Use Twitter To Find a Job- Or Anything Else For That Matter

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when I was at JobCamp there were all sorts of questions on how to use Twitter for a job search. Unfortunately, I had lost my voice and it was difficult for me to talk but this gave my business partner, Jeanette and opportunity to perfect her “Twitter Advanced Search Spiel”. It was so good that I thought it was blog worthy. Since she had it perfected I thought that she would be the best person to blog about it. So, without further ado I give you ……. Jeanette

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My favorite blogger asked me to write my now “famous” Twitter Advanced Search spiel which I must have repeated a hundred times to attendees at the recent Milwaukee Job Camp. The vast majority of attendees I spoke with were not on Twitter at all. A much smaller percentage had unused accounts, or they just didn’t see how Twitter could possibly help in job searching. But when I talked to them about Twitter Advanced Search, I could see the wheels starting to turn…

If you’ve been on Twitter at all, you’ve probably seen the general Twitter Search, which is the box you’ll see sprinkled throughout Twitter.com – on the site’s welcome page, in the sidebar of your Home page, and on the ‘Find on Twitter’ tab. And yes, this works fine for cursory searches. But if you want to find gold, you have to dig a little deeper… or, I suppose, sift carefully, and happily that analogy works, too! And for a local job seeker, Twitter Advanced Search is pure gold.

You can find Twitter Advanced Search at http://search.twitter.com/advanced. You’ll immediately see that this search supports detailed queries based on Words, People, Places, Dates, even Attitudes. As a job seeker, the Words + Places can help you find the businesses in your target geographic area who may have need of your skills and talents. Fill in any and all words relating to your job aspirations in the “Any of these words” field. Then, choose the city where you’re hoping to find employment, and add your acceptable travel distance with a radius (e.g., within 30 miles of Milwaukee). Hit Search and away you go. You’ll get back an up-to-the-minute listing of Twitter users (and their tweets) who meet your criteria. Go through the list and see which users look like good potential leads for your job hunt – and remember, some leads may be individuals, not company accounts – then follow them. Remember to subscribe to the feed for your query (which can be done right from the results page) to stay informed going forward and continue to grow to your list.

Add your new job leads to a Twitter Group for easy monitoring, then pay attention to their tweet streams to find out what they’re talking about – their initiatives, challenges, expansions, projects, hiring announcements. This puts you in a great position to intelligently contribute to the conversation and get noticed with a well-timed @reply. Remember, they don’t have to be following you in order to send them an @reply. Add Attitudes to the Word + Places mix as a secondary search and you can specifically monitor those businesses asking questions, another possible opportunity. There’s nothing like an knowledgeable answer, just when it’s needed the most, to grab someone’s attention and get you on their radar. Don’t be shy about letting others know you’re in the market – just balance it appropriately: Answer a business question and include a link to your online resume or to your LinkedIn profile in the reply, for example.

And that’s my spiel on Twitter Advanced Search! I hope it will help you make your searching – for a job or otherwise – more focused!

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Thanks Jeanette….Isn’t she good???