Twitter and Tweet to Your Next Job?
15/Mar/09 11:42 Filed in: Careers
Everyone is all atwitter about Twitter. If you
haven't heard about it, it is a new social networking
website that broadcasts your messages to your
"followers" (people who have indicated they way to
hear what you have to say). Oh and by the way,
messages are limited to only to 140 characters. When
you send out a message (or "tweet") to your
followers, your tweet shows up on their Twitter
screen.
Several months ago, with a great deal of skepticism I decided to get on and try out Twitter, to see if 140 character sound bites could be at all interesting or helpful. I expected most of them to be along the lines of "eating a BLT sandwich" or "watching the new 24 episode and wondering what it would be like as a musical." As I started following people and gathering followers of my own, I made a few key discoveries:
1) There are a lot of people out there tweeting about what they had for breakfast and other somewhat inane thoughts.
2) There are also some very well-connected experts that freely dispense their ideas and advice.
3) The stream-of-consciousness aspect of Twitter was vaguely addictive and fun!
In fact, as I advanced to a TweetDeck application so I could see messages coming in, direct (private) messages, and also search results on particular topics of interest, I began to feel like the characters in the Matrix movies - seeing 1's and 0's flash by on the screen, but actually being able to make sense of it and see what people were doing, thinking, seeing, and organizing in real time. It began to feel very "connected" if in a surreal kind of way.
But back to something that might be of practical use. There are Twitter users who are genuinely interested in connecting with and helping other people. My biggest inspiration has come from those who are helping jobseekers right now. The most amazing story is that of JobAngels - a twitter account created solely to help put people back to work on a pay-it-forward basis: each person tries to help one other person in their job search, some how, some way. People "tweet" if they can help or if they need help. It is an awesome, feel-good, in-the-present-moment movement.
If you decide to start tweeting, get your account at www.twitter.com, then "follow" me (laurenstill) and for those of you job searching, definitely look up: jobangels, jobshouts, interviewbest.
See you on the tweet side!
Several months ago, with a great deal of skepticism I decided to get on and try out Twitter, to see if 140 character sound bites could be at all interesting or helpful. I expected most of them to be along the lines of "eating a BLT sandwich" or "watching the new 24 episode and wondering what it would be like as a musical." As I started following people and gathering followers of my own, I made a few key discoveries:
1) There are a lot of people out there tweeting about what they had for breakfast and other somewhat inane thoughts.
2) There are also some very well-connected experts that freely dispense their ideas and advice.
3) The stream-of-consciousness aspect of Twitter was vaguely addictive and fun!
In fact, as I advanced to a TweetDeck application so I could see messages coming in, direct (private) messages, and also search results on particular topics of interest, I began to feel like the characters in the Matrix movies - seeing 1's and 0's flash by on the screen, but actually being able to make sense of it and see what people were doing, thinking, seeing, and organizing in real time. It began to feel very "connected" if in a surreal kind of way.
But back to something that might be of practical use. There are Twitter users who are genuinely interested in connecting with and helping other people. My biggest inspiration has come from those who are helping jobseekers right now. The most amazing story is that of JobAngels - a twitter account created solely to help put people back to work on a pay-it-forward basis: each person tries to help one other person in their job search, some how, some way. People "tweet" if they can help or if they need help. It is an awesome, feel-good, in-the-present-moment movement.
If you decide to start tweeting, get your account at www.twitter.com, then "follow" me (laurenstill) and for those of you job searching, definitely look up: jobangels, jobshouts, interviewbest.
See you on the tweet side!