This thread reminds me of a conversation I had years ago with one of the top guys at a very prominent executive search firm, who used to have to recruit people from all over the country for very senior positions with Fortune 500 companies. The conversation has always stuck with me.
He was trying to recruit for a key position on my team, and we were deciding if the person would be based on the east or west coast. He told me most people could be convinced to move to either coast for the right career opportunity. But, he told me that if we happened to find the perfect candidate in Minneapolis, he/she would probably be difficult to convince to leave their city. I thought he was joking at first, but he said that throughout his 20+ year career, when he found a perfect candidate for a position, if he/she was from Minneapolis and still living there, it didn’t matter how much compensation or career advancement or whatever other enticements were involved, people from Minneapolis were the most difficult ones to lure to another location. Probably wouldn’t apply to the whole state of Minnesota, but it was pretty interesting, especially because he was so emphatic and mentioned that it happened several times.
Both of us marveled at the idea, neither ever having lived in Minneapolis, but since that day, I’ve always been thinking I’d like to check it out a little more, tough winters and all.
