If you’re looking for a job at the moment, it’s really essential that you look in as many places and in as many ways that you can. It’s no longer good enough to simply look at your local paper, browse the Job Vacancies section and hope that there’ll be something there to suit. Candidates these days have to make full use of every resource out there and that of course includes Social Media. Some social networks lend themselves better than others to the whole job search process – today we thought we’d highlight one that does just that. So without further ado, here are 5 Ways to use Twitter for your Job Search.

Showcase yourself

When you set up a Twitter account, you have the option of course to have a personalised bio – a whole 160 characters that you can use to in essence ‘sell’ yourself. If you’re jobseeking, it’s a good idea to use that bio to showcase to potential employers what you are all about. If you have a blog or website – add in the url, if you have achieved any professional recognition or awards, include that too. If you’re a graduate, say so. The more relevant information that you include in your bio that could potentially help you get noticed by employers, the better.

Create or follow Twitter lists

Lots of people create Twitter lists so that they can in a sense follow a particular group of people with a common interest – there are publicly available lists of people from particular locations, from particular market sectors or professions. You can use these or you may wish to create your own lists  – whether it is a list of recruiters in your area, or professionals of note in your chosen career, having definitive lists like this can really help you stay abreast of things, both in terms of job opportunities but also in terms of updates and news in your career sector.

Use it as a networking tool

It’s important to realise that Twitter can be a really valuable networking tool and especially for a job search. Do follow people of relevance to your career – fellow professionals, potential employers, recruiters in your area and then engage with them. They may not follow you back but you can still interact with them. If a relevant topic is being discussed, get involved in the conversation and show your knowledge. Of course that doesn’t mean butting in unnecessarily in a two-way conversation, but perhaps replying to a tweet, with a measured response. The purpose behind doing this is to get on the radar of the employer or recruiter – make them notice you – for the right reasons!

Use keywords and hashtags

The hashtag has of course become synonymous with Twitter and it is a perfect way of searching for people discussing matters of interest. Spend some time looking at potential hashtags for your chosen career or profession and then use that to search for job opportunities or matters of note. There are a plethora of hashtags that can be used when job searching – some related to particular types of roles, others based on career advice or even location focused. Likewise, look at what keywords employers and recruiters are using when posting job opportunities and make sure that you are doing regular and frequent searches for those same keywords.

Follow and be followed

It is entirely possible that you could use Twitter in quite a voyeur-like capacity. You could simply look at what other people are tweeting about and that’s it. However you will have a much more enriched experience if you use it actively – follow people and be followed too. Engage and interact. More and more employers these days are undertaking searches of potential candidates’ social media accounts. You have the potential with Twitter to show a prospective employer how well rounded a character you are – they could get a much better impression of the real you than they ever could from an interview – make sure that the real you that they see, is one that they would want to employ! When you’re job searching it’s important to remember this – it’s fine to have a mixture of professional and personal tweets, provided they of course aren’t too personal. Don’t tweet anything that paints you in a bad light or that you would not want a future employer to know about. Make sure that your Twitter account is portraying you in the best way possible – if it’s not, either delete anything that could be deemed offensive or make your account private!

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We hope that these tips help. Got any others that you’d like to share? Why not let us know via the comments section below.