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IMO it absolutely would be simplier if you went to grad school in the city in which you want to live. There are two main reasons I say this. First, most jobs are generated by small and mid sized companies and these companies will tend to hire locally. A small to mid-sized firm in Chicago can hire locally for less experienced employess and recruit at Uof Chicage, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Depaul, etc … there is NO need for them to look wide for junior employees. I sort of understood that one when I was 22-25 … however the second one I did not … even big companies (think Fortune 100) are going to hire the vast majority of their younger hires from local colleges while having a few targeted positions where they will look nationwdie for junior positions. Entry level finance, supply chain, operations, manufacuting, customer service, etc are likely to be hired locally. Some jobs … strategy, M%A type finance, brand marketting, internal consulting, etc … might actually rank a nationwide search … I’d guess 80-90% of junior levels jobs at Fortune 100 companies are also hired locally.</p>
<p>Real-life example (before internet recruiting took off). The first time I had had hiring authority I was hiring junior supply chain planners (2-10 years experience). I met with the HR folks and asked the strategy … they only publicized the jobs locally and immediately rejected any incomplete applications (for example, it they asked for references and they were not included they rejected the applicant). This seemed limited and harsh to me but they explained an ad in the Boston Globe for one of my job typically received over 200+ viable applicants … there was no need to look wide. Even our ads in the Globe pulled in folks from other cities … we’d only talk to them if they would pay for all travel. With internet recruiting I would think this is even more extreme now.</p>