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I have received an offer for a programming job. The problem is that my partner graduates in nine-ten months and likely need to move to find a job. In that case, I would like to move too. Should I tell the employer about this before I sign the offer?

While 9 months is a short time for a job, it is a consultant company, which likely is better than a product company in this case. I think the downside here is that I risk losing the offer by telling, and the upside is that I might avoid burning a bridge. My gut feeling says I should tell.

Related: Starting a new job for only a short time

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    "Should I tell the employer about this before I sign the offer?" - how is that going to benefit you? For all you know, they might be planning to close that branch in 6 months. If so, do you think that they would tell you? Look after # 1
    – Mawg says reinstate Monica
    Dec 17, 2019 at 6:22
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    "My gut feeling says I should tell." Your gut feeling is wrong. You don't just risk losing the job offer. You're pretty much guaranteed that you will lose it. "I might avoid burning a bridge." And if you do move, don't tell them that's what you were planning all along. There is such a thing as oversharing.
    – Stephan Branczyk
    Dec 17, 2019 at 9:05

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So if you tell, you don't get the job. Possibly no job at all anywhere. Assuming you want or need a job, telling is never a feasible option.

Also you have to consider that your partner is unlikely to find a job immediately, so you can round it up to ~10-12 months.

Is it unethical? Well, in general it's not because you never know how long you'll really stay. For one, you may have made one false prediction as mentioned above. Maybe your partner finds a job close to you and you don't need to move. Maybe you break up. You can't see into the future, and therefore it's not inherently unethical.
Either way, never tell anyone you intend to leave until you make it official and are on your way out.

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The only sorts of job you're going to be able to find if you're open about probably needing to relocate in last than a year are:

  1. Short to medium term contracting - if it's a 6 month contract they generally won't care what your longer term plans are.

  2. Remote work, especially for larger companies - if you're not in the office to begin with, your moving is less likely to cause problems for them. The reason I say especially for larger companies is that if you move to a state where the company doesn't have a presence keeping you as an employee will result in extra administrative overhead due to needing to establish a legal presence in the state and comply with another states set of labor and tax laws.

Due to the costs of onboarding a new employee you're not going to find anything better than temp/seasonal work if employers know you'll be leaving in less than a year.

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  • No, even for short to medium contracting 6 months, I found that employers do care. The fact is. Employers like to keep their options open. Even if they don't commit to you, they like to have contractors that can commit to them indefinitely. It gives them room to change their mind should they want to. The lesson here is to never tell them the truth. If you do, you'll never get the job.
    – Stephan Branczyk
    Dec 17, 2019 at 9:02

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