[Aurornis]

This is very good, practical advice. I would go even further and say that you shouldn’t even allow yourself to get into a position where you need to manipulate your answers to interviewers for this question. If the primary reason you want a job is for the relocation, you might be signing up for a job you don’t even like!

I’ve been part of a small number of hiring decisions where relocation was involved. There were a lot of failures exactly like this article talks about: Candidates who will say anything in the interview and even signal that they’ll accept any average salary as long as you’ll take care of their relocation were, in my experience, not interested in doing the work after they got here. Taking the job was a means to an end (getting to their destination) and once they arrived they were either looking for the next job or too busy traveling around their new location to do work.

We tried to mitigate this with clauses requiring them to pay back relocation expenses if they left within N months of arrival, but this didn’t work. They would resign the week after that timer expired or, worse, would start trying to get laid off through poor performance as a way to avoid that clause.

The best fits for relocation were opposite of what I would have thought: The people most hesitant to relocate were the most successful, both at the job and in establishing their new social life outside of work in the new location. They were relocating and taking jobs for the right reasons.

[soco]

What are for you the right reasons for taking a job? Most teams will have enough common sense and healthy relationships to offer something workable, also most software products are a piece of whatever - be it insurance front-ends or package sorting algorithms. I mean yes there will be outliers both ways, like a toxic environment which the candidate can hopefully spot during the talks, or your particular product can spark real passion in people (not likely). But speaking for myself I've never spotted a toxic environment (also never landed in one either) and for the few positions where I was really passionate about they didn't care about my passion. So your comment reads like a lot of theory, or ten-thousand-feet-view if you want, while the candidate reality is that the only stuff which really matters is how good you lie about alignment.

[jemmyw]

Every job is the means to an end really. But if people are taking jobs at your employer and then feel unmotivated and are trying to get a new job elsewhere as soon as they can, doesn't that point to your employment situation being part of the problem? If it's so easy to get a job elsewhere for more favourable work and/or salary then are you just underpaying the market?