Hot on Facebook

Guy Buys $123 Safe on eBay, Finds $26,000 Inside Seller tries to get half the cash back, fails »

Find a New Job, 140 Characters at a Time

Site can be used for targeted, effective networking

By Nick McMaster, Newser Staff

Posted Apr 8, 2009 1:44 PM CDT

(Newser) – If you’re unemployed, the right attention on Twitter could land you your next position. Forbes offers pointers on using the micro-blogging site for networking:

Make sure your account name contains something about your profession, so your feed shows up when people search associated topics.
Search for industry leaders and other people and companies in your field you’d like to know—some firms even post job openings on their feeds. Sign up to follow their tweets.

In your tweets, offer your opinions on news and seminars relevant to your career. If one of the important people you’ve been following says something notable on a professional topic, forward it or post an open comment.
If you’re following a hiring manager at a firm you’re interested in, tailor your tweets to comment on issues he or she posts about.

[Quotes (1)]

Rental site, RentWiki.com, Integrates With Twitter to Give Renters Access to What Locals Are Saying and Conversations Happening Around Neighborhoods. (PRNewsFoto/RentWiki.com)

This undated screen shot shows Twitter, a short-message social networking site. (AP Photo)

« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow

There is nothing revolutionary about this stuff. It's evolutionary. Back in the day we would have sent out cover letters, a few years later e-mails, and a few years later we updated our blogs.
- Kyle Flaherty, who found a marketing position via Twitter

« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow

To report an error on this story, notify our editors.

More Newser Stories

Got 250 Twitter Followers? Best Buy May Have Opening

It may be the first time social-networking popularity has been a job requirement

(NEWSER) - For possibly the first time, an active Twitter following is a job requirement, the Telegraph reports. Best Buy asked that candidates for a senior marketing position at the company’s Minnesota headquarters have at least 250 followers for their Twitter pages. The posting also lists “1 year of active blogging experience” as a requirement, along with more conventional marketing experience. More»

UK Court Serves Injunction Over Twitter

Conservative blogger uses tweet to notify impersonator of injunction

(NEWSER) - In a micro-blogging first, the UK’s High Court has ruled that a court order may be served via Tweet. The case concerns an anonymous wag who has been impersonating right-wing blogger Donal Blaney on Twitter, sending out tweets under his name with “mildly objectionable” content, the BBC reports. The court agreed with Blaney that using Twitter was the most logical way to deliver the cease-and-desist to the anonymous prankster. More»

Why Tweets Should Be Twice as Long

You can't have 'meaningful interaction' in 140 characters

(NEWSER) - Call him a rebel, but Farhad Manjoo wants Twitter to double the number of characters allowed in a tweet. To many users, that’s sacrilege. But on Twitter’s fifth anniversary, “the 140-character limit feels less like a feature than a big, obvious bug,” Manjoo writes on Slate . “Forcing people to shrink their updates to 140 characters prevents meaningful interaction between users, short-circuits conversations, and turns otherwise straightforward thoughts into a bewildering jumble of txtese.” More»

Latest Casualties of Facebook, Twitter: Blogs

Young people turn from long posts to short tweets

(NEWSER) - Just a few years ago, blogging was hot enough to be Merriam-Webster’s word of the year—but as Facebook and Twitter have grown, blogging has declined, the New York Times reports. The trend is particularly notable among the young: between 2006 and 2009, a survey found, blogging’s popularity among 12- to 17-year-olds dropped by half, while between 2008 and 2010, it fell 2 percentage points among the 18- to 33-year-old set. More»

Twitter CEO Evan Williams Steps Down, COO Promoted

Dick Costolo will head day-to-day operations

(NEWSER) - Twitter co-founder and CEO Evan Williams is relinquishing leadership of the microblogging site to COO Dick Costolo, reports the Wall Street Journal . "Building things is my passion," Williams offers as explanation for the move, adding that he asked Colstolo to take over. Adds Costolo, recently "it became clear to everybody that Ev's got to be able to focus on product strategy." The move also comes as Twitter looks to reap some sort of profitability out of its explosive growth. More»

NEWS FROM OUR PARTNERS

What is Newser?

Face it: there's too much news. At Newser, we choose the most thought-provoking and entertaining stories from hundreds of US and international sources and reduce them to a headline, picture, and two paragraphs. And we do it 24/7—you can come back morning, noon, night (and in between) for something new that matters. Read less, know more.

Learn more »

Partnering with: Slate

View Newser on the mobile website

Find a New Job, 140 Characters at a Time

Site can be used for targeted, effective networking