Now that you’ve graduated and you’re thinking about the next step in your life, you may have kicked around the idea of relocation. Whether you come from a small town with limited opportunity or you’re interested in moving to a city that is home to your industry of choice, now is a great time to pick up and go pursue your career. Here are some of the best cities for recent grads to put down roots.
“Its never easy to make an immediate impact, but if you land your skill set in an emerging city then you increase your chance of success! Enjoy the journey and branch out!” says Sharon Tsao, CMO, Contemporary Staffing Solutions.
Albany, NY
Albany isn’t quite as sexy as New York City, but it is a booming town with a low unemployment rate and growing population of young professionals. Home to industries like software and education, Albany also affords active residents plenty of opportunities to enjoy the outdoors. Bikers, hikers, kayakers and more have a variety of activities to choose from in their spare time, and Albany is a short drive from the Berkshires, Catskills and Adirondacks.
Pittsburgh, PA
If you think of Pittsburgh as a sooty steel town, think again. While the area still produces steel, Pittsburgh has undergone a renaissance in recent years and is a notable tech hub. Uber and Google both have offices in the city and it is on Amazon’s shortlist for HQ2, which could bring 50,000 jobs to the area. The median salary for recent grads is $46,300, a respectable income in a city with a low cost of living and rents that average $1,000 per month.
Jersey City, NJ
Like Pittsburgh, people have misconceptions about Jersey City. However, it is located directly across the river from Manhattan, providing a more affordable alternative to the Big Apple, and it is home to plenty of restaurants, shops, nightlife and cultural activities. Thousands of people commute from Jersey City to New York every day, but Jersey City itself is home to major financial, education and healthcare employers.
Arlington, VA
Arlington is a booming town full of young professionals. It is a short drive from Washington, DC and Baltimore and provides easy summer access to beaches and resort towns. Young people who enjoy the outdoors will find plenty to do here, and those who like to focus on the nightlife scene will find plenty of hotspots. Arlington offers a host of job opportunities in all sorts of fields from government to software to healthcare.
Denver, CO
The Denver Tech Center, in business since the 1970s, has acted as a magnet attracting tech companies to the city. Denver boasts outdoor adventure opportunities and is slightly cheaper to live in than nearby Boulder, which a study named the No. 1 metro area for high-tech startup diversity. MapQuest calls Denver home, as do these other companies: CommercialTribe, provider of video-based sales training, Digabit, maker of software original equipment manufacturers use to bring their catalogs into the 21st century, and Sphero, creators of an app-enabled robotic ball.
Nashville, TN
Microsoft, Dell, and HP have offices in the city known for its country music. It’s also home to startups such as Emma, an email-marketing client, and Spendsetter, an advocacy-marketing firm, and a blossoming healthcare industry with high-tech needs. Vanderbilt University deserves a lot of credit for driving this growth. Vanderbilt’s large medical center and all of the STEM research happening at the university play a role. One estimate puts the number of tech jobs open in Nashville at 20,430, according to ZipRecruiter. The top tech jobs available in the home of country music are senior programmer analyst, information security engineer, systems administrator, IT manager, and iOS developer.
Philadelphia, PA
The birthplace of the nation, Philadelphia has a rich, layered history, but its future is bright thanks to tons of tech startups, proven investors, and Technical.ly Philly, a tech news site that united the community. It’s also attracted services such as Uber, Amazon Same-Day Delivery, and Seamless. The city has connections to the big three tech centers, too. For example, Philly’s HJ Laboratories, a company that develops, applies for and sells patents, recently sold a patent to Apple, as Technical.ly Philly reports.
Raleigh, NC
Raleigh is the emergent primary tech hub of the Southeast. It’s home to North Carolina State, University of North Carolina and Duke, all renowned educational institutions. Expion, developer of enterprise social media management software, is one of the companies in Raleigh hiring tech talent. Those employed in its lively tech industry enjoy the sites of a historic downtown and a large natural landscape. It is estimated to have 28,510 tech jobs open, according to ZipRecruiter, and the top five positions offered in Raleigh are infrastructure architect, design engineer, tooling engineer, java developer, and SQL developer.
St. Louis, MO
St. Louis, the hometown of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has held onto some of its most promising tech talent. St. Louis’s top tech companies, according to IT Entrepreneur Network (ITEN), include: Norse, a threat intelligence network, Splice Machine, a Hadoop relational database management system, MulticoreWare, provider of high performance software libraries, tools and development services. The growth in tech jobs from last year hit 23.1 percent, far more than for any other city. Salaries remain high (with an average of $93,829) and housing is very affordable. The city’s tech talent is even charitable enough to share their tech knowledge with underprivileged kids through the city’s new LaunchCode Mentor Center.
Recent Grads – Are You Looking For A Great Job?
Contemporary Staffing Solutions specializes in helping recent graduates get their careers off the ground. With a national footprint, we can help you find a great job in great cities across the US. Browse our current job openings or contact us to learn more about our commitment to your career success.
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Contemporary Staffing connects job seekers to hiring managers nationally in the following professions: Accounting & Finance, Call Center & Office, Human Resources, IT, Salesforce, and Sales & Marketing.