Saturday, March 24, 2012

20 Twitter Hashtags all Job Seekers Should be Using

Twitter offers a number of tools that are extremely useful in your job search. Among these are networking, the advantage of becoming informed quickly of new job postings by recruiters or companies, and the ability to connect with others who share similar interests or who work in the same industry. If you are a job seeker currently, then you have most certainly been inundated with advice about using social media as a big part of your job search. Twitter is no exception.

There are 3 main reasons most job seekers use Twitter. These include:

- Networking: Any successful job search strategy should include 80% or more of your time devoted to networking (link here). Network with other professionals who share similar interests as you, whether that be with professionals in shared groups, similar professions, or with common interests, Twitter provides an excellent opportunity to network and get the beat on new jobs.

- Connecting with like professionals: Similar to LinkedIn, Twitter provides you the opportunity to locate and contact employees at specific companies. This is particularly important for building relationships with employees at companies where you are interested in working. Once in a while people include their email address in their profile, so you can easily 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.

There is one additional method you should be using on Twitter, and that is with hashtags. If you are not familiar with hashtags, they are the words you see in a tweet that are preceded by a number sign (#). The beauty of hashtags are that they allow others to view the aggregate of comments based on a specific hashtag. For instance, when a particular subject or issue becomes popular, the associated hashtag(s) usually trend; in other words many people are tweeting about the subject. You as a job seeker can effectively use hashtags to connect with others, network, or search for job postings. It is quite simple, and can be done by clicking the “# Discover” option at the top of your Twitter page, and entering the specific word preceded by a (#) sign.

I have assembled a list of 20 of the most common hashtags that job seekers should be aware of below:


#career
#careersearch
#compensation
#employment
#hireme
#hiring
#HR
#interviewing
#jobhunt
#joblisting
#jobposting
#jobsearch
#jobseeker
#jobtips
#needajob
#nowhiring
#recruiting
#resume
#training
#tweetmyjobs


Keep in mind, you can conduct Twitter searches as described above to locate jobs and opportunities, or you can draw attention to your own search by including any of these hashtags on your tweets. Many people have had great success tweeting messages with associated hashtags, allowing them to be visible to recruiters and hiring managers alike. I have even seen some creativity where job seekers have tweeted a hashtag like #resume or #CV, and included a shortened URL that directs the reader to an online link of their resumes. The possibilities are endless, and you may just find yourself in a new position as a result of your efforts with hashtags.

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