Social media, most notable LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and blogs such as Career Rocketeer, have changed the way people around the globe communicate with each other, develop networks, and educate themselves about the nuances of resume writing, career planning and conducting a job search; and today social media is the premier tool for finding a job and changing careers.
Twitter is unique among social media since it allows users to report on what is going on in their life and find out what’s happening in selected circles they follow in real time. What makes Twitter special is it has totally changed our mindset to where we are now accustomed to communicate information in 140 characters or less and with abbreviations and symbols such as RT and # among others that convey instructions, directions and a call to action to the reader.
Over the past few years job seekers have been using Twitter to a greater extent to promote their availability and distribute their resume to a wider audience, while more and more recruiters and employers are beginning to use Twitter to source talent.
For me the jury is out on how effective a tool Twitter is in a job search, and which sector of job seekers it will benefit the most. Still since there is a potential upside and limited downside to incorporating this approach into your search action plan tweeting your resume is an option worth trying if you are unemployed or don’t care if your employer may find out you’re in the market for a new job.
So here are some tips to help your get your resume seen by the right people.
Linking to Your Resume
As we all know Twitter-communication is done in 140 characters or less so it is impossible to post an entire resume on Twitter.
What you will post is a link to your resume that people can access; you can post it on your website if your have one, use Google docs or other file sharing you are comfortable with, and a very popular option is using TweetMyJobs.com. I do suggest active job seekers make the time to become familiar with this site.
Once you’ve determined where your resume will reside online the next step is linking it to your Twitter message. This can be tricky if the URL has an inordinate number of characters. If that is the case shorten the URL by using TinyURL or Bit.ly or another URL shortening and bookmarking tools. This allows you to conserve your allowable 140 characters and add more information in your tweet that allows you to be found.
Short, Sweet & To The Point
Once you set in motion a URL where people can click and view your resume you need to promote it.
Since you have a maximum of 140 characters to use you need to become familiar with hashtag along with Twitter/Texting shorthand. This will help your resume get found by employers, recruiters and the people you want to network who are on Twitter and looking for someone just like you.
The reason to use a hashtag is it allows your resume to be found through site searches by people you are most interested to be found by. To create a hashtag you place a pound sign # before a word i.e. #jobseeker or #C++ PA seeking job.
To learn more about hashtag and what are the best ways to create them can visit HashTags.org.
Another helpful tip is to begin the message you’re tweeting with the letters RT thus telling readers who see this message that you would like them to retweet your message to gain additional and broader exposure.
Example: RT #Perry Newman seeks Tech Writer job in SoCal http://tinyurl.com/perrynewmanresume @TweetMyResume #resume #techwriterjobs. Using a TinyURL, with spaces this entire message is using on 122 of the allotted 140 characters you have available for a tweet.
In English this hashtag means Perry Newman is seeking a tech writer job and if you are interested in viewing his resume it can be found on TweetMyResume.com under this link. The other hashtag we used are to get the attention of people conducting a general search for resumes using #resume and a focused search for tech writers using #techwriterjobs.
As I said I am not sure how much results you will get with this broadcast method, but if you are an active and unemployed job seeker I see no reason why not to test the waters and see what results come from this fishing expedition.
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