DC Reaches a Tipping Point - The Great Talent Migration Has Started
by Bob Corlett Friday, December 05, 2008
Bob Corlett is the founder and President of Staffing Advisors. He developed The Results-Based Hiring Process® and is one of Washington’s best known thought leaders on staffing and recruiting. Thousands of HR executives and business leaders receive Staffing Advisors’ popular newsletters and read his blog – The Staffing Advisor. In his volunteer work, Bob runs the Staffing Alliance of Maryland Employers.
Full Bio
An astonishing shift has occurred in the DC metropolitan area job market just in the past few months. We are now importing the brightest and best candidates from weaker job markets in record numbers. The combination of lower real estate prices, a strong job market, and a tidal wave of planned federal spending makes our region a powerfully attractive place to live and work.
How do I know this? Well if you’ve been reading this blog or my newsletter you already know all we enjoy one of the strongest job markets of any metropolitan area. What caught me by surprise was how many of our recent searches were filled by candidates from New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the west coast. In our last 12 searches, fully a third of the finalists came from out of area. This is a tenfold increase in just a few months, and the numbers are rising.
I must confess, I have always had a strong preference for people who already live here. It’s not being provincial, it’s about turnover risk. People who relocate to DC might later regret their choice when they discover that rush hour lasts from 5 a.m. until 9 p.m. around here. So here at Staffing Advisors, we set the bar pretty high if you are an out of state candidate. You pretty much have to be flat out amazing.
What stuns me is how many extraordinarily qualified people are now eager to move here, pay for their own interview travel expenses, pay for their own relocation, and accept the pay package being offerred. We’re not talking about “Buy my house and I’ll move.” We are talking about “I’ll move myself, just give me an extra week or two to get settled, and I’m there.” This is a monumental shift in attitudes that occurred just in the past three months, but why is it such a big deal?
It’s a big deal because of what it means if you already work here. The qualified competition for your job - the job you already have - just doubled (yikes!). If you are an employer with a job opening, you are about to become very, very, happy. Almost overnight, your pool of highly qualified applicants just doubled, but only if you know how to reach out to them. (Rest assured, I’ll have a series of upcoming blog posts on that topic). For our regional economy, those highly qualified people will soon be improving business results, buying houses, eating in restaurants, and, of course, sitting in traffic with us.
So are you seeing it yet? A migration into government jobs? Away from Wall Street? Inquiring minds want to know.
How do I know this? Well if you’ve been reading this blog or my newsletter you already know all we enjoy one of the strongest job markets of any metropolitan area. What caught me by surprise was how many of our recent searches were filled by candidates from New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the west coast. In our last 12 searches, fully a third of the finalists came from out of area. This is a tenfold increase in just a few months, and the numbers are rising.
I must confess, I have always had a strong preference for people who already live here. It’s not being provincial, it’s about turnover risk. People who relocate to DC might later regret their choice when they discover that rush hour lasts from 5 a.m. until 9 p.m. around here. So here at Staffing Advisors, we set the bar pretty high if you are an out of state candidate. You pretty much have to be flat out amazing.
What stuns me is how many extraordinarily qualified people are now eager to move here, pay for their own interview travel expenses, pay for their own relocation, and accept the pay package being offerred. We’re not talking about “Buy my house and I’ll move.” We are talking about “I’ll move myself, just give me an extra week or two to get settled, and I’m there.” This is a monumental shift in attitudes that occurred just in the past three months, but why is it such a big deal?
It’s a big deal because of what it means if you already work here. The qualified competition for your job - the job you already have - just doubled (yikes!). If you are an employer with a job opening, you are about to become very, very, happy. Almost overnight, your pool of highly qualified applicants just doubled, but only if you know how to reach out to them. (Rest assured, I’ll have a series of upcoming blog posts on that topic). For our regional economy, those highly qualified people will soon be improving business results, buying houses, eating in restaurants, and, of course, sitting in traffic with us.
So are you seeing it yet? A migration into government jobs? Away from Wall Street? Inquiring minds want to know.