Over 10 years ago I had a similar offer - I was one state away (~500 miles) and the company did not want to pay for travel. They were interested, and I was inte

Over 10 years ago I had a similar offer - I was one state away (~500 miles) and the company did not want to pay for travel. They were interested, and I was interested, and I had other travel taking me to the region, so about a month later I showed up and we did the interview. Several months later I was given an offer and accepted - but I had exactly your reaction, "if you (employer) can't pony up $120 for a plane ticket....". in the end it worked for me, but I still take that as a major red flag, if the employer will not pay for travel to interview, then they have not properly vetted and phone screened you to determine they want to take any time to seriously consider you. When I conduct interviews as an employer today - I do assessment on location because fit ends up being very important. Where a person is coming from, what social networks they have, interest in the climate and region play huge in long term retention and it is often much easier to take the time to hire locally if possible to increase quality of fit in the organization. in many cases this is not possible - and you have to import as you don't have excess talent (at your price point) in the region.