So, you’d like to move to San Francisco, huh? You hear it’s nice. Cute buildings, pretty bridges, great brunches, and weird people, right? A place with more places to go than space to place them all. Flowers on the windowsills all year long. Sounds beautiful. And they have public transit! Your city probably doesn’t even know what public transit is. Your city’s been a middling middle-America burbtown since 1947. Its best restaurant is in a strip mall next to McDonalds. Its best restaurant is McDonalds. What a joker. Not SF, though. It has five-star Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Burmese, Honduran, Ethiopian, Italian, Peruvian, and French, plus American versions of all the above. The people there wear light sweaters all year long. Yes, indeed, San Francisco sounds like a good place to be.
But the question is not why move to San Francisco, it’s how to move to San Francisco. Moving to S.F. is like trying to dig up a chicken leg in a dumpster of raccoons. The competition for your run-of-the-mill $2,000 studio is fierce, and the job market is filled with people just like you, with the same degrees and better resumes, people who have been underemployed in San Francisco for at least two years and understand how to fight for jobs all while still not sacrificing rooftop patios, gourmet coffee shops, and sunny-green parks. Beating them will take all your casual. Fortunately, we’re here to help. Here’s how to move to San Francisco:
- Have a job.
- Have a friend who can get you a job.
- Have a friend who you can crash with for a week or two (but probably more).
- Have a friend who has a friend who needs a roomy and already has a place.
- If no friend, find a sublet.
- Have hella savings.
- Understand that “lunch” can mean interview.
- Dress well but not too well – look like you’re wearing a shirt and tie, but don’t actually wear a shirt and tie. You know?
- Figure out how whatever you do is related to the tech industry and sell it like the tamale lady sells tamales – steaming and with picante.
- Understand “interview” can mean lunch.
- Surf Craigslist daily, yes, but also surf coffee shops and bars, looking for someone who knows of something, whether it’s a room, a job, or both. Word of mouth is big in competitive atmospheres like this.
- Talk to people, and keep the conversation going by saying, “let’s go to the park,” or “let’s get brunch this Sunday,” or “I hear Public Works is going off tonight,” or “want to hit up the Tandoori-Loin with me?”
- Carry a sweater or a light jacket at all times. Or move to Oakland, in which case ignore almost everything else I said, find a spot near BART, and hit up Uptown for good times.
Hire some San Francisco movers and get more San Francisco insight at MovingGuru.com.