Your Job Search, Recruiters and Twitter

Published By Karen Van Blarcum
May 25, 2011

I am sure you have heard this by now – many of the jobs in today’s market are called ‘hidden jobs’. These are positions which are not posted publicly on job boards. Instead, recruiters are hired to find candidates for these positions – and recruiters are using Twitter. The image on the left was created by @TweetaJob for use during a presentation.

In fact, at a recruiting conference a few months ago, Twitter was mentioned in almost every session. Therefore, it makes sense for all job seekers to pay attention to Twitter – specifically using Twitter to find recruiters and, most importantly, help them find you. With some careful planning, and a proper set of tools, an active job seeker can rely on Twitter to build an incredible network.

Though – before you build a Twitter network – take a few moments to evaluate your Twitter profile. Is it professional? Does it showcase your skills, experience, or market value? If you need ideas, take some time to learn how to build a professional profile or even work with graphics to create a custom profile page that will grab any readers attention.

It is important to have an ACTIVE network – this isn’t about building a huge list of followers. This is about carefully identifying relevant individuals to follow, and to find individuals or organizations willing to follow you back and whom post (Tweet) on a regular basis.

I have learned two simple tricks for looking for recruiters on Twitter. One option is to use a software product, and the other option is to search manually:

• Use Software Tools
• Google

Software

Do you know if there are more stars in the Universe than Twitter accounts? Neither do I. With that said – it would take hours if not days of effort building a useful social community for yourself. Your time is better spent looking for a new job, rather than looking for needles in the proverbial Twitter haystack.

I highly recommend TweetAdder software, or even TweetBig. Both are great products, I just happened to select TweetAdder. If you are curious about how it works, I monitored my progress when I began using TweetAdder Software. You can watch my day-to-day results here to see if this type of product will work well for you. I also compiled a list of many Twitter products if you are curious.

What TweetAdder did for me:

• Helped me find recruiters that matched my profession, and even geographic region
• Build a list of industry professionals; whom I searched for using keywords that I chose
• Located job related “Tweeters” and Twitter job sites

In just a few days, this what my job search network looked like:

Plus – I was able to automate messages; such as a Thank You message. As folks chose to follow me, TweetAdder automatically replied with a Thank You message. This software entirely automated my search process – and allowed me to develop a list of followers who were real and very useful for my job search.

Using Google

If the thought of using software does not impress you, here is a way to filter Tweeters using Google. It is simple, type the following in the Search bar:

intext:”bio * recruiter” site:twitter.com. This should give you a list of recruiters on twitter.

To search for IT recruiters
intext:”bio * recruiter IT” site:twitter.com

To add location:
intext:”bio * recruiter” intext:”location * Texas” site:twitter.com.

Try replacing “recruiter” with “HR” to get different results. Follow any people you find that you think could help you in your job search. Also look for people in the same industry as you.

And remember, its not always about who you’re looking for, think about the people on Twitter that may be looking for YOU. Also pay attention to the recruiters you follow – make sure they are actively posting and that they take the time to follow you back. The purpose of building a social network is for active communication.

Tags: college graduate, Job Search, Networking, twitter