With time seeming at an ever-higher premium, it can be hard to find time to improve your career prospects whilst studying or working full-time. With Twitter, however, you can do it in only 140-characters.
Follow potential employers:
If you’re thinking about a career change or looking for a graduate job at a specific company, make sure you’ve followed them on Twitter. That way you can keep up-to-date with anything and everything that is happening with them. Whether they’ve just completed an important purchase or had a huge bake sale, you can use this information to your advantage in applications and interviews. Moreover, companies often have specific career-focused profiles, so follow these for information on vacancies, deadlines, etc.
Clear out the dead wood:
Once you’ve followed all your potential employers, your Twitter feed might start to become increasingly busy. If you haven’t got time to scroll through hundreds of updates every day, have a look at the people you’re following. We’ve all made the mistake of following amusing accounts which now result in viral spam and clickbait. Unfollowing someone only takes a second but could save you loads of time in the long run. If you really can’t bear to lose all that humor, consider making another Twitter profile, and separating work and social accounts. That way you can have all the career-relevant information in one place.
Tweet about what you do:
As well as reading other people’s tweets, make sure you are tweeting yourself on a regular basis. Whether you want to indulge in a bit of self-congratulation about something you’ve achieved, or you’re just really enjoying the latest episode of Downton Abbey, recruiters will want to know about you. They will use Twitter in the same way that you do; to find out what you are up to. Just make sure you don’t publish anything you might end up regretting.
Watch out for breaking news:
Nothing boosts your profile like an early opinion. Keep an eye on the latest news and developments and give your view on anything that interests you. That way you’ll show that you’re engaged with the world around you and you’ll quickly gain new followers. You can use the tool Twilert to set up alerts for certain keywords that will alert you to job opportunities or relevant discussions.
Tweet to a company:
Don’t be afraid to share your opinions directly with a company. If you want to discuss something they’ve said, just tweet them back. However, steer away from just tweeting generic tweets about job opportunities; they will probably just ignore you and it may reflect negatively on any application. Relevant tweets that engage with the company are much better.
Make sure everything links together:
Sometimes 240 characters just aren’t enough to say everything you want to. Make sure your profile links to places where you have more information about yourself. If you have a blog, share your posts via Twitter, or put a link to your website in your biography.
Once you’ve put these steps into action, all that’s left is to keep on top of your feed. Check it regularly to stay up-to-date and don’t let yourself get too far behind. Read, tweet, and interact and watch your career prospects bloom.
Aaron Marchant works for www.allaboutcareers.com, a careers advice website offering a range of information on a variety of industry sectors.
