower, bird and other facts are.


2. Build a poster chart to compare cities/regions. Include categories that are important to the kids, like the sports, music, gymnastic programs offered. Search out items/places your kids are interested in that the relocation cities have to offer that you may not currently have. Be sure to acknowledge what you might be giving up too. The poster should show all the pros and the cons. Let your kids give the ratings, or post stickers on the chart.


3. For pre-teens or older, I've heard parents that have requested their children sit down and compile a list of all the "things" they would like to have in their new location. This list has ranged from requests for separate bedrooms through a city with a ice skating rink and hockey programs! Take these lists and do your own research in private, "checking off" as many of the knowns as you can. When you fly in for an interview, hand the list back to your child, and tell them you are interviewing in this city, and this is what you see the area has to offer them. This can even help them feel empowered in your interview process.

From what I hear reported, involving your children is much more positive than not involving them. For younger children, it helps them feel like they have a role and a say in this change process, and for older children, it helps them communicate to you what is important to them, and what is frustrating to them about the thought of uprooting.

From my viewpoint as an executive recruiter, here is what I want to know. Is your son training to be an Olympic swimmer? If yes, you'd better tell me, because I don't want to be wasting my time looking at clients who are not located in a city that doesn't have an Olympic size pool for training. (Yes, this is a true situation! And, yes, that candidate and family successfully relocated and transferred training programs for their son.)

Is your spouse an elementary teacher, or a commercial designer? Tell your recruiter those things too -- a teacher is marketable in any size city, while a commercial designer requires a larger city to support the work.

Involve your family, and once you have a plan, involve your recruiter too.

Any more ideas? I'd love to hear them. Comment here on this post, or email me direct.