Today’s job seekers face employers who are looking at more than their
resume, and looking at more than just job applications to find
candidates. This is good news for those who understand how to take
advantage
of newly popular social media tools like Twitter.

Yes, Twitter can help you find a job … it’s not just for telling the
world what you ate for lunch.
Yes Twitter is for adults … A recent study published by Pingdom.com
established that 64% of Twitter users are 35+ and the average Twitter
user is 39 years old.
Since Google, Yahoo, and Bing now index Twitter posts, using Twitter
for your job search has become even more valuable in the last six
months. Twitter can now help you get found, help recruiters find you,
help you brand your subject matter expertise, help you increase your
page ranking, and help you promote and find content.
If an Employer, HR staff, or recruiter Googles a job
seeker by name, your Twitter profile will likely turn up in the
results. Job seekers should assume that they will be searched online by
recruiters, before an interview is scheduled, when making short list
decisions, and before a final offer is extended.
In addition, recruiters and HR departments are not just searching to
find dirt, but are using Twitter and Google more frequently to find new
candidates. Employers, HR reps, and recruiters have increased their
usage of Twitter in the past year to post jobs, find candidates, and
search backgrounds. During 2009 & 2010 new tools and capabilities
have emerged to make it easier and more powerful for employers to use
Twitter in the search process.
For the job seeker, the greater number of Twitter followers you have,
the more relevant your account is to Google, and higher your Twitter
account will rank on Google results. You can also increase your Google
rankings by posting comments, links, by having your posts reTweeted, and
by being included on Twitter lists. Basically, the more you use
Twitter, the greater impact your profile have on Google rankings.
Twitter usage can also increase rankings of your blog, online portfolio,
Linkedin profile, Facebook profile, and other online presence.
Here’s some steps of developing a well planned Twitter strategy to
brand yourself as a candidate:
Inventory and Plan
1. Inventory & Search: If you
have a Twitter account, review your past tweets. Then search Twitter for
mentions of you by name or username. Anything embarrassing out there?
Any mentions about how you hate your job, your boss, anything you
wouldn’t want your Mom or boss to see? Create a spreadsheet listing any
questionable items, including date.
2. Same or new account: Depending
on what you’ve found in your Twitter inventory, you might want to start
fresh with a new username. If there is a lot of content that isn’t boss
or work friendly, unless it’s really old with LOTS of safe newer content
in front of it, start with a new account. If you have many followers
(many meaning thousands) a new user account should be balanced versus
the effort to rebuild a follower base. If your existing account is used
specifically for a hobby, side job or other use where you need to
maintain existing branding you’ve built, then create a new account.
3. Passive or Active? Remember that
Twitter is public, and that Tweets can’t be erased once published.
Passive job seekers can still safely use Twitter, but with different
tactics. Passive candidates might not want to use their name as a
username, and might not want to reference their current company. Passive
candidates might not want to Tweet that they are looking for a job (not
the best idea whether active or passive), but can effectively use
Twitter to promote industry expertise. Passive candidates can still do
much on Twitter, as long as their username and Tweets don’t identify
them to co-workers who might find their information.
Build Your Professional Profile
4. Username, bio, picture, links,
background, links: Again, your choices may be impacted by your status as
active or passive job seeker.
If you’re active, I recommend that transparency builds trust:
* Use your name as username
* Write a brief bio – You only get 160 characters. If you need more,
include links to profile, resublog, portfolio
* Use a recent picture
* Include a link to your Linkedin profile
(http://recareered.blogspot.com/2010/02/job-seekers-20-ways-to-brand-yourself_25.html),
resublog
(http://recareered.blogspot.com/2008/05/you-dont-have-to-be-shakespeare-to.html),
or online portfolio
(http://recareered.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-online-portfolios-put-you-at-top-of.html.
If you’re a passive job seeker, be more discreet:
* Choose a user name that’s industry – related
* Make your bio broad
* Include an avatar or graphic as your picture
* use a URL shortener for your links (Tinyurl.com, Bit.ly, etc)
5. Settings:
* Name (Your name as opposed to username – Consider whether active or
passive)
* Email notification – Do you want to be notified everytime someone
follow you? It’s a great way to engage followers and make the first step
from contact to relationship. Keep in mind that as your networking
efforts grow this takes time, and it’s a tradeoff. (Ex: When I started
Twitter, I sent thank you’s to every follower – as my followers and
other social network activity grew, it became impossible to continue).
* Design – If you’re a designer, creative, or marketing professional
then design will be critical. Design a custom background, or explore
having a professional design for you. Otherwise, use one of Twitter’s
standard designs.
6. Mobile? Location? Privacy? Do
you really need to get updates on your cell phone? Do you really want to
post your location with each post? I recommend starting with each of
these features turned off – if you want to experiment with them, it’s
easy to turn them back on later. Privacy – If you are a passive job
seeker, one way to stay under the radar is to check “Protect My Tweets”,
so only people in your network can see your tweets, and they’re not
public. I don’t recommend this – it prevents your tweets from being
indexed by Google, and from getting discovered by recruiters and
industry insiders. I recommend that passive job seekers do not protect
their tweets, but are careful about what they tweet. Tweeting as an
industry or functional expert is ok if you’re passive – tweeting “I’m
looking to get out of my dead end job” … probably not such a good idea.
Build your Twitter Network:
7. Follow & Be Followed:
Following people allows you to see content. Being followed allows others
to see your content. A good Twitter strategy is to start out finding
and following some industry leaders to see what’s successful on Twitter.
