Job Interview Questions

One source that people often forget about when looking for a job is Twitter. Most people just think of Twitter as a "waste of time" site that people post what they had for dinner or what they are watching on TV. For some it is, but if you use it right you can track down some pretty decent job leads on Twitter.

If you think about job searching, it's just networking and putting the word out that you are looking. What better place to do this than Twitter?

Where do I Start?

The first thing you need is a Twitter account, obviously. Then you need to find people to follow and you need to get followers. Usually when you follow people, they will follow you back as long as you have some interesting tweets. So spend some time updating your profile, upload a picture, and post some tweets that people might find interesting (news, gossip, tips, jokes, stories, whatever).

The great thing about Twitter, is it's not like Facebook where people want to know who you are. In Twitterland, nobody cares. People just want to build up their following, that's it.

How do I search?

Once you've built up a nice profile, get to know how to use local search, it is going to be your best friend. In the search box if you use location: and then your city, you can find all sorts of stuff. For instance, I did location:minneapolis and it came up with a bunch of stuff for Minneapolis. Now, if I compound this idea and use other local cities in my area, wow things get big quick. Don't forget to do search for location:minnesota as well. I also did searches for abbreviations such as MN, MPLS, etc.

Now to take it one step further there are hash tags. Hash tags are things that people put in there tweets. For instance if I'm tweeting about pumpkins I'd put #pumpkins at the end of my tweet. This way people can see all the tweets about pumpkins easily, hash tags basically just organize tweets.

So, if you use hash tags in the search bar you can find a ton of stuff as well. So for my example I did #mn in the search box and press enter. Comes up with a ton of tweets about Minnesota. Now if you take it a step further and do #minnesota. You get even more. If we do other variations such as abbreviations, other cities, etc. like we did above you'll find a ton of more local information.

So now what that I've figured out how to find these local people?

Start following. Follow everyone you can from your local area. Like I said, hopefully they will follow you back. You will create a giant network that you can then spread the word to. In addition to spreading the word to all of these people, you can find other resources such as headhunters, employment agencies, job boards, job listings, etc. For instance, when I did my search for Minnesota I found several great resources of jobs in Minnesota, some of these resources I would have never found without the help of Twitter.

What else can I do?

Another thing I like to do is what I call stalking. I look to see who others are following. Find someone who is local who follows a lot of people look through their list for other local people, and follow them too. Keep doing this until you have as many local people as you can, the more the merrier.

After you've done all of the things I mentioned, and with some time, you should have a large list of local people, companies and local job boards and recruiters. Keep working at it, never stop tweeting and adding new people to your list.

Now that I'm following all of these people, then what?

Check your twitter account and do it often. These job boards and listings will start posting jobs, a lot of jobs and guess who's going to be one of the first to hear about these job postings? You are!!

If you are smart about finding local people on Twitter, posting good content to Twitter and creating a network, you should be able to find a great job in no time.