Monday, February 28, 2011

Using Twitter to Aide Your Job Search

There are still a good deal of people out there who are apprehensive about joining the Twitter community. Admittedly, I am one of those people. Last week we had a guest over for dinner. Our guest, Tim, is a 2009 college graduate who was in town last week for the SHARE convention in Anaheim. Tim enlightened the rest of the house about his twitter activity and the key role Twitter and Linkedin play in his professional social networking world. Tim's coworkers followed him on Twitter as he moved from session to session at the conference and preppped himself for the session he presented on Wednesday. Not only that, but Tim was also constantly networking with other SHARE attendees by doing such simple things as tagging his tweets with #SA11 the SHARE conference hash tag.

So, why does this matter and what does it have to do with you using a social media such as Twitter for your job search? It matters because Tim is currently a contracted employee and his tweeting habit means that he is consistently having 'conversations' with numerous professionals in his field. He may be young and some may consider him a rookie, but this rookie is tweeting with contacts from IBM, following job posts from local pharmaceuticals, and staying on the cutting edge of his field by following tweets about the most recent technologies.

So what can you do and how can you start utilizing Twitter to have 'conversations' of your own?

  • Follow hash tags such as #tweetmyjobs
  • Utilize websites like http://www.twitjobsearch.com
  • Follow the tweets of specific companies in your field
  • Follow Twitter groups associated with your field
  • Make sure your twitter bio is professional. Use your bio to sell your strengths, talk about your qualifications, and celebrate your achievements.
  • When you attend conferences and networking events related to your field make sure you tweet your thoughts about the sessions you attend or hot topics being discussed and be sure to utilize the hash tags associated with those events in your tweets.

With just a few simple changes in play you can significantly step up your "job search" game. It is widely known that although the right skills and ability will get you far in life, sometimes it also just boils down to who you know. Between his followers, the people he is following, and the lists he follows Tim, the 2009 graduate, is potentially getting to know about 750 people a day by having 'conversations' on Twitter. Today alone, Tim has all ready tweeted 7 times and connected with a good deal of these people in some way. How many professionals in your industry have you talked with today?

No comments:

Post a Comment