Jonathan Duarte – Social Media meets Job Search

LinkedIn recently started rolling out changes to the geographic location of thousands of Orange County, CA residents. Previously, if you were a resident of Orange County, your LinkedIn geographic region was set to “Greater Los Angeles”.

I’m sure it’s no news to sports fans, but most residents of Orange County would never consider themselves from Los Angeles – funny thing that we have a baseball team called “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim” though!

None the less, lots of Orange County residents had complained about the distinction. The biggest problem was that when searching for contacts in LinkedIn, it showed members who could live 20 miles away. Normally, that might not be a bad thing, but networking already takes a lot of time, then add in LA Traffic, that was a 1.5 hour commute. So, for networking, which is what LinkedIn is all about, this stunk!

Well, lots of people complained, but Sven Johnston did something about it!

Sven started a LinkedIn group called We Are Orange County. Over 4 months, Sven has grown the group to over 3,500 people, and recently convinced LinkedIn to make a change.

Orange County residents will now be classified as Orange County, instead of “Greater Los Angeles”. Thanks Sven.

I had a chance to meet up with Sven. Here is a video we shot at Pete’s Coffee at the The District at Tustin Legacy.

Sven learned a lot from growing the group and networking within Orange County. He’s one heck of a Business Development guy.

Technorati Tags: LinkedIn, Sven Johnston, We Are Orange County

Referrals continue to be the #1 Source of Hires among employers.

The problem is most job seekers fail to implement a Referral Job Search strategy. Knowing how and why to create a Referral Job Search is the topic of my soon to be released book and training series.

Many job seekers go on and start “Networking”, but “Networking” in its traditional sense, is not a short-term solution to finding a job.  It’s great for building contacts and relationships over time, but it’s not effective at finding a job immediately.

There is a better way though…

I was recently interviewed by Jason Davis, owner of RecruitingBlogs.com, about GoJobs.com and my upcoming book on implementing a Referral Job Search.

The premise of a referral job search is finding a company that you want to work for.
Then, finding a contact at that company who will refer you for the position.
This doesn’t have to happen through traditional networking.

Using Social networking is much more effective at this and takes a lot less time.
It also has a lot of other advantages.

The results of a Referral Job Search are extraordinary…

In most all cases..

• Referral Resumes are Read First!
• Referrals are almost Always Interviewed!
• Referrals are the number 1 Source of Hire for most employers
• The CareerXRoads 2008 Source of Hire Study revealed that 25% or more of referrals were hired by 32% of employers in 2008.

Result— If you are looking for a job, apply through a referral, not through the corporate career center, or a job board.

Referrals Always get preference!

Would you like more information about how to start a Referral Job Search?

Technorati Tags: Referral Job Search, Social Media Job Search