Dallas area is where I want to be!
A damn good question. I’m glad I saw this question because I’ve had trouble with this myself.
Unless you have friends or relatives in the area whose address you can borrow to put on job applications, you’re really going to have a hard time at this. The thing I’ve found about employers is that they’re biased towards applicants that list an out-of-state address or even a local post office box.
I lived for two years in Florida in the mid-90s and couldn’t buy a job interview–I honestly believe one of the main reasons I had so much trouble is because of my physical address. I was in college at the time and had a campus P.O. Box.
I was young and naive at the time and now, looking back, I wish I had given the physical address of my dormitory (even though it was not an approved mailing address), or even asked a classmate if I could use their home address.
Really your only bet (if you’ve got your heart set on relocating to the Big D) would be to save up some cash, quit your current job, and move there. You’ll struggle for a little while (you may even have to take some menial job to tide you over) as you conduct your search for full-time work.
One thing that’s in your favor is that housing is pretty cheap in Dallas, so you won’t have to worry about breaking the bank while you’re unemployed and looking for work. It’d be a lot worse if you were moving to somewhere expensive like San Francisco or New York.
One other hint: employers probably won’t mind much if you have an out-of-state area code on your phone, with cell phones nowadays being so widely available and people keeping their numbers with them as they move around the country.
But, you need a local mailing address.