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I’m a first year in NYC and am currently thinking about trying to lateral to a new city at some point in the next year. This might be a stupid question, but how does one handle interviews in this situation? Will I have to travel a ton to my target market? If so, how does one do this while also having a full time job? Any advice/anecdotal information is appreciated.

Just wrapped up the process of lateraling to a different city myself. The process can suck if your firm is big on facetime. The phone screeners will be easy enough, but you'll have to fly for callbacks, and that's pretty non-negotiable.

Try negotiating a semi-regular work from home day, once a week if possible or once a month if that's the best you can get. Schedule callbacks for that day, and just make sure you get WiFi on the plane. Firms understand that your ability to travel for callbacks is limited, so your callback firms will work with your schedule.

If that fails, you'll just have to resort to "doctor's appointments" or just using a vacation day.

Anonymous User wrote:Just wrapped up the process of lateraling to a different city myself. The process can suck if your firm is big on facetime. The phone screeners will be easy enough, but you'll have to fly for callbacks, and that's pretty non-negotiable.

Try negotiating a semi-regular work from home day, once a week if possible or once a month if that's the best you can get. Schedule callbacks for that day, and just make sure you get WiFi on the plane. Firms understand that your ability to travel for callbacks is limited, so your callback firms will work with your schedule.

If that fails, you'll just have to resort to "doctor's appointments" or just using a vacation day.

Doctor's appointment sounds easiest unless some firms ask for documentation

It’s not always as easy as the first anon says. Obviously it is great if your potential firm could schedule you on the day you want. I try to schedule my callbacks on Mondays or Fridays because those are the days when most people work remotely. However, some firms can’t/won’t accommodate that for your interview (or they will, but it’ll be 1-2 months out, which is also not ideal).

There are times when the turnaround from a phone screener to a callback is a few days (yes, days) and I have to just use the doctor’s apt excuse. That creates other issues because some callbacks are 4+ hours and with the added flight, you’re offline for half the day, so people ask questions the next day (such as asking if everything is ok). At this point, I’m pretty sure everyone knows I am interviewing elsewhere.

One thing I always do is request a hotel the night before the callback and fly out on a late flight. I’ve tried doing the fly in and out the same day, but that literally took 10-12 hours of my day (3+ hour flight each way, security, callback).

It’s an exhausting process (I’ve been doing it for 6ish months), but it’s a necessary evil.