Relocation is a less viable option for executives and companies, as home values have decreased and job security remains shaky. Candidates would rather stay put than dislodge families, so many limit their job searches to an easily commutable geographic radius.

There are strategies to mine for local leads:

• Searching job boards and online databases by geo/zip codes
  
• Networking with friends, neighbors and attending organized, facilitated groups
  
• Reading regional business journals, community newspapers
  
• Joining the Chamber of Commerce
  

These are all great ways to identify target companies and develop some connections to those organizations, but I like to combine these activities with some deeper investigative research creating more specific targets that can be saved for a rainy day.

My travels around town and neighboring areas usually reveal companies that I never knew existed. For example, the directory in a local office building is rich with small-to-medium sized businesses and start-ups, and my natural curiosity is to learn more about them and their employees.

Do enough online research about these previously unknown companies to understand their business models and whether they may one day be a target employer for you. The "About Us" or "Management Team" pages sometimes have familiar names or ones that you can file away in your memory bank. If you isolate your research to a small enough neighborhood, you'd be surprised how often you wind up meeting one of those individuals at a local event, party, or hear a friend use their name in conversation.

When you find some viable local target companies, keep an eye on them — even if you're not ready to make a move. Set up Google alerts so you can monitor their activity and be apprised of growth opportunities that might be a perfect fit for your skills, while continually networking your way closer.

Creating encyclopedic knowledge of local businesses and their leadership teams adds to your networking capabilities too, enabling you to make referrals or share what you've learned that could help others' efforts.

If you live in a very big city or only want to work for Fortune companies or mega-brands, this backyard strategy might not be for you. But if you want to stay local, have an easy commute and maybe even come home for lunch, this could be a new approach to finding your next opportunity.


Click here to download Uncovering Opportunities in Your Own Backyard for more in-depth strategies on unearthing local opportunities. Come back to let us know what you think or if you have additional strategies that have been successful for you.

Robyn Greenspan
Robyn Greenspan is the Editor-in-Chief at ExecuNet, where she is responsible for setting and driving the editorial content engagement strategy across the private business network's publications and expert-led programming. She is also a Huffington Post blogger. You can follow her on Twitter @RobynGreenspan

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