Anyone burning in Chapel Hill, NC?

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drewmo

Feeling the Heat
Nov 20, 2006
360
Topsham, ME
Looks like we'll be moving the family to Chapel Hill in about a year's time, to a wonderful old stone house on 8.5 acres (half pasture/half lot). My wife's aunt is letting us use her house for as long as we need it. We hear the schools are incredible for the kiddos. With housing out of the way, all we need are jobs! We're somewhat worried with the economy and all, but at the same time, we've always landed on our feet (we've lived the last 5 years in France, and even with my poor French, I've always found employment). Anyhow, just looking to network a bit considering we have some time, and I figure I'm sure to get an honest opinion from the good folks here at hearth.com. Please PM me if you're from the area, we'd be grateful to know what you know.
 
Which Chapel Hill? There's probably at least one in every state. I know of 2 here in Tennessee right off the top of my head. Good luck on your move. I wish I had the cojones to pick up and move to another country :) Too much crap tying me down.
 
In addition to the question of which Chapel Hill, I would also suggest giving us some ideas about you and your S.O.'s skill sets and what kinds of jobs you are looking for...

Gooserider
 
My apologies, that would be NC. In terms of skills, I've held a variety of jobs, but never one for any great length of time. In relative order, jobs have included: print reporter, public relations, failed dotcom owner, small biz manager, ambulance dispatcher, chauffeur, general handy man/painter and, currently, hotel operator. If that's not a confusing resume, I don't know what is. My wife has a more straightforward career path - music. She's a trained classical singer, i.e. opera, but not limited to such. She's done quite well giving private voice lessons as well as conducting choirs. Between the kids and maintaining the property in Chapel Hill (it's been neglected for 20 years), we're hoping to have some flexibility with employment, hopefully something not 9-5. Again, just looking for some honest opinions about the area and what we could expect on our arrival. I'm sure there are some networking sites out there, but I've come to particularly appreciate the candid responses from the good folks here.

m0jumb0, if you find moving won't work for you at this point, hopefully you have the time/finances to do a bit of travelling Stateside and abroad. We're taking advantage of being here in France knowing full well once we make the move the kids and work will likely keep us grounded for a several years.
 
Asked the GF who is doing the job search thing herself (Senior Software Engineer in the Lowell / 495 / 128 / Southern NH area) and has developed a pretty good set of resources - this is what she suggested...

Go to
http://raleigh.craigslist.org/
and search under
jobs
and
gigs
for example,
http://raleigh.craigslist.org/fbh/
or
http://raleigh.craigslist.org/edu/1505542281.html
or
http://raleigh.craigslist.org/med/1515165298.html

Try the Chapel Hill Chamber of Commerce
http://www.carolinachamber.org/

or try Economic Development
in the town government
http://www.townofchapelhill.org/index.aspx?page=63

Talk on the phone to a reference librarian
at the public library
http://chapelhillpubliclibrary.org/
about how to search for jobs locally
or if that is too expensive, email to
[email protected]

I hope this helps,

My own take is that the US as a whole is just (maybe) starting to come out of a serious recession, despite the Gov'ts best efforts to make things worse, and we have a very high unemployment rate. However it sounds like given your non-standard background and desire for flexibility, you might be OK in looking for "under the radar" jobs - possibly off-book, under-the-table stuff, or very part time that doesn't appeal to the huge numbers seeking "real" 40+hour / week jobs... That area is very deep into the "bible belt" part of the country, with a lot of churches and such - your wife might be well advised to practice up on her Christian church hymnals, and look for church choir director type positions (at least if you can stand such - I don't know what your spiritual path is...)

Gooserider
 
The triad area is the one area in NC that is still growing.Charlotte is very much on the decline.Nc has been run by a very liberal gov't for a long time and is one of the highest if not the highest taxed state in the south.If it weren't for my job I'd move from here tomorrow.
 
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