What I’ve Learned So Far

(If you don’t use Twitter, this post won’t apply to you. No worries — I’ll be talking about something else soon enough.)

Step 1: Read this post by my friend Chris Bailey about the importance of “weak ties” in a job hunt. Moral of the story: if you were looking for a job, you’d be likelier to get good leads from people who knew you a little less well; therefore, your “weak ties” via Twitter might be particularly helpful to your friend who’s looking for a job.

Step 2: Go to TweepSearch, where you will be confronted with a search bar. (Apologies for the small images; click any of them for bigger versions.)

Step 3: Enter your Twitter handle (with its @ symbol) — which will limit your search to people you follow or who are following you — and then you enter some significant search term, like the city you and your job-hunting friend both live in. Thus:

You’ll end up with a list like this:

Step 4: If the results are too broad, you add another descriptor, thus:

You now have a delimited list of people you know (or “know”) via Twitter who might be relevant to your friend’s job search.

Step 5: Shorten the TweepSearch URL using a shortening service. (I’m partial to Is.Gd.)

Step 6: Send the link to your friend via Twitter direct message, with an explanation for why the people on the list might be relevant to his or her job search. Your friend can then look through the list and follow people as desired.

Step 7: As appropriate, make introductions for your friend as you would by e-mail.

Et voila!

What are your best tips for using social media to enable job searches?

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Related:

• TIME: Using Twitter and Facebook to Find a Job

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 9:25 pm and is filed under Career, Communication.