Are you using Twitter for your job
search? If you have yet to see results, don't give up! Using the
social-networking tool, you can find real jobs and connect with real people who
are hiring.
One of Twitter's most useful aspects
is the access it provides you. Recruiters, HR representatives, hiring managers,
and executives all use Twitter on a daily basis. Unlike an online job posting
where you can only apply via the information provided, Twitter allows you to
interact with these people directly by sending them an @ reply or a direct
message. Your resume is much more likely to be seen and seriously considered if
you’ve interacted with a company representative rather than applying to a job
post along with hundreds of other job seekers.
Tips to get noticed and hired on
Twitter:
• Create a user-friendly profile. Use your real name and keep your
Twitter ID professional. Use the biography to tell the world what you do. Your
goal is to be found and followed by like-minded people. Make it easy for others
to follow your updates or follow you back.
• Use the website field to link to
your online resume.
Consider using a service like VisualCV that allows you to post and share your
resume online. If you don't have a digital version of your resume, use your
LinkedIn profile as your website.
• Keep your updates public. There's an option to have public or
private updates on Twitter. If the purpose of your Twitter account is to meet
people and potentially find your next job, keeping your updates private defeats
the purpose. You need an open profile so other users can search for your tweets
and easily find you. Recruiters use keywords and hashtag searches (which group
tweets by topic) through the Twitter search function to find potential
candidates for open positions.
• Find jobs using hastags. Use the integrated Twitter search
feature or a third-party applications like TweetDeck to search for keywords or
hastags. Hashtags are words with a # prefix. For example, the hashtag #job will
yield you the results of every tweet that a user categorized with #job hashtag,
but not a tweet that simply says "I'm on my way to my new job."
People use hashtags on Twitter to
categorize the subject of the tweet and make it searchable. Research the
hashtags people use to categorize job openings or job-search advice, like #jobs
or #jobsearch, as well as hashtags for your specific industry, and set up an
automatic search for all tweets with those hashtags. You can also use hashtags
to join a conversation about certain subjects and interact with other people
using that hashtag.
• Follow people who work in your
industry or companies that interest you. Interacting and building relationships with people who
are already working at those companies may help you uncover job openings that
aren’t posted on popular job boards.
• Use Twitter lists to find new
people to follow.
This will help you discover relevant information about your search, as well as
more contacts. You can make your own lists to filter information only from
people on that list or follow other people's lists to see people and content
you wouldn’t see in your own stream.
• Be consistent. Posting regular updates takes time,
but not so much that you can't easily post an update or two a day. Also find
time to interact with the people you follow and scan your automatic searches.
• Promote others before promoting
yourself.
Blatant self-promotion and a Twitter stream full of self-concerned updates is a
big turnoff. You want to share information about yourself and use it to help
you, but you also need to help others to gain and maintain an active following.
Share interesting information and links. Promote others through re-tweets, or
tweeting what they’ve tweeted, to recognize their efforts, add value to your
community and join conversations.
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