How to Use Twitter to Find a Job How to Use Twitter to Find a Job

Knowing how to represent your professional brand will serve you throughout your career—especially when you are searching for a new job. Social media channels are a perfect outlet for professional branding, a technique that allows people to tell their story, prove their worth and outshine their competition. While LinkedIn may come to mind as your first stop for all professional needs, Twitter has become a major player for branding, networking and job searching. As a result, recruiters are also actively seeking talent on this channel. This guide will show you how to use Twitter to find a job. Let's start with your profile.

Twitter is a unique social platform that gives people from all over the world the opportunity to connect.

Twitter handle

Setting up your Twitter profile

Following the leaders

Twitter is a top channel for finding industry news, career advice and trending topics. It is a good idea to follow industry news outlets, influencers, brands and companies. Doing so allows tweets in your Twitter feed to be focused on your professional life and career development. When you follow a user, they will get a notification of the follow. This gives them the opportunity to follow you back, view your page and see your tweets. Either one of these actions is a win-win for someone trying to build a professional brand!

Tweeting should be more than just 280 characters of random thoughts or complaints about the barista spelling your name wrong. Every social post is an opportunity for you to inform, educate, inspire and impress a recruiter. Check out these steps to learn how you can attract recruiters:

Tweeting to attract recruiters

Hashtags make it easy to find and join conversations on the topics you care most about. When adding a hashtag to your post, you increase your tweet's visibility by joining the conversation. Furthermore, when you tweet about the latest #TechNews, anyone searching for that hashtag will be able to find your tweet. It's important to stay active on Twitter, especially since you never know when a recruiter will stumble upon your tweet! Pro Tip: Use spellcheck on your tweet. It is important to ensure your tweets are as clean and accurate as possible. Fewer people will want to retweet typos. If you need help finding the right hashtag, Hashtagify is a great resource for finding trending topics and high-volume hashtags. In addition, industry events, conferences, expos and tradeshows are a great place to learn and network. If you're attending the event, you can let others know you will be there to network. You can also search Twitter using the event hashtag (i.e., #CES2022 for the CES 2022 conference) to see which sessions attendees are buzzing about. If you miss a session, you can often find someone tweeting about what you missed. Check out what meet-ups are going on at the event and see if any potential employers will be there. However, you don't have to attend a conference to reap the benefits of the Twitter search tool. Search for common recruiter hashtags like Software Advice suggests below to find jobs at companies you aren't following.

#Hashtags

It's always a good idea to follow a company you're interested in working for to learn about them before the interview. Read up on their latest news to impress your interviewer. Some companies will tweet about their job openings, and others will be more brand-centric. Many companies have Twitter accounts dedicated to recruiting—including 174 of the Fortune 500 companies. If you have a list of companies you'd like to work for, you can set up a Twitter list to monitor their tweets in one place. To set up a new Twitter list, go to the company's profile. Click the expand button to the right of "Follow" and select "Add or remove from lists..." Enter the list name to be anything you'd like and set the list to private. If you set your list to public and name it something like "Companies I'd like to Work For," it is possible your current employer can find your list. You may want to name it something else that isn't so obvious.

Using Twitter lists for your job search

Turning on mobile alerts for a brand you are interested in working for can ensure you know about a job posting as soon as it's tweeted. You can turn on these notifications via the same button next to "Follow" and then click "Turn on mobile notifications." You will get an alert on your phone each time this user tweets. In conclusion, there was a time when job seekers shied away from social media and made their profiles private, hidden from employers. Now, job seekers are embracing these channels and the visibility that comes with it. With 84 percent of organizations recruiting via social media, every social post is an opportunity for you to impress a hiring manager. After you have optimized your profile and activity on Twitter, add your Twitter handle to your resume or portfolio to let your professional brand shine. Now that you know how to use Twitter to find a job, check out how to build your professional brand on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Turn on mobile notifications

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This is your username and the name in which everyone will use to communicate with you on Twitter. Make sure your handle is professional, clean and contains your name (preferably first and last). If the handle you want is already taken by one of Twitter's 396.5 million users, adding an underscore can be a clean way to make your handle unique.

Use a professional headshot if you have one. This photo should be a clear, in-focus picture of you, and only you, from the neck up to allow recruiters and followers to match a face to the name.

Your cover photo is one of the first things someone will see when they arrive on your page. It's an opportunity to show off your interests and personality. This image can be anything from your college football stadium to your favorite vacation destination. You never know what common interest might spark a conversation with a recruiter.

Your Twitter bio should be a concise description of who you are, what you do and what you tweet about. This is an excellent opportunity to include career-relevant hashtags that recruiters often search. Consider naming your industry, skill set or job title. Example: Web Developer at @CompanyName. Follow me for everything #WebDev, #Tech and #Java.

Be sure to add where you live. Even if you're looking to work remote, this will help a recruiter identify which jobs are available in your area.

Twitter allows you to add one link to your profile. Drive recruiters to your website, portfolio or LinkedIn profile to show more about your accomplishments without even submitting a resume.

Profile photo

Cover photo

Add a link

Profile bio

Location

Twitter handle

Profile photo

Cover photo

Profile bio

Location

Add a link

There is no magic number for how often you should tweet, but we recommend staying active. Don't lose the opportunity to engage with a recruiter by not tweeting regularly. Tweet once a day if you can, and keep most of the tweets professional.

Mix up your content by sprinkling in a few fun or personal life-focused tweets. This gives your followers some insight into your personality. Your personality can make or break your candidate potential, especially if the company is hiring for a culture fit.

The content you share doesn't always have to be created by you. Content like an industry news article or a motivational quote that inspires can be shared from a third-party source. Sharing outside content proves your social profiles aren't all about you. It also demonstrates your thought leadership by positioning you as someone to follow for industry news and content.

Mention and retweet. In addition, you can also retweet another Twitter user or even quote their retweet—meaning you share their tweet but add a comment of your own. Mentioning or tagging a person or brand can help increase the visibility of your tweet and increase the chance they will see it, retweet, reply or follow you. To tag someone, you must type the '@' symbol before their handle. Example: "I love @Kforce's new article on #ProfessionalBranding. Has anyone read it yet?"! When starting your tweet with a mention, put a period with no space in front of the '@' symbol. Leaving out the period will only allow people who follow you or the person you mention to see the tweet. However, by adding the period, you open the tweet for the whole world to discover. Example: .@Kforce, I love your latest article on #ProfessionalBranding!

Have fun

Tweet often

Tag

Curate

Most Common Fortune 500 Recruiting Tweet Hashtags

General job-searching (#jobs)

Location (#Dallas)

Job type (#Engineering)

Target demographic (#Veterans)

Branded (#GEJobs)

Generic (#Monday)

95%

81%

74%

31%

Source: Software Advice

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Twitter handle

Profile photo

Cover photo

Profile bio

Location

Add a link

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Our Job Search Guide is Filled with Expert Advice You Need to Land a Job

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Hashtagify

Twitter accounts dedicated to recruiting

84 percent of organizations recruiting via social media