Contemplating relocating for a job? Help!

apeskin

I'm pretty daunted here. Basically, a company 350 miles away in Glasgow has an interest in taking my application forward towards a job offer. The good news is they seem nice enough looking group to work for, but I'd need to contemplate the relocation for this which could be a mammoth task. I have 0 local connections, 0 friends, 0 family, and 0 local knowledge of the area. No one to fall back on if it went wrong (for whatever reason)

The first thing I need to do is find a place, obviously. I could rent, or share. Renting would require a long term commitment, 3/6/12 months. Not sure if I'm ready for that commitment until I settle in to a new job. Then there's house sharing. A total red herring, you've got no idea who you'll be living with and this could go totally wrong and would thus jeopardize the job. Likewise I could end up making the best friends of my life.

I'm just a bit overwhelmed how to go about this all. It's both potentially exciting, but also potentially terrifying with the pressure of resettling in a total new place.

Hopefully, I'll be invited for an interview although it appears they may be willing to offer me a contract via email without a face to face due to the distances involved. That in itself creeps me out because I've never started at a company without some sort of interview or initial introduction at the office first.

Any thoughts or practical advice or "If I was in your shoes" comments?
Thanks.

WibblyGirly

I will be in your shoes soon as I'm relocating for university! Before I move I plan to go for a weekend to look around various areas, view some houses and see what it's like. I'm also going to hopefully try speak to a few locals to see if they can recommend an area. I'd suggest go for a night or 2, see the area you'll be working in, see if they can maybe recommend an area to live in and go see that?

bap98189

apeskin wrote: »

Hopefully, I'll be invited for an interview although it appears they may be willing to offer me a contract via email without a face to face due to the distances involved. That in itself creeps me out because I've never started at a company without some sort of interview or initial introduction at the office first.

Any thoughts or practical advice or "If I was in your shoes" comments?
Thanks.

That part is ringing major alarm bells to me. Conducting initial interviews by phone or skype is one thing, but this is a two way process. You need to see the company, meet some of the people and get an impression before you decide to up sticks and move halfway up the country.

Ebe_Scrooge

I did exactly this about 12 years - made redundant from my job in Bournemouth, got offered a job in Glasgow, accepted it and moved the whole family up. I'll give you the benefit of my experience if it helps.


Firstly, I got some cheap digs ( house share ) from Spareroom.co.uk as a stop-gap measure. I was going in to this "blind" - didn't fancy a 500-mile each-way trip just to look at a room. We'd agreed that I would go up there first, find a decent house to rent, then we could take our time to look around and suss out the areas. Same as you, I had no contacts up there, no idea of which areas were good or bad, etc. Our thinking was that if we ended up renting a place for a few months, and the area turned out to be "dodgy", it wasn't the end of the world.


Anyhow, after about 6 weeks of the house-share, found a rented house in a reasonable area, moved the family up, then started looking for a place to buy. We spent every weekend for months driving all over the place, looking at houses. But eventually found "the right house", and the rest, as they say, is history.


I guess it's slightly easier if you don't have a family to consider, but it's the same priciple. If it were me in your shoes, I'd do pretty much the same again I think. Start out on Spareroom, find a cheap room to rent that's close to work - or even book into a B&B for the first week, giving you the chance to go and look at some rooms each evening. Just make sure there's not a long "minimum let" on it. If it turns out to be nice, then great. If you're not happy, there'll be tons of other rooms available, you can easily swap after a couple of weeks.


Once you're in your job, ask colleagues about which areas are nice, which areas to avoid. Glasgow is just like any other large city - there are some extremely nice areas ( which were way out of my price range ! ), there are some rather "dodgy" areas. There are also a lot of very pretty small villages within a reasonable difference, if that's your preference. If you end up wanting to rent or buy a place of your own, at least you'll have had a chance to drive around and suss out the areas beforehand.


Hope this gives you some food for thought. And good luck with the new job !

stator

I pressume they are offering a relocation package?
If taking on a rental contract of 6 months with a job that probably has a probation period of 3 months, I would want some certainty that their relocation money will cover the full 6 months rent if they decided to end the employment after 3 months.

TELLIT01

bap98189 wrote: »

That part is ringing major alarm bells to me. Conducting initial interviews by phone or skype is one thing, but this is a two way process. You need to see the company, meet some of the people and get an impression before you decide to up sticks and move halfway up the country.

It does the same for me. The OP needs to do as much research as possible about the prospective employer. As a matter of interest, what form has any interview taken so far? How long did it last? What level of detail etc?

Rosemary7391

I upped sticks and moved to Glasgow just over 2 years ago, from about the same distance as you. Stayed with someone for a couple of weeks, then found my own place. All worked out very well, but I did have a face to face interview and a chance to walk around the city a bit first. I think that's important. PM me if you want to chat about the area

Aced2016

Try and come up and get a feel for the place. You can get a premier inn for £29.00 if booked in advance.

I was born in Glasgow but moved when I had kids way out to the outskirts. I wouldn't see any issues with you making friends, any job I had in Glasgow was very mixed, with English, Scottish, Irish and people from further afield. And we all got on just fine. Glasgow like anywhere as said above has good and bad bits.

It's a big step, but you can only try. You might love it and you might hate it. If you don't like it there's nothing stopping you going home, it's only a drive or train away. No harm in trying !

Good luck with it and if you need any info on areas etc I'm happy to help

apeskin

Thanks - I just wanted to add a few more details to get some further thoughts...This job is being organized by an intermediary, in my case a job agency.

But the good news is the company do want to go for the face-to-face route next week. However, due to the agency factor some details are opaque which is a bit frustrating. Firstly, I don't know the salary. Agency says they'll 'push' for 26k (I suspect that means probably closer to 23k) and I have no visibility of the TnC's on any potential contract offered (holiday, hours, benefits etc etc) also the the cost of my travel up there would NOT be covered, unless I was actually offered a contract.

Any further thoughts on this?
Thanks

apeskin

stator wrote: »

I pressume they are offering a relocation package?
If taking on a rental contract of 6 months with a job that probably has a probation period of 3 months, I would want some certainty that their relocation money will cover the full 6 months rent if they decided to end the employment after 3 months.

I don't think it looks like they are

Aced2016

Can you say which company it is ? As I worked for quite a few companies in Glasgow ? I got bored easily lol !

If I know the name I could try get you more info on them !