Using twitter to find a job

Using twitter to find a job? Huh?

I have many questions when I read about an article from WSJ that someone found a job using twitter.

Unlike LinkedIN, twitter was never build for professional networking. And therefore, I don’t think you will have much success by twittering that you need a job.

Here are why twittering for jobs won’t work for most of the users.

1) Right now, twitter are being used by people in the online industry and those who are interested in social media. If your industry don’t revolved around internet (e.g engineering or banking), chances are that you won’t find anything in twitter.

2) If you are based outside of US, your chances are also greatly reduced. Most of the twitter users are from US or certain parts of Europe. Unless you are looking for jobs in US, then you might find something. But looking at the economy, things are not looking good.

3) Looking at the size of the networks a recruiter have in LinkedIN, I would imagine they will have tons and tons of followers in twitter as well. Your tweet on finding a job will be buried with thousand of tweets that they receive within minutes.

Note: Unless they follow you, if not, you are unable to DM them.

Nevertheless, it’s still worth a try. So here are how you can do it but don’t have high hope that you will find something, Try using LinkedIN, you will get better chances.

1) http://www.cio.com/article/482324/Twitter_Tips_How_to_Use_Twitter_to_Job_Hunt?page=1
2) http://www.litmanlive.co.uk/2009/01/how-to-use-twitter-to-find-your-next-job/
3) http://thetalentbuzz.com/2009/02/find-a-job-using-twitter-and-networking-twitter-job-search-strategies/

Update:
Looks like I’m wrong. After I posted my article, mashable have a great article on using twitter to find a job. They even listed a few twitter accounts for you to follow, which you can get update on any new jobs available.

What’s amazing is that there are now a twitter job search engine which you can type in the position that you are looking for, and it will show a list of tweets relevant to your search. I tried searching for a few jobs which are not related to internet and I can find a few. Not bad!!

So read the article by mashable and start your twitter job search campaign. Dont wait or the good jobs will be gone.

All the best in your job-hunting.