Richard Florida makes the case for choosing the city that you’d like to get a job/build a career in wisely:
Getting ahead in your career today means more than picking the right first job. Corporate commitment has dwindled, job tenure has grown far shorter, and people switch jobs with much greater frequency. The average American changes their job once every three years; the average American under the age of 30 changes their job once a year.
In today’s highly mobile and economically tumultuous times, career success also turns on picking a thick labor market which offers diverse and abundant job opportunities. For new grads, picking the most vibrant location is an important hedge against economic uncertainty and the risk of layoff.
Florida cites CareerCast.com’s recent survey that lists New York as the most attractive place for recent college grads, followed by DC, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, and San Diego. Florida’s own list of attractive cities (divided into large, mid-size, and small, then further subdivided by age group) matches closely, though offers more possibilities than just the big cities mentioned by CareerCast.
I’d be interested to get Florida’s take on how these cities, large and small, fare in terms of “internationalness”—meaning both the international engagement of the city in general, as well as the availability of opportunities to get an international-oriented job there. One question Sherry and I have often fielded (and were only able to address briefly in our book) is: many international opportunities exist in New York or DC, but I don’t live in New York or DC—what opportunities are there for me? We always suggest that international job seekers check out local universities, chambers of commerce, and the local political scene, all of which are inceasingly international in nature. But in terms of more specific opportunities, it always depends on the nature of the particular place, of which we most likely have limited knowledge.
Even so, we both do try to suggest international organizations we happen to know in any given city. After the jump, off the top of my head, a few international organizations in each of CareerCast’s top 10 (minus DC and NYC). If you know of other international organizations in these cities, or in mid-size and small cities which are not typically thought of as international, (or if you know of a Florida-like study examining the “internationalness” of American cities), please pass any and all of it along.
