These days, companies and those who work for them are advertising vacancies on Twitter – and using the micro-blogging site is a perfectly acceptable way to make contact with firms you may be interested in. Simon Caine, Head of Social Media at digital agency, Crab Creative, swears by it.

“It costs a company nothing to send a tweet linking people to a job listing on their website, but could cost hundreds of pounds to list it on job search engines and list within recruitment agencies,” he says.

“This is why more and more agencies are turning to Twitter to gain exposure for their vacancies.”

Don’t follow everyone

Most recruitment agencies tweet all their job listings, which can become exhausting to go through, so Caine suggests finding out who specialises in the sector you want to work in and adding them to the ‘list’ function.

Filter tweets relevant to you by only following ten companies you would really like to work for, then consign others to the list – designed to help you organise people and topics you are you’re interested in, whether you follow them or not.

“I know the list is always there if I want to get an update on the industry or make another career move, but it doesn’t interfere with my regular use of Twitter,” Caine adds.

Follow members of staff

It’s also beneficial to follow companies that have internal recruitment departments. However, some organisations only use recruitment agencies and many of those can actually be very active on Twitter (and LinkedIn). It can involve a lot of trial and error, but when you get the hang of it, opt to follow employees (particularly recruitment officers) rather than companies’ Twitter accounts, as they’re much more likely to tweet vacancies and to respond to your posts.
 
A recruiter’s perspective

Terri Paddock, the managing and editorial director of WhatsOnStage.com, recruited Andrew Girvan through Twitter. While studying theatre management at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, he had published WhatsOnStage.com in a list of recommended theatre organisations, which is how they came to follow each other.

“I was impressed by Andrew’s tweets,” says Paddock.

“They took me through to articles he’d written and the more I read, the more I learned about him and his abilities. He was just what we needed and it turned out he was just finishing university, so the timing was perfect.”

Equally, Paddock uses Twitter to recruit volunteers for various company events.

“People who follow us are our most engaged users and when they’re re-tweeting our content they’re basically marketing us, so it’s an obvious forum to find people.”

Give a little praise

Tweet about your work and experiences in your industry, such as links to applications, blogposts and achievements that you are proud of.

People may tweet back and even offer feedback. “Replying to tweets, such as giving feedback or praise about their work, such as campaigns, is also a great way of opening up the communication channels,” Caine advises.

Get your wording right

When Caine was looking for work, he tweeted “looking for FT/PT/#freelance roles in social media”, which helped media companies locate him.

“I wasn’t following them, but I did meet them offline to discuss opportunities they had to offer,” he says.

Adding a hashtag in front of the theme helps to sort tweets by a subject so your tweet will come up anytime anyone else searches for the same subject.

And, with only 160 characters for your Twitter bio, you need to be specific. Caine’s bio was ‘Social media bandit, 3 years experience looking for social planner/community management role.’ followed by his email address and website.

“Recruiters knew the role I was after by reading my bio and were able to tweet me links to job specs on their websites directly.”

How to get followed

You want people to know you’re out there, so post as often as you can and take part in hashtag conversations. There’s no magic bullet to gaining a following, but getting your tweets retweeted helps.

Caine sidelines as a stand-up comedian, so tries to attract followers by tweeting one-liners.

“It’s about putting yourself out there and not putting too much emphasis on the number of followers, but the loyalty they can bring,” he says.

Find Simon Caine on Twitter at @thismademecool, Crab Creative @CrabCreative, and What’s On Stage @WhatsOnStage

This is an updated article taken from the TNT Archives.

Image credit: Thinkstock