Use Twitter as a Job Board

By Marci Reynolds

Is Twitter a fantastic social media tool? Yes! Is Twitter a job board? Yes! The lines between the traditional job boards like Monster and Dice and social media sites like Twitter are now becoming blurred.

Employers, recruiters and hiring managers are now actively posting jobs via 140 character tweets.

There are hundreds of thousands of jobs posted every day, internationally, and that number is growing. As a job seeker, reviewing and responding to postings on Twitter can give you a competitive advantage.

• You may find jobs that are posted exclusively to Twitter.
• You may find jobs that are posted on Twitter first, before other locations on the web.
• If you are looking for a job in marketing, technology, or IT, applying for a job through Twitter demonstrates that you are up-to-date on current technology and marketing tools.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to find job postings using Twitter.

Keywords and Hashtags

Before you search for jobs on Twitter you will need to consider two things, keywords and hashtags.

• Your keywords are the words that best tie to your job search goals such as the job title, the location, and the company name. These are the same keywords that you use on traditional job boards to get to your desired listings.
• Hashtags, which are words beginning with the # sign, are tags that you will need to help index and sort the tweets that are coded as job postings. The hashtags to use on Twitter for job postings are #jobs, #joblistings, and #jobopenings. By adding a hashtag, you will help to exclude tweets that have your keywords, but aren't job postings.

Simply enter your keywords and hashtags in the search box provided, then hit enter.

Any tweets matching your search string will display in the results. Here is an example of what a job tweet often looks like --

Join the @[company name] team. Explore #JobOpenings and apply online at http://shortURL.

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Finding Jobs on Twitter

If you have target employers in mind, search Twitter on the employer name plus the word "jobs" or "careers" like the search "Verizon jobs" for example.

If the employer tweets about their jobs, they may use a Twitter account specifically for that purpose. In fact, Verizon does have a Twitter account for job opportunities, called "Verizon Careers." If you are interested in working at Verizon, follow that account.

Don't give up if you can't find a "jobs" Twitter account for specific employers, look for a recruiter who works for the employer, or simply follow the employer's Twitter account (assuming they have one) to stay up to date with their news, like expanding their business or hiring in a specific field or location.

Follow and List Individual Twitter Users

As you search for job listings on Twitter, you may notice that the most relevant job postings come from just a few Twitter accounts. Instead of signing up for an RSS feed of keyword search results, you can follow the relevant Twitter users, add the Twitter users to your own Twitter List (perhaps named "Job Search"), or follow that specific Twitter user.

Job-Hunt has several useful lists of Twitter accounts that can help you. Pick individuals out of the list to follow one-by-one or follow the entire list. Looking at Job-Hunt's list of employers recruiting directly through Twitter, you might be interested in just following the specific employers who interest you, or monitoring all of the employers.

Bottom Line

Reviewing Twitter job postings is one more free tool that you can add to your job search tool box. There are jobs posted for every location, industry and profession. And, you can have jobs automatically delivered to your desktop via an RSS reader or to your Twitter account by following or listing target Twitter users.

So, try a search today! You have nothing to lose, only job search momentum to gain.