By Cheryl Palmer
It may seem farfetched that you can find a new job in 140 characters or less, but apparently recruiters think so.
"Jennifer Leggio, in her ZdNet blog, reported that Jobsite, a recruitment solutions provider, issued the results of its second annual Social Recruitment Survey. The data shows that employers are more and more extensively recruiting on social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. It also shows that the companies appear more satisfied with these types of recruits versus the ones they find solely from job boards. According to the survey, due to these satisfaction levels companies are likely to invest more in these type
of candidate sources in 2009, trimming down their spend with job boards and even search firms; 80 percent of companies are planning to use social networks to find or attract candidates; LinkedIn use grew from 80 percent in 2008 to 95 percent in 2008; Facebook use grew from 36 percent in 2008 to 59 percent in 2009; Twitter ranked third at 42 percent." (Using Social Networking for Recruitment and Training," Psychology Today, August 11, 2009)
If recruiters are expanding their use of social networking sites like Twitter to find qualified candidates, logic dictates that you as a job seeker should be on Twitter too. Recruiters are using Twitter to source candidates by searching for keywords in their bios. As a career coach I suggest that job seekers put a link to their LinkedIn profiles or web resumes so that recruiters can go to another site for more in-depth information since Twitter's strength is its brevity.
To find open positions I recommend that job seekers use tweetmyjobs.com. This is a third party application that gathers information from Twitter about job openings. It's also a good idea to follow recruiters who specialize in your field because very often recruiters will post very brief descriptions of their openings on their Twitter pages.
You can expand your network by finding thought leaders and other professionals in your field using Twellow.com. Twellow has many different categories that you can search for people by. Since you don't need anyone's permission to follow them (unless their tweets are protected), you can follow anyone that you like, and most people will follow you back. You can also check to see who the people you are following are retweeting. Those people may be good for you to follow as well.
I also recommend that job hunters identify hiring managers in companies that they want to work for and follow them on Twitter. They can then find out what is important to the hiring managers by reading their tweets. After gathering some intelligence for a while, job seekers can then approach these hiring managers and make comments to the managers' tweets to start a conversation with them. This is a non-threatening way to contact hiring managers without directly asking for a job. A hiring manager will be impressed with thoughtful questions and comments by the job seeker.
You can raise your visibility as a job seeker or expert in your field by using Twitter to participate in discussions on topics that you are well versed in. This will position you as a knowledgeable professional.
And if you want to present yourself professionally on Twitter, you should create a professional background using an application like twitbacks.com. The standard background on Twitter is quite boring and doesn't look professional without a professional photo. You want to put your best foot forward so that the first impression is a good impression in this virtual world.
