9 Twitter Job Search Secrets You Need to Know

Social media is more connected to your job search than you may think. In a recent post, I explained how Facebook likes can help you land a job, but now let’s take a look at another social media tool that could make all the difference in your career: Twitter.

Twitter is a gold mine for job openings. In fact, 52 percent of recruiters are on Twitter posting jobs and looking at potential candidates, according to Jobvite’s 2014 Social Recruiting Survey.

Here are a few tips to make the best use of Twitter for your personal brand and job search:

1. Create a strategy

Determine and write down your goals. Obviously, your main goal is to find a job, but extend your mission to encompass secondary goals. Who do you want to meet? What industry news do you want to follow? What conversations do you want to start and be a part of?

After you have your plan in place, sign up if you haven’t already and perform a professional audit on your profile.

2. Dress your profile for success

In the “more info” section, include the URL of your LinkedIn or professional job board profile. Write a powerful one-line bio and indicate you’re available for hire. Choose a professional profile photo with a background image that compliments your personal brand.

Once your profile is ready to be seen by potential employers, follow users who will keep you in-the-know about the latest job search tips and openings.

3.Follow the right tweeters

Here are a few career-related tweeters whom I’d recommend following:

1. @BrandYourself
2. @CAREEREALISM
3. @CareerRocketeer
4. @CareerSparx
5. @MonsterCareers
6. @Glassdoor
7. @MonsterCollege
8. @NewGradLife
9. @JobHuntOrg
10. And of course, @CareerShift!

In addition, follow companies for which you want to work. Use Twitter Search to look for companies in your industry you might want to join. Follow these companies to familiarize yourself with their company culture and keep up-to-date on recent news. Respond to the company’s tweets that call for action.

4. Share content to help position yourself as a thought leader in your industry

Look around the Internet for breaking news and statistics in your industry to share. Share your professional achievements and daily endeavors like attending networking events, or mastering a new skill.

5. Choose a tool to help manage your tweets

Tools like TweetDeck help organize and manage information being shared alongside your own tweets.

6. Have a shortened URL of your resume ready to share

Create shortened URLs of your LinkedIn profile, professional blog, portfolio, and resume to have on hand if a job opening is tweeted. You’ll be one of the first candidates to reply, and, hopefully, one of the first candidates contacted.

7. Follow back

As long as you want your followers in your network, follow them back. If you use a management tool like SocialOomph, you can automatically set your Twitter account to follow back anyone who follows you. Go through your followers list regularly to clean out spammy followers who aren’t contributing to your professional network.

8. Track clicks on the URLs you share

Use tools like su.pr or bit.ly which track how many people click on your link. Create a new short URL every time you share the link, even if it’s the same, so that you can see number of clicks each tweet generated. These insights will let you see which tweets engage your audience most, so you can tweet more of that content and keep your audience engaged.

9. Watch and talk to professionals who inspire you

Identify key professionals you look up to and watch how they engage their audience. If one retweets or mentions you, say something that begins a conversation. Ask for advice or opinions. If there’s nothing left to say on the subject, mention a related topic or article you’ve recently read.

Twitter is a wonderful social tool that helps connect people from all over the world, so there’s no reason not to use it in your job search. As long as you tweet with professionalism, have the right people in your network, and share valuable content, you’ll find job opportunities in no time.

What other social tools can you use to grow your professional network and boost your job search?

Val Matta is the vice president of business development at CareerShift, a comprehensive job hunting and career management solution for companies, outplacement firms, job seekers and university career centers. Connect with Val and CareerShift on LinkedIn.