Tuesday, February 2

Tweeting Your Way to Be Among the Gainfully Employed?

I'm a tweeter. I tweet about my day, my frustrations, things that I'm excited about (as in, the LOST season premiere), my disappointments, articles I find interesting, funny things that happened, and sometimes I even tweet about my job search. But using Twitter as a way to GET a job? Wait..what?

The more I've been perusing the web for tips to strengthen my job search and how to be more efficient in it, I've come across quite a few people claiming that Twitter is a revolutionary way to enhance your job search in 2010.

What is that you say? I could tweet my way to a job? Well, being the curious little creature that I am, decided that I must research this further and have my hand at using Twitter as a part of my new aggressive approach to making my way into the world of the employed again.

Instantly I found this website: TwitJobSearch. Essentially it is search engine for jobs, similar to indeed.com, except that it targets job postings on Twitter. I typed in a few key words "marketing, entry level, Philadelphia" and a decent amount of jobs popped up. Some I had seen on other job boards and some were brand new. I decided to add this to my extensive list of job search boards to scour every day.

But how else could Twitter be used?

Lists: I love making lists in general. Lists on Twitter are fabulous because you can have complete organization. For example, I'm adding lists on my Twitter for networking, companies I'd want to work for, and industry experts. It will save you time instead of sifting through all your tweets to see tweets relevant to your job search.

Networking: After you have become an organized Twitter genius, reach out to some of these people you have listed. Ask for advice from those industry professionals or friends in your field. Make meaningful comments on their tweets. Interact with them! Show them you are serious. I had a good experience with this. I followed InternQueen and asked her for some advice for college grads and internships. She tweeted me back pretty promptly and gave me advice. Some of them are going to ignore you but some of them might respond back to someone who shows genuine interest and shares their career aspirations.

Hash Tags: I remember this summer seeing these strange hash tag symbols on Twitter. Once I learned how they were used I immediately saw their effectiveness. You can use them in the job search too. Make your you are tagging your posts with relevant key words. You can also search hash tags to see tweet subjects that interest you.

I'm still new to using Twitter as an addition to my job search so I will be giving you the dirt once I learn more ways to use it for this purpose!

What are your thoughts? Do you tweet? Would you ever consider it a good way to enhance your job search? Have you used it for this purpose before or know anyone that has?

1 comment:

  1. One really does have to think outside of the normal job hunting box these days! Great post!

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