7 Ways Twitter Can Get You A Job

By Brian Stewart

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Photo Credit: Courtesy of HTSABO

 

When it comes to using social media for your job search, LinkedIn is King… and it won’t give up that crown any time soon. But any good career coach will tell you that the best job search strategy is diversity and use multiple tactics.

 

So why not look to Twitter for your job search? When it comes to the number of job views and applications, Twitter comes ahead of Facebook, and it has a number of great features and tricks that you can use to help you get a job.

 

Here’s how.

 

Create a professional profile

Rather than using your personal account, you should create a new profile just for your professional persona. Come up with a handle that uses your name, relates to your field, or combines the two. Don’t forget to make sure your profile photo and background look sharp and professional too!

 

In your Twitter bio, briefly outline who you are as a professional and summarize your skills or areas of expertise. Make sure to include a few relevant keywords so your profile appears when recruiters and hiring managers search for those terms. Lastly, add links to your professional blog or website (if you have one) and/or your LinkedIn profile.

 

Build a professional network

First, add the professional contacts you already have in your professional network. Beyond that, be careful when choosing who to follow—stick to influencers, executives, recruiters, and official company profiles from your industry. Remember, this is your professional account so make sure your friends, family and contacts direct any personal interactions to your personal account.

 

It’s a lot harder to manage who follows you, but the best way to do so is to attract enough relevant and prominent profiles to follow you. For example…

 

Participate in industry chats

A lot of employers, industry-related websites and organizations, and influencers will host Twitter chats on topics relevant to your field. Be sure to find out when they’re happening, and be an active participant in them.

 

Maintain the same rules as you do when commenting on industry trends: be insightful and professional. While the end goal is to gain the attention of employers and recruiters, your first purpose should be to provide advice and help to people in general. The latter will be what winds up gaining you the former.

 

Tweet out your own content

The best way to demonstrate the skills and value that you could bring to a company is by creating and sharing your own industry-related content. If you have your own blog or website, whenever you create content for it make sure to tweet it out with your professional profile.

 

Another method is to stay on top of interesting news and trends in your field with insightful commentary. Engage others in your field on such topics, and if done right you can gain some significant followers! But before you do, ask yourself if you would say the same thing in a work environment to your boss. If not… maybe think of something else or move on.

 

Engage targeted companies

Once you create your own original content, tweet it at the employers you want to target in your job search, because if they’re impressed you could find yourself with a job offer! The idea is to showcase the services and skills that you would bring to them if they hired you.

 

Be very, very careful not to abuse this method by spamming out tweets to companies, so make sure you only send content that could actually help the employer. If you spam irrelevant content to employers, you could find yourself blocked and blacklisted beyond just Twitter—employers do research your social media presence, remember.

 

Search for jobs

There are two ways to look for jobs on Twitter. The first is to follow accounts—job boards or company job accounts—that tweet out job openings. The second way is to run an advanced search for keywords like “jobs” or “hiring”, and filter the results by specific accounts, geographic region, and the time/date of the tweet.

 

Regardless of the method you use, take the time to find the twitter account of the hiring manager. If the company is posting jobs on twitter, odds are the hiring manager will have a presence as well. If you do find their handle, respond directly to the hiring manager at the company about the posting.

 

Use your network

If you’re looking for a job, make sure your network knows it! Give updates from time to time about your job hunt, seek advice about good job search strategies, and seek out insider information for job openings and company culture about your contacts’ employers.

 

Don’t be pushy or spam your contacts or you risk losing valuable contacts in your network. If you’re not sure where the line is, ask yourself before reaching out to your contact how you would respond if someone sent it to you.

 

Wrapping up

Twitter has some great features for people who are on the hunt for a job and are willing to put in the time and the effort. It can be a quick and easy way to grow your network, browse job openings that are tweeted out, and establish your personal brand.

 

Just be courteous and professional, and you can create opportunities for yourself that you wouldn’t find anywhere else.

 

Happy hunting!

 

ResumeTarget.com provides professional resume writing services for clients of all career levels across North America. We are the only resume writing company that offers a professionally written resume coupled with the guidance of recruiters, to guarantee that your resume will get results. Tweet us with any resume questions you have at www.twitter.com/ResumeTarget, we’re here to help! 

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