As you start to publish Tweets, it will be more important to encourage
others to follow you – to get the widest distribution of your content.
Others will follow you because you publish interesting content – chances
are your lunch menu will interest a very small audience beyond your
mom. Publishing links to relevant industry articles is one of the best
ways to get started publishing content. If these are articles that
you’ve written for your blog, all the better. If you’re not a writer,
publish relevant industry or functional articles you find on the
internet.
8. Build relevancy: Tweeting about
the great movie you saw or the party you are on your way to may be
entertaining for your friends, but it’s not building your industry
relevancy. If you want to use Twitter to keep your posse updated on your
every move, consider a separate professional Twitter account, to build
industry relevancy. You can build relevancy by passing tips to others in
your field, publishing links to interesting articles, writing your own
articles, commenting on industry news. Notice that it probably doesn’t
have much to do with what’s on TV tonight.
9. Subscribe to lists & get listed:
Twitter Lists is a relatively new function, that allows users to
publish lists of followers
(http://recareered.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-can-twitter-lists-help-job-seekers.html.
For example, I publish one of the largest lists on Twitter of job
listing accounts (@philreCareered/jobtweets). If you follow these lists,
you’ll get a stream of job tweets from hundreds of sources on Twitter,
but the entire stream will be jobs – you can even take an RSS feed.
Getting listed is even more powerful as you seek relevancy. You can
start by requesting to be listed as a job seeker on
@philreCareered/jobseekers, so subscribers (recruiters and hiring
managers subscribe) can more easily see your tweets.
10. Industry recruiters: Search for
recruiters in your industry and follow them. Many recruiters will also
tweet jobs – might be a good idea for a list of your own, so you can
easily separate these tweets from all the “stuff” on Twitter. Invite
them to follow you back, so they can see the great industry content you
publish. Note: Recruiters don’t care what you’ve had for lunch either.
11. Target companies: Search for
employees of companies in your industry and on your target list. Follow
and invite to follow you back. Tempt them with the great industry
knowledge you publish, but start conversations with target company
employees. Be a source of information to them, because eventually you’ll
want information from them as well
(http://recareered.blogspot.com/2009/11/guerrilla-job-search-tactics.html).
Build and Promote Your Expertise:
12. Use Twitter as a megaphone:
Once you’ve built followers, start publishing. Twitter is a great
megaphone, to share relevant content widely. Whether it’s to build
readership for your resublog, or to build relevance on Twitter, Twitter
is a great tool to tell lots of people that you’ve written or found
something interesting, that you think they’ll find useful also. The
better the content is that you tweet, the bigger and more focused your
followers will be. A-List Twitterati have huge followings either due to
great content published on Twitter like Gary Vaynerchuk (and his 850K
followers of his postings on wine) or pre-existing celebrity like Ashton
Kutcher (and his 4.6M followers of his postings on … Ashton).
13. ReTweet others & get
ReTweeted By ReTweeting other’s content, you increase your relevance to
your defined market and build goodwill with other users. Later, ask them
to ReTweet what you’ve posted, to increase the reach of your megaphone.
14. Hashtags: Look for the hashtags
used in your industry, job function or specialty. Searching for
hashtags can help you find content, and can help other users of that
content to find you and your tweets. For example, I use the hashtags
#career #jobs #jobsearch and #jobseeker for my tweets.
15. Find content: Finding relevant
content that others have posted can help you in a number of ways:
* Identifying content for you to ReTweet
* Identifying industry leaders on Twitter who you might want to follow
* Identifying the audience of the industry leaders, who you might want
to invite to follow you. You are likely to find industry and target
company contacts in industry leader audiences
* Building a relationship with industry leaders can give you the ability
to learn how they use Twitter effectively
16. Twitter is just part of
your strategy: Twitter by itself has limited power. Its true
potential is seen when used in combination with other social media tools
– Linkedin, Facebook, Blogs
(http://recareered.blogspot.com/2010/03/5-ways-social-media-gives-job-seekers.html).
For Those Not Comfortable with Social Media:
17. Twitter is a time waster: It
can be, if you hang out on Twitter all day to see what Ashton’s up to.
Twitter can also be productive if you use it to build an audience and
share relevant content.
18. Hiring managers aren’t on Twitter:
While many hiring managers don’t hang out all day on Twitter, that’s
changing. Twitter is now almost twice the size of Linkedin, and has
similar age demographics. As businesses are seeing new business uses for
Twitter, more hiring mangers are using it to find out industry
information, gain quick answers to questions, market products, and to
find candidates. In the past year a number of companies have launched
applications using Twitter to help hiring managers find candidates, and
publicize jobs. Twitter is still early in it’s growth stage, and is
comparable to Facebook 2 years ago. You’d find that establishing your
expertise now will be much easier than waiting until you’re between jobs
to start Tweeting.
Twitter is Just One of Many Job Search Tools
19. What Twitter won’t do: Twitter
won’t find you a job – only you can find yourself a job. Twitter is a
tool that can help you network and build your social brand
(http://recareered.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-use-social-branding.html).
20. Twitter isn’t the only answer:
Twitter is just one tool – it’s not a magic pill, and it won’t solve all
your problems.
One of the best things about Twitter is the ability to build your
online brand much more quickly and with less time investment than
Linkedin or Facebook. Twitter helps job seekers control and promote
their personal brand very effectively, to a wide audience. In addition, a
well designed Twitter strategy can get your information into the
databases of many industry leaders, recruiters, and contacts, increasing
your chances to “get lucky”.
This helpful article is by Phil Rosenberg