Twitter has a terrible first impression. Mentioning to someone you’re using Twitter for job search usually invokes snickering. The same is true when you mention tweeting, retweet and tweetups.
Twitter offers some unique ways in to the hidden and published job market.
- Reconnaissance / Research / Targeted companies search
- Job Search Education
- Job posting
Reconnaissance / Research / Targeted companies search
1. Follow target employers. Once you find one person at your target company, look at that person’s “followers” and “following” list to uncover other people working at the same target company. You can also find their customers and vendors. One method to find companies is searching Tellow.com or search.twitter.com. Following your target employers is akin to sitting next to them in their cafeteria. You can learn lots about how to help them.
2. Once a company has reached out to you, use method 1 to continue your research of them.
3. Once you’re entering the interview stage with a company, following method 1 to find their clients and vendors. I found people on Twitter are very receptive to connecting IF you’re following them. Far more receptive than a cold email asking the same thing. Ask the client/vendor for 10min of their time on the phone to ask about the company in question. I’ve found clients provide lots of useful information to use during an interview IF you ask them the right questions.
4. Also once you’re entering the interview stage with a company, using method 1 you can reach out to their employees. This works well if you don’t have a better connection via LinkedIn or want more or specific connections.
Job Search Education
5. You don’t know how to look for a job. Seriously, you don’t. Follow job search professionals to learn how to job search. Good places to start are:
@MartinBuckland
@JobSearchNinja
@AndyInNapels
@AlisonDoyle
@LinkedIn
@TheCareer100 (this account only follows 100 of the best job search experts).
Jobs on Twitter
6. Many jobs are posted on Twitter. 10+ years ago if you were looking for a new job, you waited for the weekend newspaper. Since then we’ve been using job boards. Twitter has the potential to make job boards as obsolete as jobs boards did to the newspapers ”help wanted” section. Posting jobs on Twitter is FREE. Some companies have their own job Twitter account.
7. Twitter is likely (effectively) the largest job aggregator site. You need to learn how to mine it.
8. Use “hash tags” to search Twitter.com. Popular tags are #jobs and #job. You can find more applicable hash tags on hashtag.org then search “jobs”. Eg. You’ll discover the tag #web_job. From Twitter, you would then search #web_job. You can combine tags or add other keywords. Eg. For web jobs in Toronto: #web_job Toronto.
9. RSS. You can use Twitter or other sites to send searches to your RSS feeder. Similar in how job boards can email you job meeting your criteria. The RSS link for method 8 can be fed into any RSS reader.
10. Twitterjobsearch.com is a semantic search engine for Twitter.
11. Follow local recruiters as they too post opportunities on Twitter.
Lastly, check out my guest blog entry on takeaways (first steps) if you’re new to Twitter.
http://thehappenblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/tweaking-your-job-search-with-twitter-by-rick-stomphorst-twitter-comstompr/
Rick Stomphorst
Twitter.com/StompR
