Get a job through Twitter

A true story. Kevin Smith spent months combing job boards, sending applications, doing interviews, and getting nowhere. He started to use Twitter – initially to express his frustration – but then to talk and exchange ideas with people who shared his interest in the programming language Ruby. He sent his CV to the company where one of his Ruby friends worked, and got a job. In the words of the CEO of the company: “We were able to get a good idea of his skills and interests just by conversing over Twitter for several months. While it doesn’t remove the need for interviews, it makes the interview process more like hiring a friend than hiring a stranger.”

Twitter is a free service, allowing you to exchange ideas and information in “tweets” or “updates” of 140 characters or less. You choose to follow people – your own contacts or people in your industry – and you receive their tweets. Others can choose to follow you, and they receive your updates. It’s an immediate service (a bit like texting) so you can keep up with news, opinions and what’s happening in your industry.

Twitter is expanding rapidly. There are an estimated six million people already using it, and given that recruiters and companies also use Twitter to find candidates, it’s a great job search tool.

How to use Twitter

When you sign up for a Twitter account, you make your own profile of 160 characters. Put keywords in your profile (these are searchable, so make sure they describe you / your area of work and what you are looking for). You can also upload your photo and put a URL in your profile, which can be your own site, your blog, or your LinkedIn profile.

By searching for interesting keywords in Twitter (you can use the twitter search function or a directory) you can find people who are tweeting using these terms and then follow them. Try finding recruiters and companies in your industry to hear about new vacancies. Twitter also has a function to send updates to your mobile phone, making it even more useful if you’re on the move.

To build your network, make interesting or intelligent replies to the tweets of people you are following to encourage them to follow you back.

Use Twitter like a mini-blog, to enhance your professional profile and set yourself up as an expert in your industry. Pass on interesting information to your followers, and let people know about your skills and talents. Imagine you’re having a conversation after work with a colleague – this is the sort of information to tweet about. Don’t forget to put your twitter link on your linkedin profile, online CV, blog, or website.

How to get started

Go to Twitter.com and read the help pages for useful articles on getting started.

Some tips for using Twitter

Don’t tweet about the mundane and don’t tweet anything that might come back to haunt you later. This means not bad mouthing companies or people, and not tweeting sensitive information. Remember that Google can pick up tweets, so what you write can get out into a much wider audience.

Be helpful. Pass on useful information, and refer potential candidates to recruiters to make them aware of you.

Cut down on tweet overload by only following people who share your interests, or whose tweets are useful. You can choose to follow or unfollow people at any time.

Remember that tweets are only 140 characters long, so it’s easy to be misunderstood if you’re trying to be ironic. Write carefully and read for tone before you send your update.

Finding a job on twitter

There are two ways you can use Twitter to find a job.

Firstly, you can use the Twitter search function and type in pertinent keywords. Secondly, Workhound (the UK’s largest search engine) has just launched the Twitter job search engine listing all the jobs that have been posted on to Twitter by recruiters and companies.