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I've encountered a number of non-local job postings that contain lines of the form:
Candidates must be local to <LOCATION>. No relocation fees will be provided.
Assuming that the second sentence is the justification for the first, how strictly should I take this? That is, if I am able & willing to pay my own relocation expenses, would it still be inappropriate for me to apply? Should I mention my willingness to pay my own expenses in my cover letter?
The general rule I follow for applying for jobs is that if I want it, I apply without worrying about minor things that might not work out. I would recommend you follow that here as well.
Specifically, it seems really unlikely that they'll care that you're remote if you are willing to pay the relocation expenses. The only sticking point I can think of is they may want in-person interviews and may be unwilling to pay for you to travel to interview there.
Edit: another sticking point could be if they wanted you to start immediately, although that could easily happen with a local candidate.
It means no visa sponsorship and no relocation fees. If you're willing to relocate on your own dime, they don't have a problem with it. You can even mention to them that you'd be willing to have written into your contract, as a condition of employment, to relocate on your own within X miles of their location.
But no, it's never inappropriate to apply for a job that says "local" if you are willing and able to move on your own dime. The worst they will say is "no"
They're not trying to enforce that all candidates come from LOCATION. The company wants you to work from LOCATION, and they don't want to pay to get you there. If you can fulfill both of those criteria, and it sounds like you can, then it is entirely appropriate for you to apply.
I would definitely include something in the cover letter about why you want a job in their Location as well as stating that you understand that no relocation help will be provided. This both tells the company that you have not just made a mistake and shows them you are motivated to make the move, not just applying to any job anywhere you can without having thought through the relocation aspect.
If you have dates when you will be in the area, or the move is already planned, I would include comments on availability for local interview, and generally try to be as clear as possible. They may decide to reject you still because of this, but you will have done what you can to be as up-front as possible.
Should I mention my willingness to pay my own expenses in my cover letter?
No. Don't bring this up. They don't care, and those who will do the initial selection of resumes aren't interested in that at all.
In many cases, they won't care where you are actually living (unless you have specific jobs where you are required to be in the office within X minutes during "on call" time, but that should be clear from the job description). It's just that they won't do relocation. But whether you solve that problem by paying for relocation yourself, or having a 3 hour commute should not matter.
It does mean though that you shouldn't bring up relocation fees during the hiring process. Bringing that up will just make them say "which part of 'no relocation fees' did you fail to understand" (although probably phrased a bit more friendly).
Just apply. The worst that will happen is that they won't hire you. Which they certainly won't do if you don't apply.
I've been planning to move to Tau Ceti V for years, because I like the local fauna. So your Cybernetic Midwife position is a perfect match for me! However, I'm 13 trillion miles away. I have the necessary experience, and I also have a pacemaker if that matters. When can I start?
Just tell them you're about to/willing to relocate, and they don't need to do anything (pay/paperwork) for this. That should be enough in most cases. There could be governmental restrictions however (e.g. they're willing to give tax cuts to hire from the local unemployed), but I don't know how common (or even legal) it is in that area.
This means the company is looking to hire someone to work out of their office.
I see two potential problems hiring someone who doesn't already live locally:
When I am hiring I would ask my recruiter to discuss your relocation plans before I invited you for interview. You can shortcut this by including them in your cover letter, especially if you have already started the relocation process. If you don't then your application might be filtered out by the recruiter before the hiring manager has seen it, but even if that happens you haven't lost anything except the time taken to apply, so go ahead and apply for those roles.
As a former hiring manager for a defense contractor, I meant it. I wasn't interested in dealing with out of state candidates because we weren't going to pay for relocation expenses and since our business was labor, the company wasn't tolerant to long hiring periods where someone may need to sell a house or wait for a lease to terminate before they could start working. I would also consider a person's commute if they were semi-local... meaning if they would have a 2 hour commute or something. The customer didn't allow us to work from home so all work needed to be done in the office. Long commutes and the weather in the northeast created issues for people and I didn't want to deal with employees who wanted to work from home due to snow when I wasn't authorized to approve it. We also performed a rather in depth technical interview that required white boarding things and that needed to be done in person and again, the company would not support paying to fly someone out for an in person interview. I couldn't even get them to pay a recruiting service but only to post jobs on free sites. They wanted to invest zero dollars in recruitment which really tied my hands.
With all of that being said, there is no harm in applying for the job (I received MANY resumes that weren't local) because the worst that can happen is the manager reads it and moves on. So go ahead and apply and put together a strong cover letter as to why you are uniquely qualified and you may get a call back.
This is as much about relocation / accommodation costs as it is often about visa requirements.
If you're allowed to work in the country and are willing to pay the afforementioned costs it should be fine.
Be prepared though, it might still automatically ignored.
