Using Twitter as part of your Job Search

We all have heard (probably too much in fact) that social media plays an important part in any job search. I talk about LinkedIn a lot, and if you haven’t heard of Facebook by now you must be living under a rock. Up until now I have not mentioned much if anything at all about Twitter This also is an important medium to utilize, and if used right can be a valuable asset to your job search.

There are a number of different ways to use Twitter in your job search, including networking, being informed of job postings (not posted online or elsewhere), and connecting with people who share like interests, passions or industries worked in.

- Networking: Find people who share similar interests as you to network with. Whether that be with people in shared groups, similar professions, or with common interests, Twitter provides an excellent opportunity to network and get the beat on jobs of interest.
- Connecting: Similar to LinkedIn, you can locate and contact someone at a given company. This is particularly important for building relationships with employees at companies where you are interested in working. Also, sometimes people include their email address in their profile so you can contact them that way
- Job Postings: As a result of the connections you make, you may have the opportunity to be apprised of jobs that you would otherwise not be privy to. Over half of the jobs that exist in the marketplace today are not posted on traditional job sites such as CareerBuilder, Monster or HotJobs. The only way you can find them is through internal sources.

Another great Twitter tool is Twellow, a means to be able to search Twitter profiles. There are 8 main categories to search, with subcategories in each. The categories include Recreation & Sports, Entertainment, Society & Culture, News & Media, Health, Computers & Technology, Government and Education. There are around 20 or more subcategories under each listing. You can search for a company that you want to work for, or can search people’s bios and URLs associated with their bios. You may want to even find a group from an industry you are interested in breaking into, and ask people in that industry what they like about the industry, or how they broke in. Be creative, and the possibilities are endless.