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“If you want a partner…Take my hand…Here I stand…I’m your man.”…Leonard Cohen I’m not in the job market now. I’m happily employed in mycurrent position.

But what if I were?

First, I would craft a kick-ass resume and post it onmy personal website.

Then, I wouldTwitterthat I was looking for a new position. My tweet would get pushed toFacebook,FriendFeed& many other places so a large number of people in my network would know that I am seeking employment.

Meanwhile, I would follow the same strategy outlined inthis articlethat I wrote after successfully concluding my last job search.

I suspect I would again get a tremendous response to my job candidacy from all over the country. I’d answer each employer inquiry with humility, respect, and interest.

And, because most of the people who would be answering my inquiry won’t be in the Portland Metropolitan Area, I will be asked the inevitable question about relocation.

And I’ll borrow Matt McGee’s answer to that question…for he answered it far more eloquently than I could…

Also, and this is really important, if your job requires me to move the family, I’m not your guy.

I know about 80-90% of the conversations will cease at that point. This would be unfortunate…much more for the prospective employer than for me (because a job search is a numbers game and I know that I would find exactly what I’m looking for if I just talk to enough people).

There is a tremendous undersupply of top SEM talent and the search marketers are holding the top cards.

Prospective employers need to know that most of us who own homes will not voluntarily enter a horrible housing market to try to sell a house in order to take your job.

Also, most search marketing veterans also know that even the best and brightest in our business can end up separating from employers on short notice (voluntarily or not) and we absolutely don’t want to be stuck away from our “home base” when that happens.

Most folks who have successfully worked at home won’t want to give it up under just about any circumstances…the benefits are too great.

Yet, prospective employer, we still might consider working with you. If you have the foresight to consider telecommuters, you can still land a search marketing rockstar and you won’t be limited to the inadequate local talent pool.

Top search marketers are extraordinarily hardworking, disciplined people. They aren’t the people who will end up abusing the trust inherent in a telecommuting arrangement. On the contrary, almost all of us have done profitable “independent” projects away from their “day job” and we’re quite used to working successfully on our own with little or no supervision.

It’s great that a large number of companies now not only understand the need for search marketing but feel it important enough to take the function in-house. After all, there are a slew of unfilledSEO Jobsin the marketplace. However, most of these companies looking for SEO talent are trying to shoehorn these digital gunslingers into antiquated 20th century work arrangements. There is little incentive for top search marketers to accept such a deal unless they actually prefer an office environment. If prospective employers could understand that many SEO’s feel stifled by the physical and mental confinement of cubicles, they would know that they would be getting better employee performance and a higher degree of loyalty by letting the search marketer dictate the working conditions.

For employers looking to hire search marketers: A top search marketing employee can add a huge amount of revenue to your bottom line…isn’t that worth some leeway when setting the terms of engagement?