Twitter Is The Best Job Search Tool You're Not Using -- Here's How You
Can
Sarah Alvarez got her
first job after tweeting about Nutella.
She was studying abroad in France in 2012
when she saw that Shout PR, a retail and lifestyle marketing firm, had blogged
and tweeted about a healthier alternative to the beloved hazelnut spread.
Alvarez tweeted about the article and thanked the firm for
posting it, and she later mentioned that Twitter conversation when she emailed
the company about summer internships.
Shout had her come
for an interview two days after she got back to the U.S. -- and it hired her as
an intern.
“Because of the way I
reached out, they took a look at my social media profile,” said Alvarez, now an
account executive at the communications agency Bite. “I interviewed with the
person who had written the blog post, and she was very excited that I’d been
engaging with her content.”
It’s easy to get overwhelmed
by the barrage of Twitter noise -- and to favor LinkedIn instead as a
professional social media tool. But if you don’t look closely at Twitter, you
could be missing out on some crucial job and networking opportunities.
Twitter offers a
strong network of people in various fields, and companies and hiring managers
are increasingly sharing open positions on their accounts.
“It offers less structure as a job search
tool, but more opportunities to connect with people,” said Pamela Skillings, an
interview coach and founder of Big Interview, a job coaching
program. “You can stumble on an opportunity that you might not otherwise find.”
Here are some tips to
get the most out of your Twitter job hunt:
Spruce up your profile
First, think of your
Twitter profile as your brand: Include an identifiable photo, so recruiters
recognize who you are.
And don’t
underestimate that bio under your picture. “Your bio is your elevator pitch,”
said Alyson Weiss, a social media coach. “It’s your first chance to make an
impression before people decide to click on you.”
In addition,
Skillings recommends including your Twitter handle on your resume. “You’re
giving people the ability to find you, and it shows a level of transparency."
Start following and strike up a conversation
The next step is to
follow companies, recruiters, publications, job forums and industry leaders.
Most brands don’t have a lot of repeat engagement from individual users, which
means you can stand out from the crowd if you retweet, favorite and reply to
tweets in meaningful ways, experts say.
“Just join the
conversation,” said Ashley Stahl, a career coach to millennials. “Find out who
your potential boss would be, retweet them and reply to their tweets.”
Too often, however,
people don’t think of Twitter as a networking opportunity.
“Twitter wasn’t
branded as a professional network like LinkedIn, but that doesn’t mean it has
to be only personal,” said Weiss. “We don’t compartmentalize our real lives as
professional versus personal.”
Once you build up a
personal conversation with a recruiter or manager, it’s easier to direct
message them to ask about connecting outside of Twitter or in person.
Sometimes, managers
don’t even have an official job posting. Christa Freeland, now the marketing
manager at the venture capital firm Powershift, found a job in 2011 at Journyx,
a software company, when she started following an employee there who would later
be her boss. When she saw he'd tweeted about an open social media marketing
role, Freeland immediately applied for the position.
“My boss was very
smart about it,” Freeland said of his search for the perfect candidate, adding
that the company didn’t actively promote the position anywhere else but on its
social media accounts. “It was about finding a marketing person through social
media.”
Make lists to narrow in on interesting
companies
One way to sort
through Twitter is to create a list for target companies, Weiss suggests.
“It’s overwhelming
with so much content, since you turn around for a second and you have 200
missed tweets,” she said. “With a list, you can see job opportunities from
specific companies.”
You can set your list
to public or private, and add as many users to it as you like. Clicking on a
list gives you a timeline of tweets from just those individuals and companies.
Use search tools
You can use Twitter’s
built-in search bar for job openings: Type in a location, “hiring” and
seniority level (like “entry level” or “director”), and you’ll likely see
tweets about open positions in your desired area.
There are also job search engines
specifically for Twitter, like Tweetmyjobs.com, which allows users
to add in filters by location, industry and keyword.
Hiring managers are
more frequently combing Twitter for applicants, particularly in fields where
social media acumen might be considered a qualification for a job, like in HR
and communications. Other industries -- like nonprofits and academia -- are
starting to boost their Twitter presence too, Skillings said.
Charlie Loyd, who creates cloudless satellite
imagery at Mapbox, found his job after tweeting at five mapping companies and including a
link to his portfolio. Mapbox responded in three minutes.
"I was
frustrated, and I wanted to get this in front of someone," Loyd said.
"And there was no formal submission process for, 'Hey, I'm doing work that
you haven't done before.'"
Do your research
It’s important to stay up-to-date on recent business
developments. If a company you follow recently received a large grant, for
example, that might hint at a more aggressive round of hiring.
If you have an important interview
coming up, experts agree it’s important to look up your interviewer and
potential managers ahead of time. Their recent tweets could be clues about what
topics they’re interested in and what the company culture is like.
“It’s a good small-talk opener,” Weiss
said. “You can ask, ‘Did you see the news about subject X?’ You’re opening the
interview in a knowledgeable way and putting yourself on equal standing with
the hiring manager.”
Jenny Che
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/16/twitter-job-search_n_7571260.html?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003&ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in
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