Using Twitter for jobsearch a quick guide University of Manchester Careers Blog

Using Twitter for jobsearch a quick guide Many people think twitter is just gossip or a platform for self promotion but did you know that its a great place to hear about jobs and insider information. Most companies organisations will have a Twitter account many of the bigger ones will have multiple accounts for different purposes, marketing, customer service and careers or jobs. By following some relevant accounts you can get notifications of when jobs are advertised, tips on how to apply and gather market information to improve your knowledge of a sector really useful for making a great application or at interview. So Step 1. Have you got a Twitter account? Remember as with any social media people will judge you on what they find there. So if you want to interact with companies it might be worth setting up a professional account separate from your private life. Its fine to show some personality in your professional twitter account and have a bit of fun BUT just be aware people will look at who is following them or commenting about them. Get started  create your account  https://twitter.com Step 2: Build your account You could start  by following us   @manunicareers to get an idea of how it works and see who we follow.   Many University departments, schools and societies also have accounts have a look and see what they are saying. Step 3: Network to create your own opportunities Because Twitter is an open social network, you can use it to make new contacts with professionals in your chosen industry, which may open the door to work experience and jobs. Many students have had success using Twitter in this way. Some suggestions for getting started: Find and follow professionals and organisations in your chosen career sector. Observe them and see what sorts of things they tweet about. You can also create lists of employers or people you are interested in and you dont necessarily have to follow them. By organising your account into lists you can have all your recruiters for  marketing  in  one place and for consultancy in another.   Select one or the other to look at and voila a list of tweets just on that topic from your selected tweeters uncluttered by the rest of whats going on  in your account. Re-tweet interesting things and comment on the industry news. Try to sound like a professional in development in your tweets and you will gradually start to get on the radar of professionals in the sector. Gradually join in conversations with the professionals and organisations youre following, pose relevant questions and add your thoughts. You could throw in a tweet along the lines of: Interesting blog on the outlook for publishing sector, thanks! Do you envisage your org. will be needing grads with social media skills? to try to steer the conversation towards job opportunities. If you have a LinkedIn profile or a (professional-ish) blog, link to that from your Twitter profile so that recruiters can check you out and get a more rounded view of you as a person and future professional. If your blog is relevant to your chosen career sector, you can feed your blog posts onto Twitter. Suggestions: There are some great accounts you can follow that are already  getting the information you may be interested in.  For example  https://twitter.com/JCPinManchester   This is the local jobcentre in Manchester they find out about loads  of great local opportunities and part time jobs that you just wouldnt see advertised normally. Most graduate job sites have  a vacancies feed  pick the one you like to use and follow them they will have a twitter icon on their website    http://www.careers.manchester.ac.uk/findjobs/graduatejobs/   There are some great places for market intelligence like professional bodies or journals e.g. The journal / website marketing week  promotes its articles via twitter but actually if you are interested in the sector they are talking about  then you can get some really interesting insights    https://twitter.com/MarketingWeekEd Get updates on whats going on in the student graduate labour market really useful to help you understand supply and demand shortage areas and trends. https://twitter.com/LuminateLMI Watch out for the quirky stuff. Sometimes you just find someone who is doing exactly what you need e.g. https://twitter.com/damngoodjobs a collation of vacancies for those who want to make a difference. Its by no means an official list but maybe thats what you want so look around who is following who, where do tweets originate? And finally the great thing about Twitter its short, scan it quickly and either click a link to read more or move on. It is fast moving though, blink and you might miss something! All Careers advice Graduate jobs Undergraduate Undergraduate-highlighted careers job hunting jobs social media social networking Twitter