Lifehacker has been looking at how you can use Twitter to find a job. Let’s not over-hype this; you’re not going to land a job from a few Tweets and by following the tedious updates of a Z-list celeb.
But there are more and more companies looking for employees on Twitter, as well as new services which identify job opportunities on Twitter and can alert you to those you may be interested in.
Here are Lifehacker’s tips, together with my own comments:
- Get a Twitter account – bit of a no-brainer really, to really get anything out of Twitter you’ll need an account so you can follow others, and Lifehacker suggest using your real name if possible, and a good picture of yourself is also a good idea to add some personality and not look like a spam account. Whilst the key to getting the most out of Twitter is two-way conversation, it doesn’t hurt to follow others and just read Tweets for a while as you get used to what is going on and how things are done.
- Link your Twitter account to a website – if you’re job hunting, then as well as Twitter, you should build a profile on LinkedIn, which is a bit like a business version of Facebook. Link your job-hunting Twitter profile to your LinkedIn profile to give visitors an idea of your experience and job history. Probably best not to link to your Facebook account.
- Follow leaders in your field, potential employers etc – use Twitter’s search functionality to find people you admire in your industry. You can then take a look at who they’re following to find other relevant people.
- Establish yourself as knowledgeable – start to Tweet about issues in your field, add your opinion and thoughts. You can also link to interesting articles and comment on them. You know those leaders in your field that you followed above? Reply to their Tweets and interact with them. That’s the beauty of social networks, the key is the word SOCIAL and it’s all about conversation, rather than just one-way announcements, and Twitter (and other social networks) can also give you the chance to talk to influential people that you might not be able to in the real world.
- Use services such as TweetMyJobs – these sort of tool are starting to become more useful, although that particular site doesn’t have many UK jobs yet. There are lots of recruitment agencies now posting their jobs to Twitter, but I’d suggest it’s not the best medium for finding jobs like that, it’s better for getting your name known.
So there you have it, a few tips to let Twitter help your job search. If you have any more tips, let us know in the comments below. Even better, if you’ve managed to land a job on Twitter, let us know how you did it.